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say, that in aocient times, vehen good taste prevailed in Greece, the 

 Greeks never made use of the Corinthian order to support weights, 

 because this order is only an imitation of flowers, and naturally cannot 

 support anything heavy ; they, therefore, used Tripodcs, or other archi- 

 tectural ornaments ; and used the Corinthian for small, pretty, elegant 

 buildings, such as the Tomb of Lysicrates ; but the Romans lost this 

 fine idea, and made the Temple of Jupiter Olympus of the Corinthian 

 order, as also the Gale of Adrian. 



From Mr. Finlaij to Sir Edmund Lyons. 



My dear Sir Edmund, — I have read over Mr. Lucas's questions and 

 Pittakis's replies, and which I now return. The question is one of 

 evidence, and I am not aware that enough exists to decide on how 

 the Parthenon was roofed, or how that roof was supported. There 

 were certain columns ; but the very vagueness of Pittakis's conjectures, 

 about which are the Roman restorations, show how much uncertainty 

 reigns concerning the subject. The Corinthian was just as much 

 used to support an entablature as any other order from its earliest ex- 

 istence, as may be proved from many Attic examples. 



This subject, therefore, has been discussed, and it appearing probable 

 that in the recent excavations the foundations of the old Parthenon, that 

 exist on the site of the present building, have disclosed traces of the 

 Doric columns that supported the former building ; as five feet in dia- 

 meter is too great for the required height of the lower tier of columns in 

 the interior ; and the evidence for the Corinthian order appearing con- 

 clusive for the upper tier, as the fragments that Inwood discovered in the 

 Partlienon, from their size, must have belonged to the upper tier, and 

 the size of the Ionic according with the required size of the lower tier, 

 this restoration is now completed with the lower tier Ionic, and the 

 upper of the Corinthian order. 



From the above extracts it is obvious that traces of the interior arrange" 

 meet of the Parthenon are eo indistinct as to leave the matter at least a fair 

 subject for controversy. In the sixth volume of the large work published 

 by the Trustees of the British Museum as a catalogue of the Aucient Mar- 

 bles in tlie Museum Collection, Mr. CockereH confesses that the orders of 

 the columns are not clearly ascertainable. We have endeavoured to collect 

 all the principal facts and arguments respecting the internal architecture 

 of the Parthenon, and give them in this place, because, as had been said, 

 no subject can be so important to the architectural student as a precise 

 knowledge of the construction of the great type of Cirffcian architecture. 

 The reasons for supposing a double tier of columns in the cella of the 

 Parthenon seem to resolve themselves into these two. 



1. The presence of the fragments of a Corinthian capital delineated 

 above. 



S. Indications in the floor of the interior that columns once stood there 

 of BO small diameter that if of proportionate height they would not have 

 reached the roof. 



We propose to examine each of these reasons separately. With respect 

 to the first it may, we think, be safely pronounced that the fragments of 

 the Corinthian capital belong to a far more ancient date than the erection 

 of the Parthenon. In Inwood's large folio work, he gives an ideal re- 

 storation of the capital to which these fragments belonged, but whether 

 his restoration be correct or not, this is certain that enough of the frag- 

 ments remain to show that they are to be assigned to an epoch when the 

 arts were in a very diS'erent state to that manifested in the building of the 

 Parthenon. Inwood indeed gives a collateral testimony in favour of the 

 hypothesis of a double tier of columns which appears at first very plausi- 

 ble, but which on examination will not be found to have much weight in 



it. He says that there is a certain peculiarity in which this fragment re 

 sembles another found in the temple of Apollo, near Phigalia, Vt^hich tem- 

 ple was built by the architect of the Parthenon— Ictinus. The point of 

 resemblance between the fragments is this — it is observed in each volute 

 that it is not fluted in the same way on both sides. It does not appear 

 that the resemblance extends any further than this — that the general form 

 and indications of date are the same in both capitals. But even supposing 

 that the similarity were carried much farther than it really is, what does 

 the argument amount to? In two difl'erent temples built by Ictinus, we 

 find two columns somewhat resembling each other. But surely this is no 

 proof (of itself) of the existence of a double tier of columns in the Parthe- 

 non. For in the other temple built by Ictinus (that at Phigalia), it has 

 never been even surmised that there was a double tier of columns. Hiiti 

 it is quite certain what were the purposes and situation of the Corinthian 

 column. It is stood near one end of the cella and midway between the 

 lateral walls, and supported the roof from the ground. It has never been 

 questioned that this column was a single one, not one of a ran^e bu 

 standing in the isolated position described, and supporting the centre of 

 the roof by itself. lu the case of Ihe Parthenon, however, the circum- 

 stances are altogether different, for there the fragments are so small that 

 they could never have belonged to a column which discharged the same 

 oflice as that at Phigalia. The argument seems therefore reduced to this 

 — if an analogy be made between Ihe two cases, we must infer the use and 

 situation of the one column from the use and situation of the other : and 

 yet from the different sizes of the fragments it i,s impossible to conceive 

 that they belonged to columns which discharged the same offices. 



So that even if it be conceded that the Corinthian column was actually 

 made use of at the Parthenon, the accidental presence of two small frag- 

 ments seems but scanty data for the supposition of a whole order. To the 

 objection that the Parthenon fragments are of a date anterior to the temple 

 itself, it may be replied that perhaps some of the materials of the old Par- 

 thenon were used up in the construction of the new. (For the Parthenon 

 now existing is the second temple built on the same site ; its predecessor, 

 the ancient Hecatompedon having been destroyed during the invasion of 

 Xerxes, and the stones of it having been carried away to make military 

 fortifications.) Now it is scarcely to be supposed, the old temple having 

 been violently destroyed, and the materials of it used for fortification, that 

 at a subsequent period part of those materials (namely, the columns and 

 their capitals) would be found so perfect as to be worthy of being used 

 again in the building of the new temple, which was to be the wonder of 

 Greece. There is every reason for thinking that Ihe Athenians were de- 

 termined that the new Parthenon should be, what in truth it is, the mosf 

 perfect specimen of Grecian art. The construction and decoration of it 

 taxed the energies of the greatest artists and sculptors of that age, and not 

 only the Athenians but the whole Grecian race looked to the perfect com- 

 pletion of it with the greatest interest. Is it then to be supposed that the 

 poor economy of using up old materials would be readily allowed under 

 any circumstances? And is it not in the highest degree improbable that 

 columns would be employed which in the important points of their orders 

 and their dates differed from the other columns of the temple, and which 

 had moreover suffered all the mutilations inevitable in the rough usages of 

 warfare ? 



2. The second argument for the upper tier of columos is that traces have 

 been found in the pavement, from which it is concluded that columns of 

 email diameter once stood there — so small that the columns could not have 



