A wide interval of time and a great contrast in taste separate the early works of Pelasgic masonry and even the chamber at Mycenæ from even the rudest and most archaic of the remaining Hellenic works of Greece. The Doric temple at Corinth is attributed, as has been stated, to the seventh century B.C. This was a massive masonry structure with extremely short, stumpy columns, and strong mouldings, but presenting the main features of the Doric style, as we know it, in its earliest and rudest form. Successive examples (Figs. 53 to 53b) show increasing slenderness of proportions and refinement of treatment, and are accompanied by sculpture which approaches nearer and nearer to perfection; but in the later and best buildings, as in the earliest and rudest, certain forms are retained for which it seems impossible to account, except on the supposition that they are reproductions in stone or marble of a timber construction. These occur in the entablature, while the column is of a type which it is hard to believe is not copied from originals in use in Egypt many centuries earlier, and already described (chap. II.). We will now proceed to examine a fully-developed Greek Doric temple of the best period, and in doing so we shall be able to recognise the forms referred to in the preceding paragraph as we come to them. The most complete Greek Doric temple was the Parthenon, the work of the architect Ictinus, the temple of the Virgin Goddess Athene (Minerva) at Athens, and on many accounts this building will be the best to select for our purpose.[10] [Illustration: FIG. 54.--RUINS OF THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS.] The Parthenon at Athens stood on the summit of a lofty rock, and within an irregularly shaped enclosure, something like a cathedral close; entered through a noble gateway.[11] The temple itself was of perfectly regular plan, and stood quite free from dependencies of any sort. It consisted of a cella, or sacred cell, in which stood the statue of the goddess, with one chamber (the treasury) behind. In the cella, and also in the chamber behind, there were columns. A series of columns surrounded this building, and at either end was a portico, eight columns wide, and two deep. There were two pediments, or gables, of flat pitch, one at each end. The whole stood on a basement of steps; the building, exclusive of the steps, being 228 ft. long by 101 ft. wide, and 64 ft. high. The columns were each 34 ft. 3 in. high, and more than 6 ft. in diameter at the base; a portion of the shaft and of the capital of one is in the British Museum, and a magnificent reproduction, full size, of the column and its entablature may be seen at the École des Beaux Arts, Paris. The ornaments consisted almost exclusively of sculpture of the very finest quality, executed by or under the superintendence of Pheidias. Of this sculpture many specimens are now in the British Museum. [Illustration: FIG. 55.--PLAN OF THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS.]