The Romans employed this order chiefly in triumphal arches. The moderns have introduced it in vatious sorts of works of the greatest magnificence.
Of Persians, Cariatides, and Termini.
Besides columns, the Greeks sometimes supported their entablatures by human figures ; when these repre sented males, they were named Persians, out of contempt for their nation ; when the form was of females, they were called Cariatides, as a mark of disgrace to the in habitants of Carla for having aided the Persians in one of their wars with the Greeks. Whether the Greeks in vented this mode, or copied it from the edifices of Up per Egypt, or the temples or tombs of India or Persia, it is not necessary here to inquire. In Stuart's Athens there is a fine specimen of Cariatic figures supporting au entablature consisting of an architrave cornice. Va rious fragments of male figures are also met with amongst Roman antiquities, whose attitudes and acompaniments are evidence of their having been employed for similar purposes. Although, in the bitterness of contest, there may have been a satislaetion in thus employing the figures of their enemies, yet these associations being local and temporary, it is improper to degrade the human form into lasting expressions of slavery, or merely to perform the offices of blocks of N% ood or stone.
The termini derive their origin from stones employed to mark the boundaries of property. To render these inviolable, Numa Pompilius consecrated them, and built a temple to Terminus on the Tarpeian rock. This dei ty was at first represented only by a large stone, but in process of time the top of it was cut into the form of a human head and shoulders, and the lower part into the shape of a sheath or inverted frustrum of a square py ramid, which has continued to be the general form, ex cept that sometimes feet are added.
They have been employed as ornaments in gardens, and also at the side of chimney pieces. They appear subject to similar objections as the Persian and Cari atic figures. To squeeze a man into a sheath, to be con stantly exposed to the inclemencies of the weather in gardens, or wasted by a fire while supporting the entabla ture of a chimney, is, to say the least of it, a blameable conceit.
Colonnade, a range of attached or insulated columns, supporting an entablature, is named according to the number of columns which support the entablature or fastigium ; tetrastyle, when there are four ; hexastyle, when six ; octostyle, when eight ; and decastylc, when ten.
'Phe intervals between the columns, measured by their inferior diameter, is called the intercolumniation, whence the area between every two columns is termed an inter column.
The intercolumniation is of five denominations, viz. the ancostyle, or thinly set, when the columns are at the distance of four diameters ; the diastyle, when they are at three diameters ; the custyle, when at two and a quar ter; the systyle, when at two; and the pycnostylc, or thickly set, when at the distance of one diameter and a half. Of these the eustyle was in most general request among the ancients ; and though, in modern buildings, both the eustyle and diastyle are employed, the former has obtained a marked preference. The pycnostylc is frequently rejected from want of room ; and the armo style is not considered to yield sufficient support to the entablature, and is only applied to rustic structures of Tuscan intercolumniation, where the columns arc lintel led with wooden architraves. Sec plate CI .X.X XVI.
The intercolumniations of the Doric order are regu lated by the number of triglyphs, one of which is placed over every intermediate column. When there is one triglyph over the interval, it is called 7nonotriglynh ; when there arc two, it is called ditriglyph, and so on, ac cording to the progression of the Greek numerals. The intercolumniation of the Grecian Doric is rarely any other than the monotriglyph, there being but two devia tions from it at Athens, in the Doric portico, and in the, prophylxa ; and even in these instances, the exception applies only to the middle intercolumniations, which aro.