sculptured groups resting on the shelf formed by the horizontal cornice below. Carved ornaments called _acroteria_ commonly embellished the three angles of the gable or pediment. [Illustration: FIG. 26.--GREEK DORIC ORDER. A, _Crepidoma, or stylobate_; b, _Column_; c, _Architrave_; d, _Tænia_; e, _Frieze_; f, _Horizontal cornice_; g, _Raking cornice_; h, _Tympanum of pediment_; k, _Metope_.] +POLYCHROMY.+ It has been fully proved, after a century of debate, that all this elaborate system of parts, severe and dignified in their simplicity of form, received a rich decoration of color. While the precise shades and tones employed cannot be predicated with certainty, it is well established that the triglyphs were painted blue and the metopes red, and that all the mouldings were decorated with leaf-ornaments, “eggs-and-darts,” and frets, in red, green, blue, and gold. The walls and columns were also colored, probably with pale tints of yellow or buff, to reduce the glare of the fresh marble or the whiteness of the fine stucco with which the surfaces of masonry of coarser stone were primed. In the clear Greek atmosphere and outlined against the brilliant sky, the Greek temple must have presented an aspect of rich, sparkling gayety. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--DORIC ORDER OF THE PARTHENON.] +ORIGIN OF THE ORDER.+ It is generally believed that the details of the Doric frieze and cornice were reminiscences of a primitive wood construction. The triglyph suggests the chamfered ends of cross-beams made up of three planks each; the mutules, the sheathing of the eaves; and the guttæ, the heads of the spikes or trenails by which the sheathing was secured. It is known that in early astylar temples the metopes were left open like the spaces between the ends of ceiling-rafters. In the earlier peripteral temples, as at Selinus, the triglyph-frieze is retained around the cella-wall under the ceiling of the colonnade, where it has no functional significance, as a survival from times antedating the adoption of the colonnade, when the tradition of a wooden roof-construction showing externally had not yet been forgotten.