The crowning members of the cornice are carried around the sloping lines of the triangular pediments at each end of the building. On the pediments were sculptured the figure subjects that had usually some relation to the divinity to whom the temple was dedicated; as, for example, on the Parthenon pediment the story of the birth of Athene was the subject executed and designed by Phidias, who also was the sculptor of the celebrated Panathenic frieze that adorned the outer part of the cella of the Parthenon. Ictinus was the architect of the Parthenon and also of the temples of Apollo Epicurius at Bassæ and at Phigallia, both in Arcadia. The Parthenon was finished about B.C. 438. [Illustration: Fig. 301.—Temple on the Ilissus; Greek Ionic.] The Greek Ionic order in its capital and ornaments is quite distinct from the Doric, and has more mouldings. The general plan of the temple is the same as in the Doric, but the proportions of the various parts are more slender. It has been generally thought that the Ionic volute was a development of the volutes from the Persian capital at Persepolis, but it is more likely, as before stated (on page 87), that their prototype is found on capitals derived from the Egyptian lotus. The architrave is sometimes plain and sometimes divided into three facias. The frieze was usually occupied with sculpture, and the base of the column was composed of a double torus, with a hollow between; the lower torus was plain, and the upper one fluted (Fig. 301). The Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the Erectheum, and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus were among the finest examples of the Ionic order. The Corinthian order was more Roman than Greek, though of Greek invention, and was a rich type of architecture that suited the growing vanity for love of display with the Romans, who eagerly appropriated it in the second century B.C., and erected many fine buildings in this order; but often enriching the mouldings and all plain spaces almost beyond recognition. The most perfect and truly beautiful example of the Greek Corinthian is the small Choragic monument of Lysikrates at Athens (Frontispiece). Its praises and merits have been spoken and written of by almost every architect of eminence; it may be said of it and of the Parthenon that for proportion, and for marvellous unity of parts, and also for the perfect marriage of sculpture with architecture, no buildings have ever been erected to equal them.