the columns were always in stone, and were generally built in
several courses with drums or frusta, there being very few instances
of monolith columns in Greek temples; the Romans, on the other
hand, in their principal columns considered the monolith to be
more monumental, and not only employed the finest Greek marbles
to that end, but used granite and porphyry.
Fig. 20.
Fig. 21.
The favourite type of Greek temple was that known as hexastyle peripteral, of which the temple of Aphaea at Aegina, of the Doric order, is one of the best-preserved examples; on account of the width of its naos it was necessary to provide columns inside it to carry the ceiling and the roof, so that it represents the fully developed type of a Greek temple. The plan of the temple is shown in fig. 18; the elevation is given in fig. 19, representing the west front, the columns of which rest on a stylobate of three steps, and carry the entablature and pediment. Fig. 20 shows the three first columns of the flank elevation, the entablature carried by them, and the tiled roof with antefixa and crested ridge. Fig. 21 gives the section through the stylobate, peristyle and pronaos, and half of the naos, showing the superposed columns, ceiling and roof, all based on the conjectural restoration by Cockerell. The temple of Aegina is supposed to have been erected about 500 B.C., the magnificent sculpture with which it is enriched being added c. 480 B.C. The temple was built of a fine calcareous stone from quarries close by, which was coated over with a thin layer of stucco of lime and marble dust; this enabled the masons to give finer profiles to the mouldings, and afforded a field for colour, of which the restoration is shown in Cockerell's Temple of Aegina, from which the illustrations are taken; the cymatium and the tiles covering the roof were in Parian marble.
Fig. 22.
Fig. 23.
The Greek Temples were always enclosed in a temenos, in which were other shrines, altars and treasuries; in Athens the temenos was the Acropolis, on which the temples were built; at Delphi it was in a valley on inclined ground; and in Girgenti the temples were raised on the ridge of a hill; in all these cases the Greeks accepted the inequalities of the site, and, adding art to nature, united their work with that of the Creator, so that it seemed to form part of the same design. Some of the sites of the temples, such as those at Olympia, Epidaurus and Delos, were practically level, but even in those the temples and other structures were arranged in groups, thus producing a much more picturesque effect than in those of the Romans, which, when enclosed, were always planned on axial lines and raised on artificial platforms or terraces, as at Baalbek, Palmyra and Aizani, with peristyles round the raised court. The best-preserved Roman temple is that known as the Maison Carrée at Nîmes in the south of France, a hexastyle pseudo-peripteral temple, of which the elevation is given in fig. 22 and the plan in fig. 23. It was of the Corinthian order, and instead of a stylobate of three steps was raised on a podium 11 ft. high with a flight of steps in front. For further descriptions of both the Greek and Roman temples see Architecture. (R. P. S.)
