148 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



and to open the way, it may be hoped, to its gradual complete recon- 

 struction. 



It would seem that the architect of a Doric temple began his work 

 by laying out what may be called an ideal scheme, based upon exact 

 numerical relations of the various parts. Having to build a temple of 

 a certain magnitude, he determined the number of columns it should 

 have on 'the fronts and sides; and fixed the proportions that should 

 exist between the height, the breadth, and the length of his building. 

 These were all to be regulated according to the size of the columns. 

 The height of the column was determined by its diameter at the foot 

 of the shaft ; and, as the shaft diminished from base to summit, the 

 upper diameter was accurately proportioned to the lower in a simple 

 ratio. To secure the exactness of these proportions, the diameter of 

 the base was divided into sixty minutes, and these minutes served as 

 a common measure of all the members of the building. 



Not merely in the columns, but also in the proportions of tlie other 

 parts and divisions of their structures, " the Greek architects attached 

 great value to simple ratios of low natural numbers." * 



It appears, further, that the ratios employed in any particular build- 

 ing were comparatively few.f 



The first pointj then, in the investigation of the system of propor- 

 tions in any given temple, is, after obtaining (if possible) the measure of 

 its breadth and length, to endeavor to ascertain the diameter of the 

 peristyle columns. But here a difficulty 'exists, unless we have oppor- 

 tunity to measure a number of columns, and so to obtain an average 

 which may afford the probable ideal diameter. For, after having laid 

 out his plan on an exact mathematical scheme, the architect in its exe- 

 cution varied the dimensions of similar parts, — slightly it is true, but 

 still sufficiently to make it unsafe to assume that a single example 



* See " Memoir on the Systems of Proportions employed in the Design of the 

 Doric Temples at Phigaleia and yEgina," by William Watkiss Lloyd (appended 

 to Mr. Cockerell's splendid work on these temples), London, 18G0. Mr. Lloyd, 

 in this Memoir, and in a paper " On the General Theory of Proportion in Archi- 

 tectural Design, and its Exemplification in Detail in the Parthenon," in " Papers 

 read at the Roj'al Listitute of British ArcliitectsJ' London, 1859, has made a 

 valuable contribution to the establishment of some of the leading principles of 

 the science of Greek architecture. Among the most important materials for 

 the study as j^et provided, are those to be found in Penrose's admirable work 

 on the Parthenon, published by the Dilettanti Society, and in the Tolume by 

 Mr. Cockerell, of which Mr. Lloyd's Memoir forms a part. 



t Lloyd's Memoir, p. 64. . 



