ARCHĬTECTŪRA

( ἀρχιτεκτονία , ἀρχιτεκτονική ), architecture. The nece ity for a habitation, and the attempt to adorn those habitations which were intended for the gods, are the two causes from which the art derives its existence. In early times little attention was paid to domestic architecture. The resources of the art were lavished upon the temples of the gods; and hence the greater part of the history of Grecian architecture is inseparably connected with that of the temple, and has its proper place under Templum , and the subordinate headings, such as Column a , . But, though the first rise of architecture, as a fine art, is connected with the temple, yet, viewed as the science of construction, it must have been employed, even earlier, for other purposes, such as the erection of fortifications, palaces, treasuries, and other works of utility. Accordingly, it is the general opinion of antiquaries, that the very earliest edifices, of which we have any remains, are the so-called Cyclopean works, in which we see huge unsquared blocks of stone built together in the best way that their shapes would allow. [ Murus . ] In addition to these, however, there are other purposes for which architecture, still using the term in its lower sense, would be required in a very early stage of political society; such as the general arrangement of cities, the provision of a place for the transaction of public busine , with the nece ary edifices appertaining to it [ Agora , Forum ], and the whole cla of works which we embrace under the head of civil engineering, such as those for drainage [ Cloaca , Emi arius ], for communication [ Via , Pons ], and for the supply of water [ Aquae duct us ]. Almost equally nece ary are places devoted to public exercise, health, and amusement, Gymnasium , Stadium , Hippodromus , Circus , Balneum , The at rum , A mph i the at rum . Lastly, the skill of the architect has been from the earliest times employed to preserve the memory of departed men and past events; and hence we have the various works of monumental and triumphal architecture, which are described under the heads Funus , Arcus , Column a . The history of architecture may be divided into five periods. The first, which is chiefly mythical, comes down to the time of Cypselus, Ol. 30, B.C. 660: the second period comes down to the termination of the Persian war, Ol. 75. 2, B.C. 478: the third is the brilliant period from the end of the Persian war to the death of Alexander the Great, Ol. 114, B.C. 323: the fourth period extends to the battle of Actium, B.C. 31: the fifth period embraces the architecture of the Roman empire till it became mingled with the Gothic. Strongly fortified cities, palaces, and treasuries are the chief works of the earlier part of the first period; and to it may be referred most of the so-called Cyclopean remains; while the era of the Dorian invasion marks, in all probability, the commencement of the Dorian style of temple architecture. In the second period the art made rapid advances under the powerful patronage of the aristocracies in some cities, as at Sparta, and of the tyrants in others, as Cypselus at Corinth, Theagnes at Megara, Cleisthenes at Sicyon, the Peisistratids at Athens, and Poly crates at Samos. Architecture now a umed decidedly the character of a fine art, and became a ociated with the sister arts of sculpture and painting, which are e ential to its development. Magnificent temples sprung up in all the principal Greek cities; and while the Doric order was brought almost, if not quite, to perfection, in Greece Proper, in the Doric colonies of Asia Minor, and in Central Italy and Sicily, the Ionic order appeared, already perfect at its first invention, in the great temple of Artemis at Ephesus. The ruins still existing at Paestum, Syracuse, Agrigentum, Selinus, Aegina, and other places, are imperishable monuments of this period. To it also belong the great works of the Roman kings. The commencement of the third and most brilliant period of the art was signalized by the rebuilding of Athens, the establishment of regular principles for the laying out of cities by Hippo dam us of Miletus, and the great works of the age of Pericles, by the contemporaries of Phidias, at Athens, Eleusis, and Olympia. The first part of the fourth period saw the extension of the Greek architecture over the countries conquered by Alexander, and, in the West, the commencement of the new style, which arose from the imitation, with some alterations, of the Greek forms by Roman architects, to which the conquest of Greece gave, of course, a new impulse. By the time of August us, Rome was adorned with every kind of public and private edifice, surrounded by villas, and furnished with roads and aqueducts; and these various erections were adorned by the forms of Grecian art; but already Vitruvius begins to complain that the purity of that art is corrupted by the intermixture of heterogeneous forms. This proce of deterioration went on rapidly during the fifth period, though combined at first with increasing magnificence in the scale and number of the buildings erected. The early part of this period is made illustrious by the numerous works of August us and his succe ors, especially the Flavii, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the An to nines, at Rome and in the provinces; but from the time of the An to nines the decline of the art was rapid and decided. In one department a new impulse was given to architecture by the rise of Christian churches, which were generally built on the model of the Roman Basilica. One of the most splendid specimens of Christian architecture is the church of S. Sophia at Constantinople, built in the reign of Just in i an, A.D. 537, and restored, after its partial destruction by an earthquake, in 554. But, long before this time, the Greco-Roman style had become thoroughly corrupted, and that new style, which is called the Byzantine, had arisen out of the mixture of Roman architecture with ideas derived from the Northern nations.