ARCHĬTECTŪRA (ἀρχιτεκτονία, ἀρχιτεκτονική), architecture. The
necessity 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 COLUMNA, &c. 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 business, with the necessary edifices
appertaining to it [AGORA, FORUM], and the whole class of works which
we embrace under the head of civil engineering, such as those for
drainage [CLOACA, EMISSARIUS], for communication [VIA, PONS], and
for the supply of water [AQUAE DUCTUS]. Almost equally necessary are
places devoted to public exercise, health, and amusement, GYMNASIUM,
STADIUM, HIPPODROMUS, CIRCUS, BALNEUM, THEATRUM, AMPHITHEATRUM.
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,
COLUMNA. 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 Polycrates at Samos.
Architecture now assumed decidedly the character of a fine art, and
became associated with the sister arts of sculpture and painting,
which are essential 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 Hippodamus 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 Augustus, 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 process 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 Augustus and his successors, especially the Flavii, Nerva, Trajan,
Hadrian, and the Antonines, at Rome and in the provinces; but from
the time of the Antonines 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 Justinian, 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.