theion and Propylaea were probably built a few years
later, but their exact dates are also in doubt.

The sculptor, Phidias, was the friend and adviser of Pericles and to him
was given the general charge of all matters relating to art. Under him
were grouped architects, sculptors, and artisans of all schools and
trades--Ictinus and Calicrates as architects of the Parthenon, Mnesicles
of the Propylaea, and many others--such an assemblage as only Greece in
her most glorious epoch could bring together. The work of this period
shows that happy union of technical perfection and the expression of
only the loftiest ideas, in which, as Plutarch says, the architect made
it his ambition to "surpass the magnificence of his design with the
elegance of its execution."

The skill and delicacy as well as the subtle appreciation of refinements
of form and finish exhibited in the treatment of details such as those
shown in our plates are almost beyond comprehension. The workmanship is
so perfect that it is difficult to see how it could be improved upon.
Stuart, in his account of the Parthenon, states that he found two
stones, one merely laid upon the other in the stylobate of this
building, which had been ground to so fine a joint that they had
actually united and become one. The refinements in measurements are such
that it has been asserted that a variation of one twentieth of an inch
from the dimensions intended is all that need be allowed--the width of
the two ends of the building agreeing to within this amount. The entasis
of columns and curvature of what would ordinarily be straight lines is
familiar to all students of architecture.

Photographs of Greek architecture are by no means common or easy to
obtain, and the subjects given as illustrations of the present issue of
THE BROCHURE SERIES are presented, not as in the preceding numbers,
either all from a single building, or of similar features from several
buildings, but merely as fragments of detail, representing the period of
Greek art when architecture and sculpture had reached their highest
development.

[Illustration: LVII. Capital from the Parthenon, Athens.]

LVII.

CAPITAL FROM THE PARTHENON, ATHENS.

The Parthenon of Pericles was built on the site of an older temple as a
treasury, and repository of the colossal statue of Athena, made by
Phidias from gold and ivory. The Doric order, the capital of which is
shown in our plate, needs no description here as pr