GREEK ARCHITECTURE. In the coin pass of a brief article it will be necessary to confine our discussion of Greek architecture al most entirely to that of the classic or pre-Chris tian ages. For that of the Christian Greek Em pire consult the title BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. We divide our subject into three periods: I, All that •preceded the First Olympiad (to 776 a.c.); II, from 776 to 400 a.c.; III, from 400 B.C. to 200 A.D.
I. First or 2Egean Period.— The monu ments of this period are found chiefly in Crete, Mycenw, Tiryns and Troy, in Eubcea and at Orchosnenos in Bceotia, and belong to the pre Homeric and Homeric age, to a culture which was widely spread over the iEgean islands and shores, from 2000 s.c. to the Dorian migration of about 1100 sec. The great palace of Minos at Cnossus in Crete, beehive-shaped tombs in Argolis, especially the. "Tholos of or Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenm, the palaces and fortifications of Tiryns, Mycenie and Troy, and other like remains, reveal a somewhat primitive type of architecture, employing at times enormous stones, but also rubble, wood and crude brick, with occasional details of ala baster, bronze or terra-cotta and even glass. No remains of temples have been identified. Columns were used tapering downward, as in the Tholos Gate at Mycenw; roofs were of wood or stone, and the arch was unknown. This art, first made known by the researches of Schliemann, Dorpfekl and Evans, declined and disappeared with the advent of the Dorians about 1100 B.C.
II. Great or Periclean Age.—After 776 B.C. an entirely new architecture appears, the Doric, whose birthplace and origins are still uncertain. The earliest recorded temple, that of Hera at Argos, seems to have been of wood; the next oldest, also of Hera, at Olympia, may have been built as early as 1000 a.c., but no part of its present remains can be dated so far back. At Selinus and at Corinth are ruins of temples of the 7th century a.c.; they show fully developed all the chief elements of the Doric style that persisted for 600 years: the massive Doric column without a base and with a simple capital, the frieze with its grooved tri glyphs, the simple cornice with its mutules and gnaw, the stepped base or crepidoma of the temple, its windowless enclosure, the cella, con taining the chief hall or naos for the statue of the god, and often behind this a chamber, the opisthodomos; around the whole a colonnade, the peristyle, and above the whole a low pitched roof of wood, covered with tiles of terra-cotta or marble—these elements re mained unchanged, though greatly refined in proportions and execution as the style pro gressed. This progress was already great by
479 Lc., when Athens, become the leader of the Greek states in the defeat of the Persian invasion, began upon the Acropolis the erec tion of a group of buildings—the Parthenon, Erechtheum, Propylam and temple of Wing less Victory — which exemplified the culmina tion of Greek art. Of the period immediately preceding this are a number of temples at Se linus, at Paestum in southern Italy, and at Agrigentum and Segesta in Sicily; while be tween 480 and 450, the fine temples of Zeus at Olympia, of Apt= on the island of tEgina, and of Heracles (the so-called. Theseum) at Athens were built; the last-named admirably preserved to our day.
Meanwhile another style, the Ionic, had been introduced from Asia Minor by the Ionian Greeks. It employed more slender columns and lighter proportions than the Doric; the columns stood on molded bases and bore capitals having large spiral volutes; the frieze was without tri glyphs and the cornice without mntules. The moldings were carved with eggs-and-darts, beads, leaves or anthemions, and carved orna ment generally took the place of the painted enrichments of the Doric style. The two styles were used side by side in Athens, and while the superb Parthenon (q.v.) on the Acropolis was in the Doric style, majestic in its severe beauty, beside it stood the Ionic Erechtheum in chaste elegance, and a short distance to the southwest the tiny Ionic temple of the Wingless Victory. The imposing gateway •to the Acropolis, the Propylaea, presented Doric facades to the east and west, but was divided within into three aisles by two rows of Ionic columns. The tem ple of Apollo at Basse (Phigalea)„ by Ictinus the architect of the Parthenon, was in like man ner externally of Doric, internally of Ionic de sign.