eady to their hand when they began to use it; but
they refined it, at the same time losing no whit of its vigour or
effectiveness, and the honeysuckle has come to be known as a typical
Greek decorative _motif_. (3.) ACANTHUS (Figs. 84 and 85). This is a
broad-leaved plant, the foliage and stems of which, treated in a
conventional manner, though with but little departure from nature,
were found admirably adapted for floral decorative work, and
accordingly were made use of in the foliage of the Corinthian capital,
and in such ornaments as, for example, the great finial which forms
the summit of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.

[Illustration: FIG. 84.--THE ACANTHUS LEAF AND STALK.]

The beauty of the carving was, however, eclipsed by that highest of
all ornaments--sculpture. In the Doric temples, as, for example, in
the Parthenon, the architect contented himself with providing suitable
spaces for the sculptor to occupy; and thus the great pediments, the
metopes (Fig. 86) or square panels, and the frieze of the Parthenon
were occupied by sculpture, in which there was no necessity for more
conventionalism than the amount of artificial arrangement needed in
order fitly to occupy spaces that were respectively triangular,
square, or continuous. In the later and more voluptuous style of the
Ionic temples we find sculpture made into an architectural feature, as
in the famous statues, known as the Caryatides, which support the
smallest portico of the Erechtheium, and in the enriched columns of
the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. Sculpture had already been so employed
in Egypt, and was often so used in later times; but the best
opportunity for the display of the finest qualities of the sculptor's
art is such an one as the pediments, &c., of the great Doric temples
afforded.

[Illustration: FIG. 85.--THE ACANTHUS LEAF.]

There is little room for doubting that all the Greek temples were
richly decorated in colours, but traces and indications are all that
remain: these, however, are sufficient to prove that a very large
amount of colour was employed, and that probably ornaments (Figs. 105
to 120) were painted upon many of those surfaces which were left plain
by the mason, especially on the cornices, and that mosaics (Fig. 87)
and coloured marbles, and even gilding, were freely used. There is
also ground for believing that as the use of carved enrichments
increased with the increasing adoption of the Ionic and Corinthian
styl