_Antæ._—Pilasters, as well as columns, belong to an Order, and in modern practice are frequently substituted indifferently for columns, where the latter would be _engaged_ or attached to a wall. In Grecian architecture, however, the _antæ_,—as they are thus termed, to distinguish them from other pilasters,—are never so employed. They are never placed consecutively, or in any series, but merely as a facing at the end of a projecting wall, as where a portico is enclosed at each end by the walls forming the sides of the structure, in which case it is described as a portico _in antis_. Although they accompany columns, and in the case just mentioned range in the same line with them, antæ differ from them, inasmuch as their shafts are not diminished; for which reason their faces are not made so wide as the diameter of the columns, neither are their capitals treated in the same manner, as both shaft and capital would be exceedingly clumsy. The expanding echinus of the column capital is therefore suppressed, and one or more very slightly projecting _faciæ_, the uppermost of which is frequently hollowed out below, so as to form in section what is called the ‘bird’s beak’ moulding. In a portico _in antis_ the want of greater congruity between the antæ and the columns is made up for by various contrasts. Flatness of surface is opposed to rotundity, vertical lines to inclined ones (those of the outline and flutings of the column), and uniformity, in regard to light, to the mingled play of light and shade on the shafts of the columns. Instead of attempting to keep up similarity as far as possible, the Greeks made a studied distinction between antæ and columns, not only in those respects which have been noted above, but carried difference still further, inasmuch as they never channeled the faces of their antæ, whereas the moderns flute their pilasters as well as columns. Hardly was such marked distinction a mere arbitrary fashion; it is more rational to suppose that it was adopted for sufficient æsthetic reasons and motives; nor is it difficult to account, according to them, for the omission of channeling on the shafts of antæ. Upon a plain surface the _arrises_ between the channels would have occasioned an unpleasing harshness and dryness of effect, as is the case with fluted Doric pilasters, and would have been attended with monotony also, the lines being all vertical, and consequently parallel to each other; whereas in the column, the channels diminish in breadth upwards, and all the lines are inclined, and instead of being parallel, converge towards each other, so that were the shaft sufficiently prolonged, they would at last meet in a common point or apex similar to that of a spire. Owing to this convergency, the lines on one side of a vertical line dividing the column, or rather a geometrical drawing or _elevation_ of it, into two halves, instead of being parallel, are opposed to each other, like the opposite sides of