It has been noted that the first sight of the Parthenon usually inspires the visitor with a sense of its strength and stability. This effect is produced by another of the subtleties of the Greeks in approaching perfection in the Parthenon. Only one with technical knowledge would ever suspect that its columns and walls are other than perpendicular; yet, with the exception of the transverse wall which divides the cella into its two rooms, all of them are inclined toward the center. If all were projected on their axes, they would meet in a cluster five thousand, eight hundred and fifty-six feet above the base of the temple. One of the major problems that confronted the builders of the Parthenon at Nashville related to the arrangement of the columns of the Naos. Prior to the research work in connection with the Nashville reproduction, the preponderance of authority favored the theory that the Doric columns of the Naos were monoliths. This matter was settled definitely by the work done by Mr. William Bell Dinsmoor, of New York, who represented the builders in the archaeological end of the work. As has been said, nothing remained of the interior of the original Parthenon after the explosion of 1687 except the floor and fragments of the walls. One of these fragments happened to be in the end of the building in the southeast corner of the Naos. Sticking in it, Mr. Dinsmoor discovered a small piece of the architrave and a discoloration of the wall revealing where the remainder had been. This discovery fixed the fact of an architrave and, following very closely, the further fact that there were columns superimposed on each other with an architrave between. The architecture of the Parthenon will always carry with it elements of the mystical and the mysterious to modern minds, accustomed as they are to the solution of engineering problems by rule. The more the Parthenon is considered, the more interesting it seems. [Illustration: Floor of Treasury or West Room Showing Arrangement of Ionic Columns and Figures from Elgin Marbles of Iris and Heracles] The Sculptures of the Parthenon The sculptures of the Parthenon occur in four groups: the Ionic or inner frieze, the Doric or outer frieze, the east pediment, and the west pediment. As the subtlety of the builders of the Parthenon emphasized their intellect, so the sculptures emphasized their religion. The Greeks were not idolaters in the sense that they bowed down to gold and ivory. They loved to chisel in marble the beautiful forms that represented to them their gods who dwelt on Mount Olympus. A characteristic of the Greeks of this period was that, in their art, they always presented their goddesses fully clothed and, almost always, their gods in the nude.