ion of a Greek building was always simple
however great its extent, was well judged for effect, and capable of
being understood at once. The grandest results were obtained by simple
means, and all confusion, uncertainty, or complication were
scrupulously avoided. Refined precision, order, symmetry, and
exactness mark the plan as well as every part of the work.

The plan of a Greek temple may be said to present many of the same
elements as that of an Egyptian temple, but, so to speak, turned
inside out. Columns are relied on by the Greek artist, as they were by
the Egyptian artist, as a means of giving effect; but they are placed
by him outside the building instead of within its courts and halls.
The Greek, starting with a comparatively small nucleus formed by the
cell and the treasury, encircles them by a magnificent girdle of
pillars, and so makes a grand structure, the first hint or suggestion
being in all probability to be found in certain small Egyptian
buildings to which reference has already been made. The disposition of
these columns and of the great range of steps, or stylobate, is the
most marked feature in Greek temple plans. Columns also existed, it is
true, in the interior of the building, but these were of smaller size,
and seem to have been introduced to aid in carrying the roof and the
clerestory, if there was one. They have in several instances
disappeared, and there is certainly no ground for supposing that in
any Greek interior the grand but oppressive effect of a hypostyle hall
was attempted to be reproduced. That was abandoned, together with the
complication, seclusion, and gloom of the long series of chambers,
cells, &c., placed one behind another, just as the contrasts and
surprises of the series of courts and halls following in succession
were abandoned for the one simple but grand mass built to be seen from
without rather than from within. In the greater number of Greek
buildings a degree of precision is exhibited, to which the Egyptians
did not attain. All right angles are absolutely true; the setting-out
(or spacing) of the different columns, piers, openings, &c., is
perfectly exact; and, in the Parthenon, the patient investigations of
Mr. Penrose and other skilled observers have disclosed a degree of
accuracy as well as refinement which resembles the precision with
which astronomical instruments are adjusted in Europe at the present
day, rather than the rough-and-ready measurements of a modern