COLUMN (Lat. cohimna), a pillar or post, usually cylindrical in form, employed for the purpose of supporting a roof, entablature, or other superstructure. As the earliest habitations• in almost all countries were formed of wood, it is unquestionable that the earliest columns consisted of the trunks of trees. It is said that even at the present day the Greek peasants of Asia Minor construct their wood-huts so as almost exactly to resemble the form and disposition of parts which we find in the great architectural monuments of classical antiquity. That the Greeks actually made use of wood in the earliest time, even for their monumental structures, we learn on the testinlony of Pausa nies, who mentions a monument in the market-place at Ells which consisted of a roof supported by pillars of oak; and Pliny tells us that the temple of Juno at Meta pontum was supported by pillars made of the stems of -vines. From these facts, it is natural to cone that the stone columnS which came first into use would be imitations.
of the trunks of trees; and this we are also in a condition to prove historically, many of the largest stone columns in Egypt—where, from the scarcity of wood, they were earlier introduced than elsewhere—being manifest imita tions of the trunk of the palm (figs. 2 and 3). In order to prevent them from being forced into the ground by the superincumbent weight, these early wooden columns were placed upon one or more large fiat stones, and on the•top another stone was placed, to preserve them from the decay which the rain sinking into the wood would have occasioned. In these primitiye arrangements, we plainly perceive the germ of the three principal parts of the classical 0.—the shaft,the base, and the capital. As the Doric style of architecture was the earliest of the classical styles, the Doric is naturally the simplest and most severe of the classical columns. One of its most striking peculiarities is what at first sight seems to be the absence of the base (fig. 4).The true account of the matter, however, is, that all the columns in the same line of a Doric temple stand on one base, whereas, in the other orders, each C. has a separate base. But it is in the capitals in all the orders, Egyptian, classical, and Gothic, that columns differ from each other most strikingly (see below). As classical architecture ad vanced, greater lightness and elegance were sought after; and this, as regarded the C., was obtained by increasing the height and diminishing the proportional thickness of the shaft. In the Ionic and Corinthian orders (figs. 5 and 6), as compared with the Doric, this peculiarity may be distinctly seen.
In almost all columns, the shaft tapers gradually from the bottom to the top, thus imitating the natural growth of a tree, and at the same time conforming to a mechan ical rule for obtaining the greatest amount of strength in upright bodies. But in place of tapering regularly, the shaft was generally made with a slight swelling towards the middle, called the entasis, and had for the most part in all the classical orders striped incisions from top to bottom called flutes or channels, which were regularly worked, and varied in number from 20 to 32. See FLUTING. The relation which subsisted between the height of the C., and
the diameter at the top and bottom, and between these and the entablature, has been cal culated with the greatest possible precision in all the principal classical examples, and will be found stated in all professional works on classigal architecture. The shaft usually consisted of several cylindrical blocks accurately fitted to one another, whilst the capital was commonly hewn out of a single stone. The separate portions of the shaft were fixed together, not by mortar or cement, but by iron cramps, which were fitted into holes in the center, and thus rendered invisible. Sometimes columns of im mense size were heWn in The quarry of one piece of stelae, and then rolled over the ground, and raised to their destined positions by various mechanical contrivances. Col umns were often used in classical times, and are employed by us in the interior of build ings to support the roof or galleries, as well as for purposes of decoration; and this cus tom. seems to have prevailed in the halls of persons of great distinction even in Homeric times. Iu the ancient basilica (q.v.), a line of columns separated the central space which was open to the sky from the aisles of the building, whilst at the same time they supported the galleries which were placed above the aisles. These columns were the origin of the piers or pillars by which the nave is divided from the aisles in Christian churches. The same arrangement prevailed in the Roman atrium. When, in order to support the roof which covered the gallery or any other superstructure, a second row of columns was introduced, it was usually of the lighter styles, Ionic or Corinthian, the lower columns being commonly Doric. Single• columns were erected for various pur poses, as for mooring ships in harbors, or to commemorate persons of note, or national events. See PILLAR, Capitai*.—ln classical architecture, it is by the capitals of pillars, more than by any other feature, that the different orders are distinguished, very much as the Gothic styles are marked by the form of the arch. Till the period of the renaissance, the head of a column, in English, was called chapiter (chapter), its diminutive being chapitroll. The three capitals which alone belong to pure Greek architecture are described in Thomson's well known lines (Liberty), so concisely and accurately, that it is needless to dwell on them in prose: "First unadorned, And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose; The Ionic then, with decent matron grace, Her airy pillar heaved; luxuriant last, The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath." To the three Greek orders, the Romans added two others: the Tuscan, which was a variation on the Doric, or rather a corruption of it; and the Composite, which was a com bination of the Ionic and Corinthian, the proportions and general character of the Corin thian being retained, but the Ionic volutes being substituted for the Corinthian leafage.