rned, for the
one, and for the other the delicacy, adornment, and proportions
characteristic of women.

8. It is true that posterity, having made progress in refinement and
delicacy of feeling, and finding pleasure in more slender proportions,
has established seven diameters of the thickness as the height of the
Doric column, and nine as that of the Ionic. The Ionians, however,
originated the order which is therefore named Ionic.

The third order, called Corinthian, is an imitation of the slenderness
of a maiden; for the outlines and limbs of maidens, being more slender
on account of their tender years, admit of prettier effects in the way
of adornment.

9. It is related that the original discovery of this form of capital was
as follows. A free-born maiden of Corinth, just of marriageable age, was
attacked by an illness and passed away. After her burial, her nurse,
collecting a few little things which used to give the girl pleasure
while she was alive, put them in a basket, carried it to the tomb, and
laid it on top thereof, covering it with a roof-tile so that the things
might last longer in the open air. This basket happened to be placed
just above the root of an acanthus. The acanthus root, pressed down
meanwhile though it was by the weight, when springtime came round put
forth leaves and stalks in the middle, and the stalks, growing up along
the sides of the basket, and pressed out by the corners of the tile
through the compulsion of its weight, were forced to bend into volutes
at the outer edges.

[Illustration: Photo. Sommer

THE BASILICA AT POMPEII]

[Illustration: THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL OF VITRUVIUS COMPARED WITH THE
MONUMENTS]

10. Just then Callimachus, whom the Athenians called [Greek:
katatexitechnos] for the refinement and delicacy of his artistic
work, passed by this tomb and observed the basket with the tender
young leaves growing round it. Delighted with the novel style and form,
he built some columns after that pattern for the Corinthians, determined
their symmetrical proportions, and established from that time forth the
rules to be followed in finished works of the Corinthian order.

11. The proportions of this capital should be fixed as follows. Let the
height of the capital, including its abacus, be equivalent to the
thickness of the base of a column. Let the breadth of the abacus be
proportioned so that diagonals drawn from one corner of it to the other
shall be twice the height of the ca