this time on the epic legends form a large part of the repertory
of the vase-painters.





CHAPTER III.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE.


The supreme achievement of Greek architecture was the temple. In
imperial Rome, or in any typical city of the Roman Empire, the
most extensive and imposing buildings were secular--basilicas,
baths, amphitheaters, porticoes, aqueducts. In Athens, on the
other hand, or in any typical Greek city, there was little or
nothing to vie with the temples and the sacred edifices associated
with them. Public secular buildings, of course, there were, but
the little we know of them does not suggest that they often ranked
among the architectural glories of the country. Private houses
were in the best period of small pretensions. It was to the temple
and its adjunct buildings that the architectural genius and the
material resources of Greece were devoted. It is the temple, then,
which we have above all to study.

Before beginning, however, to analyze the artistic features of the
temple, it will be useful to consider the building materials which
a Greek architect had at his disposal and his methods of putting
them together. Greece is richly provided with good building stone.