3. The principles of Lycurgus, however, we repeat did not in the least degree retard the progress of real architecture. Indeed we know that in the embellishment of their sacred edifices the Dorians employed a style of building which they themselves invented, from the strict principles of which they never deviated, and which at the same time they took the utmost care to bring to perfection. That they were in strictness the _original inventors_ of this style of architecture has been first satisfactorily proved by the remarkable discoveries of modern times, which have laid open to us the monuments of the unknown ages of Greece in all their strange peculiarities. The treasury of Atreus is indeed the only example now extant of a class of buildings doubtless once very numerous;(1234) but its paraboloidal construction distinguishes it as well from the later Grecian as the oriental style of architecture. Near this structure some fragments of columns have been discovered by modern travellers,(1235) remarkable both for the variety of their forms and the richness of their ornaments; still the spot on which they were found, as well as their singular shape, leave no doubt that they belong to the same unknown period. They consist, first, of the base of a fluted column, with a plinth, and also a torus of elliptical outline, decorated with an alternation of projecting and receding compartments, the former of which have in some cases an ornament of spiral lines; secondly, a fragment of the shaft of a column of bronze-coloured marble, similarly ornamented with compartments; thirdly, a very small fragment of a capital; and, lastly, a tablet of white marble, with a species of ornament in imitation of shells. There are in the British Museum two tablets of light green and dark red marble, both taken from the treasury of Atreus, which have the spiral lines above mentioned, and are worked very elaborately, though without mathematical precision.(1236) We have given this description of a style of architecture, not strictly belonging to our subject, in order to direct the reader’s attention to these most remarkable remains of Grecian sculpture, which are quite sufficient to convince us that the building to which they belong, thus adorned with party-coloured stones, and probably covered in the interior with plates of bronze, may be reckoned as the monument of a time when a semi-barbarous style of architecture prevailed throughout Greece.