The oldest example extant is at Corinth. To the lonians, likewise, is attributed the honor of having first employed the Ionic order, no example of which is to be found in Greece prior to the Macedonian conquest. Vitruvius accords to Callimachus the invention of the Corinthian capital, but foliated capitals of much greater antiquity than any discovered in Greece are to be found in Egypt and in Asia Minor. The most perfect Grecian example of this order is employed in the choragic monument of Lysicrates. Little doubt need be entertained as to the Greeks deriving the idea of their caryatic order from the Egyptians, who often employed human figures instead of columns in their structures. - The Doric holds the foremost rank among the Grecian orders, not only on account of its being the most ancient, the most generally employed, and consequently the most perfected, but more especially because of its containing, as it were, the principle of all their architecture, as well as an exact imitation of all the parts employed in their primitive constructions, which were undoubtedly of wood.

Thus we see the post represented by the column, the wall plate by the architrave, the extremities of the joists by the triglyphs; the rafters naturally produce the projection which composes the cornice; while the double pitch of the roof gives us necessarily the form of the pediment. This style, typical of majesty and imposing grandeur, was almost universally employed by the Greeks in the construction of their temples; and certainly monumental art does not furnish us with the equal of a Greek peripteral temple. The Grecian Doric may be divided into three parts: the stylobate, the column, and the entablature. The stylobate is formed by three receding courses, tog-ether about equal in height to the inferior diameter of the column, which dimension is generally used as a measure of proportion in describing the orders. On the uppermost course stands the column, from four to six diameters in height, and whose diameter at top is about three fourths of that at base; the shaft, thus assuming a conical shape (which diminution, in a slightly curved line, is styled entasis), generally bears 20 shallow flutes, their sections forming segments of circles, or similar curves which meet and form a sharp anis.

At the base these flutes detail on the pavement; they pass through the hypotrachelium, or necking, and terminate beneath the annulets of the capital, either in a straight or curved line. Upon the shaft is placed the capital, nearly one half of a diameter in height, composed of an abacus, or square tablet, about 1 1/2 diameter in width and one fifth in height. This member is supported by the echinus, of about the same height when there is a necking, but occupying a greater proportion when none exists. This echinus or ovolo bears three, four, or five rings at the bottom, where it dies away in the shaft. The axes of the columns were slightly inclined. According to Villeroi, in a rectangular temple, planes passing through the centres of the columns would meet in a straight line; in a point, if the plan of the temple were square; the columns at the angles following in both cases the direction of diagonal lines. This inclination does not commence until the second course, or about one tenth of the height of the column, if monolithic. The first course being an oblique truncated cone, determines the angle of inclination; the remaining courses lorming the column are upright truncated cones, perfectly adjusted one to the other.

The inclination of each column is proportional to the distance, to the line joining the foci if the monument be rectangular, or to the centre of the plan of the edifice if square. Thus the columns at the angles are the most inclined, those in the middle of the sides the least. The entablature, about two diameters in height, is subdivided into three parts: the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. The architrave occupies about two fifths of the whole height, being perfectly simple, crowned by the taenia or continuous fillet, one tenth or one twelfth of its entire height; below this fillet, under the tri-glyphs, there is a regula, of less height, from which depend six cylindrical drops. The face of the architrave is generally in a vertical plane tangent to the base of the columns. The frieze, of about the same height as the architrave, is terminated on top by a projecting fascia, occupying about one seventh part of its whole height, which breaks around the tri-glyphs, where it is slightly increased in depth. Horizontally, the frieze is subdivided into tri-glyphs and metopes, which regulate the inter-columniation in the following manner: A tri-glyph about one half a diameter in width is placed exactly over the middle of each column, and one in the intervening space.

They are separated by the metopes, which in width are equal to the entire height of the frieze. This distribution differs, however, at the angles; here the outer edge of the triglyph is in the same perpendicular line with the circumference of the base. Thus the first intercolum-niation, counting from the angles, is contracted. The Greeks also gave a greater diameter to the columns at the angles. The triglyph is subdivided into two glyphs, each one fifth of the whole width (a triangular fluting or channel formed by the intersection of two vertical planes inclined inward from the face of the tablet), of two semiglyphs, and two inter-glyphs, each one seventh of the entire width. The glyphs detail on taenia. Above they are sometimes square-headed, sometimes curved; the semiglyphs finish with a curve at the top. The surface of the interglyphs is in the same plane with the architrave. The metopes recede from the triglyphs, and were oftentimes decorated with sculpture. The cornice, projecting about its own height, is composed of a corona, about one half of the whole height, crowned by a square fillet supported by a congeries of mouldings, together about one half of the height of the corona, which latter has on the lower edge a sunken face bearing the mutules and guttae, which form the soffit or plancher of the cornice, inclined up inward at an angle of about 30°. The mutules are placed directly over the triglyphs and metopes, and are exactly equal to the former in width; they are ornamented with three rows of cylindrical drops.