FIG. 39.—TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS. ATHENS.
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ROMAN PERIOD. During this period, i.e., throughout the second and first centuries B.C., the Roman dominion was spreading over Greek territory, and the structures erected subsequent to the conquest partake of the Roman character and mingle Roman conceptions with Greek details and vice versâ. The temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens (Fig. 39), a mighty dipteral Corinthian edifice measuring 354 by 171 feet, standing on a vast terrace or temenos surrounded by a buttressed wall, was begun by Antiochus Epiphanes (170 B.C.) on the site of an earlier unfinished Doric temple of the time of Pisistratus, and carried out under the direction of the Roman architect, Cossutius. It was not, however, finally completed until the time of Hadrian, 130 A.D. Meanwhile Sulla had despoiled it of several columns[12] which he carried to Rome (86 B.C.), to use in the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, where they undoubtedly served as models in the development of the Roman Corinthian order. The columns were 57 feet high, with capitals of the most perfect Corinthian type; fifteen are now standing, and one lies prostrate near by. To the Roman period also belong the Agora Gate (circ. 35 B.C.), the Arch of Hadrian (117 A.D.), the Odeon of Regilla or of Herodes Atticus (143 A.D.), at Athens, and many temples and tombs, theatres, arches, etc., in the Greek provinces.

SECULAR MONUMENTS; PROPYLÆA. The stately gateway by which the Acropolis was entered has already been described. It was the noblest and most perfect of a class of buildings whose prototype is found in the monumental columnar porches of the palace-group at Persepolis. The Greeks never used the arch in these structures, nor did they attach to them the same importance as did most of the other nations of antiquity. The Altis of Olympia, the national shrine of Hellenism, appears to have had no central gateway of imposing size, but a number of insignificant entrances disposed at random. The Propylæa of Sunium, Priene and Eleusis are the most conspicuous, after those of the Athenian Acropolis. Of these the Ionic gateway at Priene is the finest, although the later of the two at Eleusis is interesting for its anta-capitals. (Anta = a flat pilaster decorating the end of a wing-wall and treated with a base and capital usually differing from those of the adjacent columns.) These are of Corinthian type, adorned with winged horses, scrolls, and anthemions of an exuberant richness of design, characteristic of this late period.

COLONNADES, STOÆ. These were built to connect public monuments (as the Dionysiac theatre and Odeon at Athens); or along the sides of great public squares, as at Assos and Olympia (the so-called Echo Hall); or as independent open public halls, as the Stoa Diple at Thoricus. They afforded shelter from sun and rain, places for promenading, meetings with friends, public gatherings, and similar purposes. They were rarely of great size, and most of them are of rather late date, though the archaic structure at Pæstum, known as the Basilica, was probably in reality an open hall of this kind.

FIG. 40.—PLAN OF GREEK THEATRE.

o, Orchestra; l, Logeion; p, Paraskenai; s, s, Stoa.

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