ANTĔFIXA, terra-cottas, which exhibited various ornamental designs,
and were used in architecture to cover the frieze (_zophorus_) of
the entablature. These terra-cottas do not appear to have been used
among the Greeks, but were probably Etruscan in their origin, and
were thence taken for the decoration of Roman buildings. The name
_antefixa_ is evidently derived from the circumstance that they were
_fixed before_ the buildings which they adorned. Cato, the censor,
complained that the Romans of his time began to despise ornaments
of this description, and to prefer the marble friezes of Athens and
Corinth. The rising taste which Cato deplored may account for the
superior beauty of the antefixa preserved in the British Museum,
which were discovered at Rome.