MERGE TO GYRENE. 
441 
concerned, were in any way materially violated, (at least, we may say, 
not in our opinion ;) and the eye is seldom offended by an appearance 
either of weakness or clumsiness in the columns, or of heaviness or 
insignificance in their entablatures. There is at the same time a 
good deal of variety in the disposition of the interiors, and the 
workmanship is usually very good, and occasionally, indeed very 
shaft. There was commonly a fillet dividing the channels, or fluting of the shaft, the pro- 
portion of which was not always the same, and we rarely saw any fluting where these 
were not adopted, and very seldom any columns where the shafts were left plain. The 
difficulty of preserving the edges of the fluting with nicety, and of keeping them from 
being chipped and broken, appears to have been the reason for adopting the fillet ; for 
as the proportions of the facades, particularly those of the interior ones, were necessarily 
on a small scale, the edges of the fluting, where no fillet was used, must have been nearly 
as sharp as the edge of a sword, and consequently very liable to accident. We may add 
that the width of the fillet accommodated itself to the entasis of the shaft, and was con- 
tinued round the upper part of the channels, so as to form the crown of the hypotra- 
chelium, when no annulets W'ere made use of ; for in that case the channels finished in 
these, forming au elegant curve from the line of the column to the lowest of the annulets, 
w'hich sometimes projected considerably from the upper part of the shaft. With regard 
to the disposition of the triglyphs with respect to the columns, we usually found them 
placed over the axes of the latter, with sometimes one, and sometimes two intervening, 
as we have already mentioned above ; with the exception, however, of those at the 
extremities of the zophorus, which were sometimes placed in the angle, and sometimes 
a little removed from it, being in the latter case placed over the joint centre of the half 
column and pilaster which usually terminated the fa9ade at both extremities. We must 
remark, with respect to the introduction of the pilaster conjointly with the columns at 
the angles, that the shafts and the capitals W'ere not wholly relieved from the surface, 
although they were more so than half their diameter. It must be recollected at the 
same time that the whole fa9ade was generally formed in the rock itself, and had conse- 
quently no w'eight to support, and no internal arrangements to which it was necessary 
that it should be accommodated. The placing of the triglyphs was therefore purely 
optional, and might be adapted to the taste or the fancy of the architect, who was thus 
enabled to follow his own ideas of proportion and arrangement, without reference to any 
standard but the eye. 
