entertainments into an approbation which is a mere
pretence. Now if, as Socrates wished, our feelings, opinions, and
knowledge gained by study had been manifest and clear to see, popularity
and adulation would have no influence, but men who had reached the
height of knowledge by means of correct and definite courses of study,
would be given commissions without any effort on their part. However,
since such things are not plain and apparent to the view, as we think
they should have been, and since I observe that the uneducated rather
than the educated are in higher favour, thinking it beneath me to engage
with the uneducated in the struggle for honour, I prefer to show the
excellence of our department of knowledge by the publication of this
treatise.

4. In my first book, Emperor, I described to you the art, with its
points of excellence, the different kinds of training with which the
architect ought to be equipped, adding the reasons why he ought to be
skilful in them, and I divided up the subject of architecture as a whole
among its departments, duly defining the limits of each. Next, as was
preeminent and necessary, I explained on scientific principles the
method of selecting healthy sites for fortified towns, pointed out by
geometrical figures the different winds and the quarters from which they
blow, and showed the proper way to lay out the lines of streets and rows
of houses within the walls. Here I fixed the end of my first book. In
the second, on building materials, I treated their various advantages in
structures, and the natural properties of which they are composed. In
this third book I shall speak of the temples of the immortal gods,
describing and explaining them in the proper manner.

CHAPTER I

ON SYMMETRY: IN TEMPLES AND IN THE HUMAN BODY

1. The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which
must be most carefully observed by the architect. They are due to
proportion, in Greek [Greek: analogia]. Proportion is a correspondence
among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole to
a certain part selected as standard. From this result the principles of
symmetry. Without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in
the design of any temple; that is, if there is no precise relation
between its members, as in the case of those of a well shaped man.

2. For the human body is so designed by nature that the face, from the
chin to the top of the forehead an