CARYATID ORDER, an order of architecture, whose entabla ture is supported by female figures instead of columns : the figures themselves are called •oryttlithr, Cur ales, or Curia/Es.
The Caryatie order differs from the Persian in having the entablature supported by females, whereas in the latter it is supported by males. See PERSIAN ORDER.
The history of these orders, as related by Vitruvius, is as follows : " Cada, a city of Peloponnesus, having joined with the Persians against the Grecian states, and the Greeks having put an eat() the war by a glorious victory, with one consent declared war against the Caryatides. They took the city, destroyed it, slew the men, and led the matrons into captiv ity, not permitting them to wear the habits and ornaments of their sex : they were not only led in triumph, but were loaded with scorn, and kept in continual servitude, thus suffer ing for the crimes of their city. The architects, therefore, of those days, introduced their effigies sustaining weights, in the public buildings, that the remembrance of the crime of the Caryatides might be transmitted to posterity. The Lacedtemonians, likewise, under the command of Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, having, at the battle of Platen, with a small number, vanquished a numerous army of Persians, solemnized the triumph, by erecting, with the spoils and plunder, the Persian portico, as a trophy, by which to trans mit to posterity the remembrance of the valour and honour of the citizens ; introducing therein the statues of the cap tives, adorned with habits in the barbarian manner, support ing the roof." Whether this account is correct, in any respect, seems doubtful; it is certainly incorrect as far as it relates to the origin of the order, but whether its distinguishing appellation is rightly attributed to the above circumstances, remains a matter for consideration ; we think the evidence is decidedly against Vitruvius. In the first place, be it remembered, there is no allusion made to such circumstances by the Greek ; and in an inscription brought from Athens by Dr.
Chandler, containing a description of the temple of Pandrosus, the figures are called K opal, or damsels, and are thence rally supposed to represent the maidens engaged in the celebration of the Panathenaic festival. Mr. Gwilt, who was the first to remark upon the incorrectness of the account of Vitruvius, is of' opinion, that the figures were named after the goddess Diana, to whom the title Caryatis was given by the Lacedtemonians, from the circumstance of her having made known to them the story of Carya, daughter of Dion, king of Laconia, who was turned into a nut-tree by Baeehus.
With respect to the epithet, Caryatis, we are inclined to think rather that the goddess obtained this surname from being worshipped especially at Carya, near Sparta, where she had a temple, and where also the Laceditinonian virgins cele brated an annual festival in honour of her ; but as regards the main point in question, we think there can be little doubt but that, as is evidenced by an old connnentator on Statius, tlfe term Caryatides was applied to the virgins employed in the service of Diana, and that female figures were first employed in the architecture of the Greek temples as repre sentations of the virgins engaged about the service of the deity to whom the temples were dedicated.
That the figures of men and animals were used for the purpose of supports in the place of columns, long before they were so employed by the Greeks, is well known. That they were not uncommon in Egypt, we learn from Diodorus Siculns, who informs us, that the roof of the hall in the sepulchre of King Osymandyas, was supported by animals instead of pillars, each composed of a single stone, and twenty-four feet in height. Psammetieus also employed colossal statues twelve cubits in height in the propylaeum which lie erected on the east side of the temple at Memphis.
In Devon's Travels in Egypt, we find, among other frag ments, representations of five insulated pilasters or pillars, bearimg an entablature ; the fronts of which are decorated with priests or divinities.