Colour was employed on the backgrounds of the metopes, mostly blue and red, resulting in an alternation of colour with plain stone areas; the colour decoration forming horizontal bands.
One important development, due to climatic conditions, was the pitched roof, which entailed the end walls being carried up in triangular form (literally gables), which were framed by the upper members of the entablature.
This feature, technically known as the Pediment, was in buildings of importance invariably filled by sculpture, Mythological or Epic in subject, designed to occupy the shape.
The styles mostly employed were the Doric and Ionic, and these were exploited contemporaneously, the Parthenon, 430 B.C., representing the culmination of the former.
Of the Corinthian style—comparatively little used by the Greeks, though much employed and developed later—the Choragic monument at Athens, 330 B.C., is the most complete example, though the leaf capital was anticipated in a simpler form in the earlier Tower of the Winds.
The earliest representations of Greek furniture are to be found in the Syrian Room at the British Museum. These are the chairs dated about 6 B.C., in which the antique figures are seated. The backs are perpendicular, and the frame pieces of the seats are mortised into the legs.
No. 23. Greek Corinthian, Choragic Monument, Athens.
The Greek couch was not unlike the modern sofa. It was used for sleeping and resting. Chairs and stools were sometimes made of metal, and were often of a folding type.