The Ten Books on Architecture
corners if openings for windows are left at those points. Again, if we
are to suppose that there were open windows where the triglyphs now
stand, it will follow, on the same principle, that the dentils of the
Ionic order have likewise taken the places of windows. For the term
"metope" is used of the intervals between dentils as well as of those
between triglyphs. The Greeks call the seats of tie-beams and rafters
[Greek: opai], while our people call these cavities columbaria
(dovecotes). Hence, the space between the tie-beams, being the space
between two "opae," was named by them [Greek: metopê].
5. The system of triglyphs and mutules was invented for the Doric order,
and similarly the scheme of dentils belongs to the Ionic, in which there
are proper grounds for its use in buildings. Just as mutules represent
the projection of the principal rafters, so dentils in the Ionic are an
imitation of the projections of the common rafters. And so in Greek
works nobody ever put dentils under mutules, as it is impossible that
common rafters should be underneath principal rafters. Therefore, if
that which in the original must be placed above the principal rafters,
is put in the copy below them, the result will be a work constructed on
false principles. Neither did the ancients approve of or employ mutules
or dentils in pediments, but only plain coronae, for the reason that
neither principal nor common rafters tail into the fronts of pediments,
nor can they overhang them, but they are laid with a slope towards the
eaves. Hence the ancients held that what could not happen in the
original would have no valid reason for existence in the copy.
6. For in all their works they proceeded on definite principles of
fitness and in ways derived from the truth of Nature. Thus they reached
perfection, approving only those things which, if challenged, can be
explained on grounds of the truth. Hence, from the sources which have
been described they established and left us the rules of symmetry and
proportion for each order. Following in their steps, I have spoken above
on the Ionic and Corinthian styles, and I shall now briefly explain the
theory of the Doric and its general appearance.
CHAPTER III
PROPORTIONS OF DORIC TEMPLES
1. Some of the ancient architects said that the Doric order ought not to
be used for temples, because faults and incongruities were caused by the
laws of its symmetry. Arcesius and Pytheos said so, as well as
Hermogenes. He, for instance, after getting together a supply of marble
for the construction of a Doric temple, changed his mind and built an
Ionic temple to Father Bacchus with the same materials. This is not
because it is unlovely in appearance or origin or dignity of form, but
because the arrangement of the triglyphs and metopes (lacunaria) is an
embarrassment and inconvenience to the work.
2. For the triglyphs ought to be placed so as to correspond to the
centres of the columns, and the metopes between the triglyphs ought to
be as broad as they are high. But in violation of this rule, at the
corner columns triglyphs are placed at the outside edges and not
corresponding to the centre of the columns. Hence the metopes next to
the corner columns do not come out perfectly square, but are too broad
by half the width of a triglyph. Those who would make the metopes all
alike, make the outermost intercolumniations narrower by half the width
of a triglyph. But the result is faulty, whether it is attained by
broader metopes or narrower intercolumniations. For this reason, the
ancients appear to have avoided the scheme of the Doric order in their
temples.
3. However, since our plan calls for it, we set it forth as we have
received it from our teachers, so that if anybody cares to set to work
with attention to these laws, he may find the proportions stated by
which he can construct correct and faultless examples of temples in the
Doric fashion.
Let the front of a Doric temple, at the place where the columns are put
up, be divided, if it is to be tetrastyle, into twenty-seven parts; if
hexastyle, into forty-two. One of these parts will be the module (in
Greek [Greek: embatês]); and this module once fixed, all the parts of
the work are adjusted by means of calculations based upon it.
4. The thickness of the columns will be two modules, and their height,
including the capitals, fourteen. The height of a capital will be one
module, and its breadth two and one sixth modules. Let the height of the
capital be divided into three parts, of which one will form the abacus
with its cymatium, the second the echinus with its annulets, and the
third the necking. The diminution of the column should be the same as
described for Ionic columns in the third book. The height of the
architrave, including taenia and guttae, is one module, and of the
taenia, one seventh of a module. The guttae, extending as wide as the
triglyphs and beneath the taenia, should hang down for one sixth of a
module, including their regula. The depth of the architrave on its under
side should answer to the necking at the top of the column. Above the
architrave, the triglyphs and metopes are to be placed: the triglyphs
one and one half modules high, and one module wide in front. They are to
be arranged so that one is placed to correspond to the centre of each
corner and intermediate column, and two over each intercolumniation
except the middle intercolumniations of the front and rear porticoes,
which have three each. The intervals in the middle being thus extended,
a free passage will be afforded to those who would approach the statues
of the gods.
5. The width of the triglyph should be divided into six parts, and five
of these marked off in the middle by means of the rule, and two half
parts at the right and left. Let one part, that in the centre, form a
"femur" (in Greek [Greek: mêros]). On each side of it are the channels,
to be cut in to fit the tip of a carpenter's square, and in succession
the other femora, one at the right and the other at the left of a
channel. To the outsides are relegated the semichannels. The triglyphs
having been thus arranged, let the metopes between the triglyphs be as
high as they are wide, while at the outer corners there should be
semimetopes inserted, with the width of half a module.
In these ways all defects will be corrected, whether in metopes or
intercolumniations or lacunaria, as all the arrangements have been made
with uniformity.
6. The capitals of each triglyph are to measure one sixth of a module.
Over the capitals of the triglyphs the corona is to be placed, with a
projection of two thirds of a module, and having a Doric cymatium at the
bottom and another at the top. So the corona with its cymatia is half a
module in height. Set off on the under side of the corona, vertically
over the triglyphs and over the middle of the metopes, are the viae in
straight lines and the guttae arranged in rows, six guttae broad and
three deep. The spaces left (due to the fact that the metopes are
broader than the triglyphs) may be left unornamented or may have
thunderbolts carved on them. Just at the edge of the corona a line
should be cut in, called the scotia. All the other parts, such as
tympana and the simae of the corona, are to be constructed as described
above in the case of the Ionic order.
7. Such will be the scheme established for diastyle buildings. But if
the building is to be systyle and monotriglyphic, let the front of the
temple, if tetrastyle, be divided into nineteen and a half parts; if
hexastyle, into twenty-nine and a half parts. One of these parts will
form the module in accordance with which the adjustments are to be made
as above described.
8. Thus, over each portion of the architrave two metopes and two
triglyphs[3] will be placed; and, in addition, at the corners half a
triglyph and besides a space large enough for a half triglyph. At the
centre, vertically under the gable, there should be room for three
triglyphs and three metopes, in order that the centre intercolumniation,
by its greater width, may give ample room for people to enter the
temple, and may lend an imposing effect to the view of the statues of
the gods.
[Note 3: That is: two metopes with a triglyph between them, and half
of the triglyph on either side.]
9. The columns should be fluted with twenty flutes. If these are to be
left plane, only the twenty angles need be marked off. But if they are
to be channelled out, the contour of the channelling may be determined
thus: draw a square with sides equal in length to the breadth of the
fluting, and centre a pair of compasses in the middle of this square.
Then describe a circle with a circumference touching the angles of the
square, and let the channellings have the contour of the segment formed
by the circumference and the side of the square. The fluting of the
Doric column will thus be finished in the style appropriate to it.
10. With regard to the enlargement to be made in the column at its
middle, let the description given for Ionic columns in the third book be
applied here also in the case of Doric.
Since the external appearance of the Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic
proportions has now been described, it is necessary next to explain the
arrangements of the cella and the pronaos.
CHAPTER IV
THE CELLA AND PRONAOS
1. The length of a temple is adjusted so that its width may be half its
length, and the actual cella one fourth greater in length than in width,
including the wall in which the folding doors are placed. Let the
remaining three parts, constituting the pronaos, extend to the antae
terminating the walls, which antae ought to be of the same thickness as
the columns. If the temple is to be more than twenty feet in width, let
two columns be placed between the two antae, to separate the pteroma
from the pronaos. The three intercolumniations between the antae and the
columns should be closed by low walls made of marble or of joiner's
work, with doors in them to afford passages into the pronaos.
2. If the width is to be more than forty feet, let columns be placed
inside and opposite to the columns between the antae. They should have
the same height as the columns in front of them, but their thickness
should be proportionately reduced: thus, if the columns in front are in
thickness one eighth of their height, these should be one tenth; if the
former are one ninth or one tenth, these should be reduced in the same
proportion. For their reduction will not be discernible, as the air has
not free play about them. Still, in case they look too slender, when the
outer columns have twenty or twenty-four flutes, these may have
twenty-eight or thirty-two. Thus the additional number of flutes will
make up proportionately for the loss in the body of the shaft,
preventing it from being seen, and so in a different way the columns
will be made to look equally thick.
3. The reason for this result is that the eye, touching thus upon a
greater number of points, set closer together, has a larger compass to
cover with its range of vision. For if two columns, equally thick but
one unfluted and the other fluted, are measured by drawing lines round
them, one line touching the body of the columns in the hollows of the
channels and on the edges of the flutes, these surrounding lines, even
though the columns are equally thick, will not be equal to each other,
because it takes a line of greater length to compass the channels and
the flutes. This being granted, it is not improper, in narrow quarters