CARYATIDES

(Gr. »«gi;«, a nut tree.) In Architecture, figures used instead of columns to support an entablature. The origin of them, according to Vitruvius, is as follows — " Carya, acity of Peloponnesus, took part with the Per- 2 sians against the Grecian states. When the country was freed from its invaders, the Greeks turned their arms against the Caryans, and upon the capture of the city put the males to the sword, and led the women into captivity. The architects of that time, for the purpose of perpetuating the ignominy of this people, instead of columns in the porticos of their buildings, substituted statues of these women, faithfully copying their ornaments, and the drapery with which they were attired; the mode of which they were not permitted to change." The writer of th« articles on art in this work was the first author on architecture who endeavoured to show the want of truth in this account, and that on two grounds: — first, because the circumstance is not mentioned by any of the Greek historians; and secondly, because long previous to the time a igned by Vitruvius, figures of men, women, and animals were employed for this purpose. They appear to have acquired their name from their emploj-ment in temples to Diana, by whom the Lacedsemonians are supposed to have been made acquainted with the story of Carya, turned into anut tree by Bacchus, who at the same time transformed her sisters into stones, and thence worshipped under the name of Caryatis. From their employment in temples dedicated to the godde , they were used in other buildings as representations of the nymphs who a isted at the mysteries of the patron godde . The figure No. 1. above given is a Caryatid, from the Pandroseum at Athens; No. 2. is a Canephora (sec that word). When figures of the male sex are used they are called Persians. « [s. 211]