there was an interior range of six columns, of five feet and a half in diameter, standing before the end of the cella, and forming, together with the prolonged walls of the cella, a prothyræum or apartment before the door: there was an ascent of two steps into these divisions of the building, from the peristyle. The cella, the breadth of which within was sixty-two feet and a half, was divided into two unequal chambers, of which the western was fortythree feet ten inches long within, and the eastern ninety-eight feet seven inches. The former was the Opisthodomus, which was employed as the public treasury; the latter was the Parthenon, or Hecatompedum, specifically so called. The ceiling of the former was supported by four columns, of about four feet in diameter at the base', and that of the latter by sixteen columns, of three feet and a half.

It is not certainly known of what order were the interior columns of either chamber; but as those of the western apartment were thirty-six feet in height,

This is the measurement of Mr. Cockerell (ap. Brönsted, V. et R. dans la Grèce, II. p. 290); but Mr. Kinnard makes them seven inches greater (Stuart's Ant. of Ath. new ed. II. p. 39, note d). Spon and Wheler relate that there was a gallery and twentytwo small columns in the lower tier, and twenty-three in the upper. Stuart and Revett have marked twenty-six in their plan of the temple; but these, it is now supposed, could not have belonged to the original building. In the conversion of the temple into a Greek church, or in its repairs as such, or as a Turkish mosque, great alterations were made in the interior, so that it is difficult to form any idea of its ancient state from the descriptions of Spon and Wheler. But more recent examinations leave little doubt as to the interior plan. See Brönsted, pl. Xxxviii.-Note of 1832.

and their proportions nearly the same as those of the Ionic columns of the vestibule of the Propylæa, it is highly probable that the same order was used in both instances. In the eastern chamber of the Parthenon a Corinthian capital has been found of such dimensions as leads to the belief that the columns were of that order. The smallness of their diameter leaves little doubt that there was an upper range as described by Pausanias at Olympia, and as still exemplified in one of the temples at Pæstum.

Such was the simple construction of this magnificent building, which, by its united excellences of materials, design, and decorations, was the most perfect ever executed. Its dimensions of two hundred and twenty-eight feet by a hundred and two, with a height of sixty-six feet to the top of the pediment, were sufficiently great to give an impression of grandeur and sublimity; and this impression was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts,

1 In the interior of the temple at Phigaleia are two new varieties of the Ionic order; one of which, by its helices and leaves of acanthus, must be considered as belonging to the order afterwards called Corinthian. It proves, therefore, that this order was employed in the time of Pericles. In fact, Vitruvius gives the honour of its invention to Callimachus, who lived about that time, and who made the golden lamp and brazen palm-tree in the temple of Minerva Polias.

2 The beautiful marble with which nature furnished the Athenians, was one of the great concurring causes leading to their unrivalled pre-eminence in architecture and decorative sculpture. Admitting as fine a surface, and presenting as beautiful a colour, as ivory, with a still sharper edge, it assisted in encouraging the successive efforts of artists studying to excel their predecessors, or rivals, in the effects produced by means of such a material.

such as is found to diminish the effects of many larger modern buildings, where the same singleness of design is not apparent. In the Parthenon there was nothing to divert the spectator's contemplation from the simplicity and majesty of mass and outline, which forms the first and most remarkable object of admiration in a Greek temple; for the statues of the pediments, the only decoration which was very conspicuous by its magnitude and position, having been inclosed within frames which formed an essential part of the design of either front, had no more obtrusive effect than an ornamented capital to an unadorned column. In the hands of Phidias and his colleagues, the gravity of the Doric order imposed no limit to the decoration applicable to the upper parts of the edifice: and hence (as we find proofs in many traces still existing in the marble) the statues and reliefs, as well as the members of architecture, were enriched with various colours, rendering them pictures, as well as groups of statuary, and producing to the spectator, on his near approach, a new and increasing source of admiration. The adornment of the upper part of the building was continued to the roof, where the acroteria of the pediments and the extremities of the spouts and ridge-tiles were decorated with sculpture. New enrichments might be added, though the edifice was complete without them; such were the gilded shields, which, long after the building of the temple, were placed upon the architraves of the two fronts.

This capability of receiving ornament was in part devised, by those under whose directing genius the Parthenon rose, for the purpose of furnishing employment in every branch of art to those excellent artists

with whom Athens then abounded, and probably no Greek temple of any order was ever so lavishly adorned with sculpture as the Parthenon'. In the eastern, or main apartment of the cella, was the colossal figure of the invincible virgin goddess, from whom this chamber in particular, and the building in general, received the name of Parthenon, and which was an example of chryselephantine sculpture, having but one rival in Greece, and that by the same master: in the aeti, or pediments, were two compositions, near eighty feet in length, each consisting of about twenty-four entire statues of supernatural dimensions; the eastern representing the birth of Minerva, the western the contest of Neptune and Minerva for the Attic land: under the exterior cornice, in harmony with the projecting features of that part of the building, were ninety-two groups, raised in high relief from tablets four feet three inches square, relating to a variety of actions of the goddess herself, or in which her favoured champions had prevailed by means of her influence: and,

In the temple of Theseus, out of sixty-eight metopes, no more than eighteen had reliefs on them, and one pediment only was filled with statues. At Egina, Sunium, Nemea, Bassæ, there were no sculptured metopes. In the great temple of Selinus, the largest Doric building with which we are acquainted, the metopes in the two fronts were alone sculptured. In the middle eastern temple at the same place, those of the eastern front only. At Olympia the pediments and hyperthyra alone seem, from Pausanias, to have been decorated with sculpture, and even, if the exterior metopes had been adorned with reliefs like those of the Parthenon, they would have been very inferior in number, as this temple, as well as that of Delphi, was a hexastyle. Of the latter building, we may infer from Euripides (Ion 190), that some at least of the metopes were sculptured, but we have no farther information concerning it.

lastly, along the outside of the cella and vestibules reigned a frieze of three feet four inches in height, and 520 feet in length; to which a relief, slightly raised above the surface of the naked wall which it crowned, was considered most applicable, as it was seen from a nearer distance than any of the other sculptures, and by a reflected light. This great work represented the procession on the quadrennial festival of the Panathenæa, when the new peplus of Minerva was carried through the Cerameicus, and from thence to the Acropolis.

That which chiefly excites our wonder in these beautiful works of sculpture is, that their execution is such as in almost every part to admit of minute inspection, although the nearest of them were not seen at a smaller distance than forty feet. We cannot have a stronger proof that considerations of economy entered very little into the calculations of Pericles, and that the Athenian artists aimed at nothing short of perfection in their productions, and at glory for their highest reward. Having formed the conception of a finished and perfect work, Phidias and his scholars could not be contented with any thing short of its execution. Satisfied with its being for a short time submitted to the near inspection of the public, they thought it could receive no greater honour than that of contributing to adorn the temple of the protecting goddess, of being consigned to her care, and of becoming the object of a small share of the veneration paid to her. They felt assured that, although the generality of spectators might view it at too great a distance to appreciate all its merits, those whose superior taste and know

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