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01 · Ancient & Classical World

Ancient Greek

c. 900–100 BCE

Marble temples of columns carrying flat stone beams, in the Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian patterns, under a low roof triangle.

Look for

Classical column Pediment Colonnade
Parthenon, Athens, Greece: an example of Ancient Greek architecture
Parthenon, Athens, Greece. Photo: Steve Swayne, CC BY 2.0
Erechtheion, Athens, Greece
Erechtheion Athens, Greece · Jebulon, CC0
Temple of Hephaestus, Athens, Greece
Temple of Hephaestus Athens, Greece · Julian Lupyan, CC0
Temple of Concordia, Agrigento, Italy
Temple of Concordia Agrigento, Italy · Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0
Second Temple of Hera, Paestum, Italy
Second Temple of Hera Paestum, Italy · Norbert Nagel, CC BY-SA 3.0

what it is

A Greek temple is a rectangular stone building whose main room, the cella, held the god's statue. A row of columns usually surrounds it, carrying the entablature, the band of stone beams and carved decoration below a low-pitched roof whose triangular gable is the pediment. There are three orders, or standard column designs: Doric, with plain cushion-shaped capitals and no base; Ionic, with scroll-shaped capitals; and Corinthian, with capitals carved as acanthus leaves.

The Parthenon in Athens (447-432 BCE) is a marble Doric temple with 8 columns across each end and 17 along each side. Its floor rises about 10 cm at the center over 70 m, and its columns swell slightly toward the middle (entasis) and lean inward. The nearby Erechtheion (421-406 BCE) is Ionic, with a porch held up by six statues of women called caryatids. The Doric temples at Paestum, Italy, date from about 550-450 BCE. Greek temples have steps on all sides; Roman temples stand on a high platform with steps only at the front.

how to spot one

Classical column A column based on Greek and Roman designs, with a base, shaft, and decorative capital. It is often used to frame windows or entrances. Pediment A low triangle over columns, a door or a window, framed by a projecting ledge called a cornice. It comes from Greek temple roof ends and is common on Neoclassical and Greek Revival buildings. Colonnade A row of evenly spaced columns carrying a horizontal beam, called an entablature, or a roof. It often lines a building's front or a courtyard on Greek, Roman and Neoclassical buildings.

Also look for

Carved stone reliefSymmetrical facadeCornice

history

Early Greek temples were built of timber and mud brick, and stone temples became established around 600 BCE. The 2nd-century CE writer Pausanias recorded that the Temple of Hera at Olympia, from about that date, had its wooden columns replaced with stone ones over time. The Doric order was fully developed on the Greek mainland by then. The Ionic order, used in the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the Aegean islands, reached a settled form by the mid-5th century BCE.

After the Persians sacked the Acropolis in 480 BCE, Athens rebuilt it under Pericles; Ictinus and Callicrates designed the Parthenon, with sculpture overseen by Phidias. The earliest known Corinthian capital stood inside the Temple of Apollo at Bassae (about 450-420 BCE), and its first known exterior use is the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens (about 334 BCE). In the Hellenistic period after 323 BCE, Doric columns became more slender and the Corinthian order more common. Rome adopted the three orders, and Renaissance, Neoclassical and Greek Revival architects copied them.

where to find it

The Acropolis in Athens, Paestum in southern Italy, and Segesta and Agrigento in Sicily.

architects

Callicrates

easy to confuse with

Second Bank of the United States, an example of Greek Revival Greek Revival The Greek temple front reborn: full-height columns, a wide plain band above them, and a low triangular gable. Panthéon, an example of Neoclassical Neoclassical Buildings modeled closely on Greek and Roman temples: grand columned porches, domes, and plain, symmetrical walls.