ow that the pitch was not
steep, by the slope of the outline of the pediments, which formed, as
has already been said, perhaps the chief glory of a Greek temple. The
flat stone roofs sometimes used by the Egyptians, and necessitating
the placing of columns or other supports close together, seem to have
become disused, with the exception that where a temple was surrounded
by a range of columns the space between the main wall and the columns
was so covered.

The vaulted stone roofs of the archaic buildings, of which the
treasury of Atreus (Figs. 52, 52a) was the type, do not seem to have
prevailed in a later period, or, so far as we know, to have been
succeeded by any similar covering or vault of a more scientific
construction.

It is hardly necessary to add that the Greek theatres were not roofed.
The Romans shaded the spectators in their theatres and amphitheatres
by means of a velarium or awning, but it is extremely doubtful whether
even this expedient was in use in Greek theatres.

_The Openings._

The most important characteristic of the openings in Greek buildings
is that they were flat-topped,--covered by a lintel of stone or
marble,--and never arched. We have already[17] shown that this
circumstance is really of the first importance as determining the
architectural character of buildings. Doors and window openings were
often a little narrower at the top than the bottom, and were marked by
a band of mouldings, known as the architrave, on the face of the wall,
and, so to speak, framing in the opening. There was often also a small
cornice over each (Figs. 82, 83). Openings were seldom advanced into
prominence or employed as features in the exterior of a building; in
fact, the same effects which windows produce in other styles were in
Greek buildings created by the interspaces between the columns.

_The Columns._

These features, together with the superstructure or entablature, which
they customarily carried, were the prominent parts of Greek
architecture, occupying as they did the entire height of the building.
The development of the orders (which we have explained to be really
decorative systems, each of which involved the use of one sort of
column, though the term is constantly understood as meaning merely the
column and entablature) is a very interesting subject, and illustrates
the acuteness with which the Greeks selected from those models which
were accessible to them, exactly what was suited to thei