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III.]
Architecture—Theory.
73

in gigantic monuments, such as that of the Parthenon, the Erectheium, or the Temple of the Olympian Jove.

Connected with the science of proportion they had also one more element, without which their eurythmic allotment of the succession of parts would have been cloying with too much sweetness. It is that of Symmetry; teaching them how to so balance the various parts of their structure as to gain by regular reduplication a continual sense of order and subjection to some common principle of regularity.

Such order and regularity the eye demands as the background and complement to and for all undulating form and irregular measure. The latter would be unfelt if the former were non-existent. And hence arise those infinitely subtle forms of contrast in architectural form which no people ever wielded with so great a mastery as the ancient Greeks. In their works Proportion, Eurythmia and Symmetria reached their utmost limits of perfection and refinement; and as their works under these heads reached the utmost limits of human perfection, one may fairly assume that the principles by which that perfection was attained were no less perfect than the works produced by them were excellent. It is deeply to be regretted that the Athenian canons under these heads should have come down to us only through the confused version of them given to us by Vitruvius.

The sixth branch of study dwelt upon by Vitruvius he designates under the head of Decorum, and by that we may consider to have been implied what we should call now, in structure, its prudence and fitness. Decorum measured out the precise amount of ornament to be incorporated in every part of the structure. It maintained the due relation of size between the various parts of a building; it prevented secondaries being drawn into the position of primaries, and vice versa; it gave extra stability to the parts intended either for defence or special dignity; it