oet, Aristophanes.

THE ARTS

=Greek Temples.=--In Greece the most beautiful edifices were
constructed to the honor of the gods, and when we speak of Greek
architecture it is their temples that we have in mind.

A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive
the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace[86] where the
god lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under
compulsion to make splendid. The mass of the faithful do not enter the
interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in
the open air.

At the centre of the temple is the "chamber" of the god, a mysterious
sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.[87] On the
pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold
and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal
size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his
head almost touches the summit of the temple. "If the god should
rise," they said, "his head would shatter the roof." This sanctuary, a
sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the
eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pass through a porch formed by a
row of columns.

Behind the "chamber" is the "rear-chamber" in which are kept the
valuable property of the god--his riches,[88] and often the gold and
silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and
museum.

Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second
wall protecting the god and his treasures. There are three orders of
columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the
people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the
order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is
named from the style of the columns supporting it.

Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of
marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the
triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs constitute the frieze.

The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with
statues.

Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several
colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to
believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste
to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been
discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt.
It has at last been con