EXTRACTS FROM 



form of the temple was, however, facred in the eyes 

 of the people ; and therefore, on adopting the practice 

 of building in Hone, it was imitated as well as it could 

 be done, in the temples of the doric order. 



It is highly probable, that in the wooden temples 

 they ufed to take the rtrongert trunks of trees for pil- 

 lars ; lince they only placed them directly under the 

 main tranfoms, as it appears, without any proper faf- 

 tenings by the carpenter's art. On beginning to imi- 

 tate thefe pillars in ftone, they intended to build for 

 eternity ; but they had not at all times the moft fub- 

 ftantial rtone at hand ; accordingly they were obliged 

 to make the pillars of feveral pieces, for giving them 

 their proper height; they therefore made them very 

 ftrong in proportion to their height, gradually leffen- 

 ing them in the girt upwards, to increafe the power of 

 their bearing. , 



The temples of Poeftum, Segertum, Selimunt, Gir- 

 gentum, are all of limeftone, more or lefs bordering 

 on the fpecies of fand-ftone, which the Italians call 

 travertino ; nay, the temples of Girgentum are all 

 built of the loofeft Inelly limeftone that can be ima- 

 gined. On this account it is that they were fo yielding 

 to the depredations of the weather, and fo eahly de- 

 ftroyed without the attacks of any other hoftile power. 



Allow me here to take notice of a pafTage in Vitru- 

 vius, where he relates : that Hermogenes, an architect, 

 when he had got together the marble for the conftruc- 

 tion of a doric temple, altered his intention, and built 

 of it a temple of the ionic order. 



Vitruvius indeed gives two reafons for it : that this 

 architect, as well as others, could not preeifely adjurt 



the 



