Such are the main features of a Doric temple (those last mentioned not being peculiar to the Doric style).  Little has been said thus far of variation in these features.  Yet variation there was.  Not to dwell on local differences, as between Greece proper and the Greek colonies in Sicily, there was a development constantly going on, changing the forms of details and the relative proportions of parts and even introducing new features originally foreign to the style.  Thus the column grows slenderer from century to century.  In early examples it is from four to five lower diameters in height in the best period (fifth and fourth centuries) about five and one half, in the post classical period, six to seven.  The difference in this respect between early and late examples may be seen by comparing the sixth century Temple of Posidon (?) at Paestum in southern Italy (Fig. 57) with the third (?) century Temple of Zeus at Nemea (Fig. 58).  Again, the echinus of the capital is in the early period widely flaring, making in some very early examples an angle at the start of not more than fifteen or twenty degrees with the horizontal (Fig. 59); in the best period it rises more steeply, starting at an angle of about fifty degrees with the horizontal and having a profile which closely approaches a straight line, until it curves inward under the abacus (Fig. 51); in the post-classical period it is low and sometimes quite conical (Fig. 60).  In general, the degeneracy of post-classical Greek architecture is in nothing more marked than in the loss of those subtle curves which characterize the best Greek work.  Other differences must be learned from more extended treatises.

The Ionic order was of a much more luxuriant character than the Doric.  Our typical example (Fig. 61) is taken from the Temple of Priene in Asia Minor—­a temple erected about 340-30 B. C. The column has a base consisting of a plain square plinth, two TROCHILI with moldings, and a torus fluted horizontally.  The Ionic shaft is much slenderer than the Doric, the height of the column (including base and capital) being in different examples from eight to ten times the lower diameter of the shaft.  The diminution of the shaft is naturally less than in the Doric, and the entasis, where any has been detected, is exceedingly slight.  The flutes, twenty-four in number, are deeper than in the Doric shaft, being in fact nearly or quite semicircular, and they are separated from one another by flat bands or fillets.  For the form of the capital it will be better to refer to Fig. 62, taken from an Attic building of the latter half of the fifth century.  The principal parts are an ovolo and a spiral roll (the latter name not in general use).  The ovolo has a convex profile, and is sometimes called a quarter-round; it is enriched with an egg-and-dart ornament The spiral roll may be conceived as a long cushion, whose ends are rolled under to form the volutes.