The Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand years, and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia.  It was used exclusively until after the Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly applied to temples.  The massive temples of Paestum, the colossal magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more elegant proportions of the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and Temple of Theseus, show the perfection of the Doric architecture.  Although the general style of all the Doric temples is so uniform, hardly two temples were alike.  The earlier Doric was more massive; the later was more elegant, and its edifices were rich in sculptured decorations.  Nothing could surpass the beauty of a Doric temple in the time of Pericles.  The stylobate, or general base upon which the columnar story stood, from two thirds to a whole diameter of a column in height, was built in three equal courses, which gradually receded upward and formed steps, as it were, of a grand platform.  The column, simply set upon the stylobate, without base or pedestal, was from four to six diameters in height, with twenty flutes, having a capital of half a diameter.  On this rested the entablature, two column-diameters in height, which was divided into architrave (lower mouldings), frieze (broad middle space), and cornice (upper mouldings).  The great beauty of the temple was the portico in front,—­a forest of columns supporting the triangular pediment, about a diameter and a half to the apex, making an angle at the base of about fourteen degrees.  From the pediment projects the cornice, while in the apex and at the base of the flat three-cornered gable are sculptured ornaments, generally the figures of men or animals.  The whole outline of columns supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of light and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals produces a grand effect.

The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of the Doric, has never been equalled, and it still stands august in its ruins, the glory of the old Acropolis and the pride of Athens.  It was built of white Pentelic marble, and rested on a basement of limestone.  It was two hundred and twenty-seven feet in length, one hundred and one in breadth, and sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted columns, six feet and two inches at the base and thirty-four feet in height, while within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range of columns standing before the end of the cella.  The frieze and the pediment were elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, and the cella, within and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of Phidias, The remains of the exquisite sculptures of the pediment and the frieze were in the early part of this century brought from Greece by Lord Elgin, purchased by the English government, and placed in the British Museum, where, preserved from further dilapidation, they stand as indisputable evidence of the perfection of Greek art.  The grandest