GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. The origin of the architecture of Greece is. like the origin of every art and science in that country, mixed up with mythical and fabulous history. It is divided into three styles, and each of these has its mythical origin. Thus, the Doric is said to have been copied from the early wooden huts of the aborigines; the Ionic, which sprang up among the Greek colonists in Asia Minor, to have been modeled on the graceful proportions of the female figure, as the Doric had been on the more robust form of a man—the volutes representing the curls of the hair, the fluting of the folds of the drapery, etc, The story of the origin of the Corinthian style is very pretty. a nurse had deposited in a basket on the grave of a departed child the toys she had amused herself with when alive. The basket was placed accidentally on the root of an acanthus. and in spring, when the leaveagrew,theyctirled gracefully round the basket, and under a flat stone which was laid on the top of it. Callimachns, the sculptor, see ing it. caught the idea, and worked out at Corinth the beautiful capital since called after that city.
Modern discoveries have, however, shown that Greece owed much to the earlier civilization of the countries which preceded it in history. To the architecture of one or other of these, almost every feature of Greek architecture can be traced. But it is for the first idea only that the Greeks are indebted to Egypt and Assyria; whatever forms they adopted, they so modified and improved as to make them part of their own architecture.
Grecian architecture is divided into three styles—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian (see COLUMN, figs. 4, 5, 6). Of these the Doric is the oldest. The earliest example which remains is the temple at Corinth, which was built about 650 B.C. The remains of this temple show the various members of the style fully developed, but they are all of a massive and heavy description, strongly resembling in this respect their prototype, the architecture of'Egypt. There is now no doubt, although the intermediate steps are lost, that the Doric style took its origin from the rock•cut tombs of Beni Hassan (q.v.) in Egypt. The pillars of one of these tombs appear at first sight to be Doric; it is only ou close inspection that we find that the Echinus (q.v.) is wanting under the capital. The echinus was, however, used by the Egyptians. We here find ourselves in the cradle of Greek art. This is the spot where we must seek for the first
origin of the style, not in Greece, where the earliest example is already complete in all its parts. The earlier the example, the more massive the form. This completely dis proves the theory, that the pillars were copies of stems of trees used as posts. It seems more likely that the first pillars were square piers of rubble or brick-work, with a flat stone or tile laid on the top. to form a good bed for the beams to rest on. These formed the architrave, stretching from pier to pier, on which rested the cross-beams supporting the rafters of the roof, the ends of the latter suggesting the lentils and modillions (mutules) of the cornice, the former, the triglyphs (see ENTABLATURE). The square form of the pier was afterwards modified by cutting off the corners, and again cutting off the remaining corners, until the polygon suggested the fluted shaft. The same process was afterwards gone through by the medieval architects in developing the piers (q.v.) of Gothic architecture.
After the temple at Corinth, the next remaining example is the temple at .LEgina (q.v.), built about a century later, or 550 B.C. There may have been many temples of the same date, but none now exist; they were probably destroyed during the Persian war, or removed to make way for finer buildings during the great building epoch of Greece which succeeded that war, and when she was at the summit of her power. Of' this epoch, we have many remains. The temple of Theseus and the Parthenon at Athens (438 B.c.), that of Jupiter at Olympia (440 u.c.). Apollo Epicurius at Basste. Minerva at Suuium, and all the best examples of the Doric style of Greece, are of the age of Pericles. Besides the Peloponnesus, there arc the countries colonized by the Greeks to which we can look for remains of Greek architecture. The Dorian colonists of Sicily and Magna Grxcia carried with them the architecture of their native country, and furnish us with many fine examples. In Selinus there are six temples, the oldest being about the same age as that at Corinth. At Agrigentum there are three Doric temples, one or theta founded by Theron (480 B.C.); this is the largest Grecian temple of the period, being 360 ft. long by 173 ft. broad. At Syracuse, "Egesta, and Pwstum there still remain many valuable examples.