DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4325#0006
TO THE READER. iii
or staves * which the early Greeks always carried; and on the tops, were placed
round stones, to protect them from the rain; and above, square ones, to receive the
beam which supported the rafters of the ceiling. This beam became the architrave;
while the ends of the rafters resting upon it, being scored or channelled to prevent
the rain from adhering to them, became the triglyphs; the drops of which repre-
sent the drops of water distilling from them. The cornice was the projecting part
of the roof; and the blocks, the ends of the rafters which supported it. Some of
these decorations, indeed, though employed at first merely as the natural result of
the most obvious and primitive mode of building, were afterwards adapted, by slight
alterations, to that symbolical language, which all the ornaments of the sacred build-
ings of antiquity were intended, in different modes, to express; but as the expla-
nation of this belongs rather to the religion, than the architecture of those times, it
forms no part of the present subject.
To attempt to amuse the reader with conjectures concerning the time when any
of the buildings here published were erected, would be vain and fruitless; for the
style of all is so much the same, and the places, where they stand, so little noticed
by history, that nothing but the most vague conjecture can be offered. It may,
indeed, be naturally supposed that those, of which the columns are shortest, and
the parts heaviest, are the most ancient: but, nevertheless, this is quite uncertain;
for we have no examples, of which the date can be ascertained; and it appears from
medals, that the proportions given to the human figure in very early works of art,
were remarkably long and slender.-f Leaving therefore all matters of mere con-
jecture, we shall only add a few observations on the means, by which these vast
structures were erected in places, which seem so destitute of resources adequate to
the expence and labour, that have evidently been employed on them.
Of all the phenomena in the political history of man, there is none more curious
and wonderful, than the great comparative degree of strength and power, both
AovophoyjiQ svlocSzv £u£oou, w$<z xeq oikXtz
Ey-fcE Ohosf[0Q Ttxlzo^ovoQ larix.ro jtoXXx. OS. A. 127.
This hovophoyjt or spearholder, in the column, we think can only mean a flute or channel cut
into it.
+ See those of Paestum, Selinus, and Syracuse.
or staves * which the early Greeks always carried; and on the tops, were placed
round stones, to protect them from the rain; and above, square ones, to receive the
beam which supported the rafters of the ceiling. This beam became the architrave;
while the ends of the rafters resting upon it, being scored or channelled to prevent
the rain from adhering to them, became the triglyphs; the drops of which repre-
sent the drops of water distilling from them. The cornice was the projecting part
of the roof; and the blocks, the ends of the rafters which supported it. Some of
these decorations, indeed, though employed at first merely as the natural result of
the most obvious and primitive mode of building, were afterwards adapted, by slight
alterations, to that symbolical language, which all the ornaments of the sacred build-
ings of antiquity were intended, in different modes, to express; but as the expla-
nation of this belongs rather to the religion, than the architecture of those times, it
forms no part of the present subject.
To attempt to amuse the reader with conjectures concerning the time when any
of the buildings here published were erected, would be vain and fruitless; for the
style of all is so much the same, and the places, where they stand, so little noticed
by history, that nothing but the most vague conjecture can be offered. It may,
indeed, be naturally supposed that those, of which the columns are shortest, and
the parts heaviest, are the most ancient: but, nevertheless, this is quite uncertain;
for we have no examples, of which the date can be ascertained; and it appears from
medals, that the proportions given to the human figure in very early works of art,
were remarkably long and slender.-f Leaving therefore all matters of mere con-
jecture, we shall only add a few observations on the means, by which these vast
structures were erected in places, which seem so destitute of resources adequate to
the expence and labour, that have evidently been employed on them.
Of all the phenomena in the political history of man, there is none more curious
and wonderful, than the great comparative degree of strength and power, both
AovophoyjiQ svlocSzv £u£oou, w$<z xeq oikXtz
Ey-fcE Ohosf[0Q Ttxlzo^ovoQ larix.ro jtoXXx. OS. A. 127.
This hovophoyjt or spearholder, in the column, we think can only mean a flute or channel cut
into it.
+ See those of Paestum, Selinus, and Syracuse.