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A Greek columnar building is extremely simple in form.[Footnote:
The substance of this paragraph and the following is borrowed from
Boutmy, "Philosophie de l'Architecture en Grece" (Paris, 1870)]
The outlines of an ordinary temple are those of an oblong
rectangular block surmounted by a triangular roof. With a
qualification to be explained presently, all the lines of the
building, except those of the roof, are either horizontal or
perpendicular. The most complicated Greek columnar buildings
known, the Erechtheum and the Propylaea of the Athenian Acropolis,
are simplicity itself when compared to a Gothic cathedral, with
its irregular plan, its towers, its wheel windows, its
multitudinous diagonal lines.

The extreme simplicity which characterizes the general form of a
Greek building extends also to its sculptured and painted
ornaments. In the Doric style these are very sparingly used; and
even the Ionic style, though more luxuriant, seems reserved in
comparison with the wealth of ornamental detail in a Gothic
cathedral. Moreover, the Greek ornaments are simple in character.
Examine again the hawk's-beak, the egg-and-dart, the leaf-and-
dart, the astragal, the guilloche, the honeysuckle, the meander or
fret. These are almost the only continuous patterns in use in
Greek architecture. Each consists of a small number of elements
recurring in unvarying order; a short section is enough to give
the entire pattern. Contrast this with the string-course in the
nave of the Cathedral of Amiens, where the motive of the design
undergoes constant variation, no piece exactly duplicating its
neighbor, or with the intricate interlacing patterns of Arabic