The Ionic type is further distinguished from the Doric in this that the Ionic columns do not rise directly with their shaft from the substructure, but are set up on a variously articulated pedestal, and then in unobtrusive rejuvenescence rise lightly in their slender height to their capitals with a deeper hollowing out than in the Doric type, a broad grooving of four and twenty grooves. It is especially in this characteristic that the Ionic temple at Ephesus is distinguishable from and in contrast to the Doric at Paestum. In the same way we find an increase of variety and grace in the Ionic capital. It has not only a carved coussinet[99], little ledge and plinth, but receives both to the right and left a spiral winding, and at the sides a decorative kind of cushion, from which is derived its title of the pulvinated capital. The volutes at the end of the pad or cushion indicate the end of the column, which, however, may rise to a still greater elevation, but in this possible increase makes itself essentially a curve.
Compatibly with this slender character of the pleasing decoration of its columns the Ionic type of building requires a less bulky weight in its beams, and is concerned in this way too to secure an increase of grace. By doing so it no longer suggests as a predecessor as the Doric does the wood construction, and consequently suffers triglyphs and metopes to fall away in the flat frieze, introducing in their place as its principal means of decoration, heads of sacrificial animals united with flowery coils, and, instead of the suspended mutule[100] tops, we find tooth-like ornamentation[101].
(γ) Finally, to come to the Corinthian order, we find it is in fundamentals composed upon the Ionic, only that with a similar slenderness it is elaborated in more tasteful luxuriance, and unfolds the consummate finish of adornment and embellishment. Like it content to possess the definite and various divisions of its structure as a legacy from the wood building, it emphasizes the same without permitting their origin to be conspicuous by means of its decorative work, and expresses, in its manifold ledges and borders on cornice and beam, on its weather moulds, its moulding flutes, its variously articulated pediments and its more luxuriant capitals, a multiplicity of pleasing features.
The Corinthian column, it is true, does not exceed in height the Ionic, rising as a rule with a grooving of similar character, merely eight times or eight and a half times as high as the diameter of the lower portion of the column, but it appears more slender and above all more exuberant by virtue of a loftier capital. For the capital's height is one and an eighth times the diameter beneath, and has at each of its four corners more slender volutes which suffer the pulvination of the previous type to fall off, while the part below is decorated with acanthus leaves. The Greeks have a charming tale relative to this. A maiden of exceptional beauty, they tell us, died. Her nurse collected her playthings in a little basket and placed it on her grave, where an acanthus plant sprang up. The leaves very soon embraced the basket, and it was this which suggested the thought of the capital of a column.
Of other points of difference between the Corinthian and the Ionic and Doric orders, I will only further mention the delicately curved mutules under the cornices, and the projection of the water moulding, and the indentations and corbel-heads on the cornice[102].
(b) We may, secondly, regard the Roman type of building as an intermediate form standing between that of Greek and Christian architecture, in so far as here we find mainly the application of arch and vaultings. It is not possible to determine with accuracy the time when the construction of arches was first discovered; it appears, however, certain that neither the Egyptians, despite the great progress they made in the arts of building, nor the Babylonians, Israelites, and Phoenicians were cognisant of the ogive or the vault. The monuments of Egyptian architecture at any rate only show us that when it was a question of superimposing a roof over the interior of a building the one means the Egyptians had at their disposal was that of placing huge slabs of stone across like beams in horizontal position. If it was required to arch up broad entrances, or cross arches they knew of no other way of doing this than letting one stone on either side project forward, with another still more projecting one above it, so that the side walls gradually approached upwards until they reached a point where only one stone was necessary to close the remaining space between. Where such an expedient was not necessary they covered the spaces with huge slabs of stone arranged across in the manner of rafters.
Among the Greeks we do, I believe, find monuments in which the arch construction has already been adopted, but they are rare; and Hirt, who has written with most authority over the building and the history of the building of antiquity, affirms that among such monuments we can rely on none with security as dating from a time previous to that of Pericles. In other words, in Greek architecture the features which are characteristic and elaborated are the column and beam in horizontal position, so that we find here the column very little used in a relation which lies apart from its true function, namely that of supporting beams. Moreover the arch that is vaulted from two piers or columns, and the knob-like formation, connotes a yet further feature, for we find here that the column already begins to forsake its determinate attribute of support. For the circular arch in its rise, its flexure and its declivity is related to a centre which has nothing to do with the column as a means of support. The separate parts of the circular arch are carried in mutual opposition; they support and prolong each other in a way that shows them far more remote from the direct assistance of the column than is the horizontally superimposed beam.
In Roman architecture, then, as stated, the arch-construction and vaulting is of very common occurrence, or rather we have certain remains which we can only attribute to the age of the Roman kings, if we may fully believe the evidence of later times. Of this type are the catacombs and cloaca, which were vaulted, but must be regarded as works of a more recent restoration. The most probable discoverer yet suggested of the vault is Democritus[103], who occupied himself in a variety of ways with mathematical problems and is held to be the discoverer of lithotomy.