decoration, and you will have a striking illustration of the Greek
love for the finite and comprehensible.

When it was said just now that the main lines of a Greek temple
are either horizontal or perpendicular, the statement called for
qualification. The elevations of the most perfect of Doric
buildings, the Parthenon, could not be drawn with a ruler. Some of
the apparently straight lines are really curved. The stylobate is
not level, but convex, the rise of the curve amounting to 1/450 of
the length of the building; the architrave has also a rising
curve, but slighter than that of the stylobate. Then again, many
of the lines that would commonly be taken for vertical are in
reality slightly inclined. The columns slope inward and so do the
principal surfaces of the building, while the anta-capitals slope
forward. These refinements, or some of them, have been observed in
several other buildings. They are commonly regarded as designed to
obviate certain optical illusions supposed to arise in their
absence. But perhaps, as one writer has suggested, their principal
office was to save the building from an appearance of mathematical
rigidity, to give it something of the semblance of a living thing.

Be that as it may, these manifold subtle curves and sloping lines
testify to the extraordinary nicety of Greek workmanship. A column
of the Parthenon, with its inclination, its tapering, its entasis,
and its fluting, could not have been constructed without the most
conscientious skill. In fact, the capabilities of the workmen kept
pace with the demands of the architects. No matter how delicate
the adjustment to be made, the task was perfectly achieved. And
when it came to the execution of ornamental details, these were
wrought with a free hand and, in the best period, with fine