Of the remaining monuments of this order, few can be ascribed to the best ages of Grecian taste. It became the favorite style after Alexander, and especially of the Romans, to whom is to be attributed by far the greater part of the Corinthian remains now in Greece. The circular erection of Lysicrates, commonly termed, from the occasion commemorated, the Choragic Monument, built 342 B. C.; the octagonal edifice of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, apparently not much later; most probably the magnificent remains of the temple of the Olympian Jupiter; and, according to Stuart, another ruin, which he calls the _Poikele Stoa_, or painted portico, compose the sole remains of the order prior to the Roman conquest. The first is one of the most exquisite and perfect gems of architectural taste, and the purest specimen of the order, that has reached our time, whose minuteness and unobtrusive beauty have preserved it almost entire amid the ruins of the mightiest piles of Athenian art. The second is curious in its contrivance to supply ignorance of the arch. The fourth is of doubtful antiquity; but of the third, the columns, at least, are of the best age of Greece. These, composed of the finest white marble, and of the most perfect workmanship, with an elevation of nearly sixty feet, and belonging to an edifice four hundred long, awaken emotions of regret, of magnificence, and of beauty, difficult to comprehend or to impart. In thus briefly following out the history of the orders, as far as researches can be authenticated by remaining examples, the narrative has conducted us to the death of Alexander, A. C. 324, while it has included the consideration of every essential principle, for the Greeks never widely deviated from their established modes. The caryatic supports of the Temples of the Nymph Pandrosos, still almost perfect at Athens, and the Persian portico said to have been at Sparta, form the only exceptions to this observation. These, however, were never imitated--they were suffered as individual fantasies--not allowed as models. The period just considered, comprehending a space of about 113 years from Pericles to Alexander, was occupied almost exclusively with the perfecting and application of the Ionic and Corinthian orders. The art had now attained, in all its modes, the highest character of purity and magnificence.