One more interesting occurrence of the Ionic order
in Greece proper may be mentioned, viz., in the Philippeum at
Olympia (about 336 B.C.). This is a circular building, surrounded
by an Ionic colonnade. Still other types of building afforded
opportunity enough for the employment of this style.
After what has been said of the gradual changes in the Doric
order, it will be understood that the Ionic order was not the same
in the sixth century as in the fifth, nor in the fifth the same as
in the third. The most striking change concerns the spiral roll of
the capital. In the good period the portion of this member which
connects the volutes is bounded below by a depressed curve,
graceful and vigorous. With the gradual degradation of taste this
curve tended to become a straight line, the result being the
unlovely, mechanical form shown in Fig. 71 (from a building of
Ptolemy Philadelphus, who reigned from 283 to 246 B.C.). Better
formed capitals than this continued for some time to be made in
Greek lands; but the type just shown, or rather something
resembling it in the disagreeable feature noted, became canonical
with Roman architects.
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