We now turn from this general consideration of the Doric style to a review of the principal monuments remaining, dividing them, as well as possible, into groups representative of certain ages and periods of development. The oldest peripteral temples known are not situated in Greece proper, but in the early colonies upon the coasts of Magna Græcia and Sicily. They are distinguishable from later buildings by a naïve freedom of form and the lack of any strictly systematical development—any canonical type. The carving of details is as careful as the coarse and porous limestone permits. The columns stand so far apart that the low and heavy proportion of the whole is not altered by the comparatively high stylobate. The great distance of the shafts from the wall reduces the naos to a corridor-like narrowness, the more noticeable as the whole temple plan is very long. (Fig. 143.) The columns themselves are low, never having a height greater than five lower diameters. The monolithic shaft is much diminished, and has an excessive entasis; it is provided with twenty, or in rare instances sixteen, channels of segmental outline. The incisions beneath the capital block, bordering the hypotrachelion, are generally multiplied, often being three in number. The necking upon the columns of Sicilian temples is not merely the straight commencement of the channellings, but often forms, under the rings, a slight scotia—the apophyge—which weakly detaches the echinos from the shaft by interrupting its organic connection. The echinos has too great a projection; its outline is soft, and the small rings are placed too high. The entire capital appears powerless and flat: on this account the thickness of the entablature has not been increased; the outer and inner surfaces of the epistyle do not project beyond the upper diameter of the shaft. The members of the entablature are exceedingly high and heavy, as are the details, down to the trunnels and cyma. The frieze alone is low, and the metopes consequently small, being framed by massive triglyphs, the chamferings of which have circular or lanceolate endings. The mutules above the triglyphs have the same great breadth; in one instance there remains above the metope only space for half a mutule. (Fig. 136.) The polychromy is, in general, sombre—yellow-brown and black, with little red, being the colors chiefly employed; the patterns of the ornaments are distinctly of Oriental origin.
The most prominent monuments of this class are at Selinous, upon the western extremity of Sicily. That city was founded in 628 B.C.: its acropolis appears to have been early occupied by temples; at least the northernmost of these buildings, with the widest intercolumniations, of two and two thirds lower diameter, and the most spacious pteroma, dates from the commencement of the sixth century B.C. The middle temple of the acropolis appears scarcely fifty years younger; it is celebrated for the primitive reliefs of its metopes, which will be considered in the section upon Greek sculpture. A corner of the building is given above, Fig. 136; its capital is Fig. 145. A third example of this earliest period of development—which is designated by Semper as the laxly archaic style—is known under the name Tavola dei Palladini, and stands among the ruins of the Elian colony, Metapontion, a city founded as early as 768 B.C., but entirely rebuilt in 586 B.C., after its destruction by the original inhabitants of Lower Italy. The fifteen columns at present upright probably date from the sixth century B.C. The intercolumniations are wide, the shafts excessively diminished, and the curve of the echinos too pronounced. It is difficult to decide whether to this class may belong the remains of the temple at Cadacchio upon Corfu (Corkyra), and of that built of lava at Assos, in the Troad. (Fig. 146.) The former has been greatly disfigured by a late restoration, and it is not at present possible to determine the date of the latter, known only by insufficient publications.
The next advances of temple architecture consist in placing the higher columns more nearly together and in heightening and narrowing the triglyphs. The elegance of proportion and detail was thus considerably increased. Ionic elements were first introduced in this period, greatly to the advantage of the style, which is designated as the archaic. An example is the middle temple upon the eastern plateau of Selinous, where the columns are cut with Ionic flutes. It is also important in the history of sculpture from the remains of metopes carved with scenes of the gigantomachia. (Fig. 147.) Of similar character is the great uncompleted Temple of Zeus upon the same plateau, 110 m. long and 50 m. broad, with three aisles and galleries in the interior (Fig. 148); and also the so-called Chiesa di Sansone at Metapontion, of which small temple there are only few and scattered remains. A third Doric temple of this site, discovered during the last few months, is as yet inedited. It is uncertain whether the Temple of Artemis upon the island of Syracuse (Ortygia) should be reckoned with this group.
One example of the epoch exists in Greece proper—the Temple of Corinth. Its columns were once heavily primed with stucco, and are now so weathered that it is impossible to draw any definite conclusions from them. The outline of the capital is primitive, though not in the degree formerly supposed, when this ruin was thought to be the oldest monument of the Doric style. The two last-mentioned remains and the Temple of Athene upon the island Ortygia have the heaviest and lowest proportions, the lower diameter of the columns comparing to the height as 1 to 4.27 (Athene), 1 to 4.29 (Artemis), and 1 to 4.32 (Corinth).
