OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 149 



affords the standard, or ideal type. The precision with which the 

 Greek workman — unsurpassed in manual skill, unequalled in the disci- 

 pline of eye and hand — could reproduce an ideal type, is marvellous iu 

 comparison with the work of any other race. But the architect was 

 artist as well as man of science. Numbers were to him what they are 

 to the musician. The harmonies of his art might all be resolved into 

 numerical relations ; but these relations, within certain fixed limits, 

 admitted of infinite variety of modulations. There is no dead repeti- 

 tion in a Greek building : each similar member is alike, each is different 

 from the rest. Science gave the law ; but within the law there was 

 liberty for the free play of art. A further difficulty in determining 

 the pi'ecise typical standard arises from the fact, that, while the refine- 

 ments of the Greek architecture were almost as far beyond modern 

 perception as they are beyond modern imitation, it is only in the most 

 perfect buildings (such as the Parthenon and the Propyltea) that the 

 execution can be relied upon as auswei'ing absolutely to the design. 

 In buildings of a coarser material, — erected under supervision less 

 careful than that of Phidias, and by workmen less disciplined than the 

 Athenian, — the execution often falls short of absolute conformity with 

 what seems to have been the intention ; though the defect is generally 

 so slight that it would not be noticeable in other than Greek work. 



The measures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia given by the 

 French and the German expeditions, though not sufficient to enable us 

 to reconstruct every part of the building, are sufficient to enable us to 

 determine something of the system of proportions adopted in its con- 

 struction ; and the study of them leads to some curious results. 



The main dimensions as given by the respective expeditions are as 

 follows : * — 



* For the purposes of the investigation, it is necessary to reduce the measures 

 to Olympian or Greek feet. There is still some uncertainty in regard to the 

 precise length of the Greek foot. In the present paper, I assume it, as deduced 

 from a comparison of various ancient measures (see " Smith's Dictionary of Gr. 

 and Rom. Antiquities," Art. Mensura), to be in relation to the English foot : : 1 : 

 1.01125 ; and hence, 1 metre = 3.24395 Greek feet. 



Mr. Lloyd, basing his opinion on the measured lengtli of the front of the 

 Parthenon, makes the ratio of the Greek to the English foot as 1 : 1.01341 ; and 

 hence, 1 metre = 3.23748 Gr. feet. 



M. Aures in his ingenious " Etude des Dimensions du Grand Temple de Pa?s- 

 tum," Paris, 1868, \>. 4, supposes the foot used in the construction of the Partlienon 

 to have measured M. 0.307 : hence, 1 M. = 3.25407 Gr. ft. Don Vasquez Queipo, 

 in his"Essai sur les Systemes metriques et monetaires des anciens Peuples," 

 Paris, 1859, T. i. p. 387, estimates the Greek foot as being about M. 0.30864, 



