e monoliths, but as a rule the Greek columns were all built of
drums, sometimes as many as ten or twelve. There was no base to the
Doric column, but the shafts were fluted, 20 flutes being the usual
number. In the Archaic Temple of Diana at Ephesus there were 52 flutes.
In the later examples of the Ionic order the shaft had 24 flutes. In the
Roman temples the shafts were very often monoliths.

Columns were occasionally used as supports for figures or other
features. The Naxian column at Delphi of the Ionic order carried a
sphinx. The Romans employed columns in various ways: the Trajan and the
Antonine columns carried figures of the two emperors; the columna
rostrata (260 B.C.) in the Forum was decorated with the beaks of ships
and was a votive column, the miliaria column marked the centre of Rome
from which all distances were measured. In the same way the column in
the Place Vendome in Paris carries a statue of Napoleon I.; the monument
of the Fire of London, a finial with flames sculptured on it; the duke
of York's column (London), a statue of the duke of York.

With the exception of the Cretan and Mycenaean, all the shafts of the
classic orders tapered from the bottom upwards, and about one-third up
the column had an increment, known as the _entasis_, to correct an
optical illusion which makes tapering shafts look concave; the
proportions of diameter to height varied with the order employed. Thus,
broadly speaking, a Roman Doric column will be eight, a Roman Ionic
nine, a Corinthian ten diameters in height. Except in rare cases, the
columns of the Romanesque and Gothic styles were of equal diameter at
top and bottom, and had no definite dimensions as regards diameter and
height. They were also grouped together round piers which are known as
clustered piers. When of exceptional size, as in Gloucester and Durham
cathedrals, Waltham Abbey and Tewkesbury, they are generally called
"pillars," which was apparently the medieval term for column. The word
_columna_, employed by Vitruvius, was introduced into England by the
Italian writers of the Revival.

In the Renaissance period columns were frequently banded, the bands
being concentric with the column as in France, and occasionally richly
carved as in Philibert De L'Orme's work at the Tuileries. In England
Inigo Jones introduced similar features, but with square blocks
sometimes rusticated, a custom lately revived in England, but of which
there are few examples either in