ORIGIN OF THE IONIC ORDER. The origin of the Ionic order has given rise to almost as much controversy as that of the Doric. Its different elements were apparently derived from various sources. The Lycian tombs may have contributed the denticular cornice and perhaps also the general form of the column and capital. In the Persian architecture of the sixth century B.C., the high moulded base, the narrow flutings of the shaft, the carved bead-moulding and the use of scrolls in the capital are characteristic features, which may have been borrowed by the Ionians during the same century, unless, indeed, they were themselves the work of Ionic or Lycian workmen in Persian employ. The banded architrave and the use of the volute in the decoration of stele-caps (from στηλη = a memorial stone or column standing isolated and upright), furniture, and minor structures are common features in Assyrian, Lycian, and other Asiatic architecture of early date. The volute or scroll itself as an independent decorative motive may have originated in successive variations of Egyptian lotus-patterns.[8] But the combination of these diverse elements and their development into the final form of the order was the work of the Ionian Greeks, and it was in the Ionian provinces of Asia Minor that the most splendid examples of its use are to be found (Halicarnassus, Miletus, Priene, Ephesus), while the most graceful and perfect are those of Doric-Ionic Attica.
FIG. 30.—GREEK CORINTHIAN ORDER.
(From the monument of Lysicrates.)
THE CORINTHIAN ORDER. This was a late outgrowth of the Ionic rather than a new order, and up to the time of the Roman conquest was only used for monuments of small size (see [Fig. 38]). Its entablature in pure Greek examples was identical with the Ionic; the shaft and base were only slightly changed in proportion and detail. The capital, however, was a new departure, based probably on metallic embellishments of altars, pedestals, etc., of Ionic style. It consisted in the best examples of a high bell-shaped core surrounded by one or two rows of acanthus leaves, above which were pairs of branching scrolls meeting at the corners in spiral volutes. These served to support the angles of a moulded abacus with concave sides (Fig. 30). One example, from the Tower of the Winds (the clepsydra of Andronicus Cyrrhestes) at Athens, has only smooth pointed palm-leaves and no scrolls above a single row of acanthus leaves. Indeed, the variety and disparity among the different examples prove that we have here only the first steps toward the evolution of an independent order, which it was reserved for the Romans to fully develop.
GREEK TEMPLES; THE TYPE. With the orders as their chief decorative element the Greeks built up a splendid architecture of religious and secular monuments. Their noblest works were temples, which they designed with the utmost simplicity of general scheme, but carried out with a mastery of proportion and detail which has never been surpassed. Of moderate size in most cases, they were intended primarily to enshrine the simulacrum of the deity, and not, like Christian churches, to accommodate great throngs of worshippers. Nor were they, on the other hand, sanctuaries designed, like those of Egypt, to exclude all but a privileged few from secret rites performed only by the priests and king. The statue of the deity was enshrined in a chamber, the naos (see plan, Fig. 31), often of considerable size, and accessible to the public through a columnar porch the pronaos. A smaller chamber, the opisthodomus, was sometimes added in the rear of the main sanctuary, to serve as a treasury or depository for votive offerings. Together these formed a windowless structure called the cella, beyond which was the rear porch, the posticum or epinaos. This whole structure was in the larger temples surrounded by a colonnade, the peristyle, which formed the most splendid feature of Greek architecture. The external aisle on either side of the cella was called the pteroma. A single gabled roof covered the entire building.
FIG. 31.—TYPES OF GREEK TEMPLE PLANS.
a, In Antis; b, Prostyle; c, Amphiprostyle; d, Peripteral (The Parthenon); N, Naos; O, Opisthodomus; S, Statue.