[Illustration: Fig. 161.--Ionic Order from the Peripteros of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassos.]
[Illustration: Fig. 162.--Plan of the Normal Ionic Capital.]
[Illustration: Fig. 163.--Plan of the Corner Ionic Capital.]
The capital consisted, in part, of an echinos, similar to that of the Doric style, the leaves, which, at least in one instance, had been painted upon it, being here carved, and an astragal taking the place of the necking rings. This echinos is almost entirely covered by a spiral roll, which gives to the style its most striking characteristic. With the discovery of the helix upon the capitals of Assyrian reliefs, all the labored explanations of the significance and derivation of this member have fallen to the ground. It is impossible to believe, with Vitruvius, that the Ionic column was considered as the representative of the fair sex: that the locks of hair were indicated by the spiral line of the capital, the folds of the wide garments and draperies by the flutes and fillets, and the sandals by the base. Nor are the theories more satisfactory which seek for such natural motives as spiral shells or twisted ram’s horns, assumed to have been primitive ornaments of the sanctuaries. And it is still worse to regard the peculiar form of the capital as decided by the conception of an elastic cushion, which, displaced by the weight of the entablature, curls again at either side of the echinos. The Ionic helix was a form of capital imported from the East, where it had been used by barbaric designers as a mere ornament upon upright legs of furniture (_Fig._ 81), or upon Persian columns (_Fig._ 80)--a form developed by the Greeks into an architectural member of the first importance. The Assyrians, by doubling the volutes, had formed with this motive a capital not particularly well adapted to the functions of a transitional member between vertical support and horizontal burden. The Hellenic architect perceived that a more decided projection was necessary, and therefore placed an echinos beneath the volute, leaving the roll as the medium between the circular shaft and oblong entablature, which, in the Doric style, had been formed by the abacus. The horizontal lines of the abacus, thus supplanted, were represented upon the Ionic column only by a narrow moulding, curved to the profile of a cyma and sculptured with a leaved ornament. In the Greek capital the spirals became an elegantly curved roll, of greater length than breadth, with tightly curled ends, which were bound together, upon either side of the echinos, by a band. The capital thus shows its true profile, the helices upon front and back, and upon the subordinate sides rolls of their thickness. (_Fig._ 161.) This difference between face and side resulted in one great difficulty upon the corners, which, like the irregularity of the division of the Doric frieze of triglyphs and metopes in the same place, proves that the Ionic style also did not originate upon the peripteral plan, but was adapted to it from a temple in antis. It was natural that the more ornamental side of the column should face the entrance front, and thus the capitals upon the longer sides of the building were forced to show their rolls, the _partie honteuse_, unless the corner capital assumed an unnatural deformation to present the helices upon two adjoining, instead of two opposite, faces. (_Figs._ 162 and 163.) The corner capital thus became a miserable hybrid, which, because of the impossibility of its execution in a natural manner, from the intersection of the outer volutes when these proceeded in a straight line parallel to the epistyle, lost not only all constructive significance and harmony with those next to it, but also its individual beauty. There was no other expedient than to bend the faces of the corner volutes outward in the line of the diagonal--a malformation visible at every standpoint. A further difficulty was presented by the corners of the spirals over the echinos, which required to be masked by floral decorations. Upon the narrow abacus moulding rested the entablature, remarkable for the Oriental character of the details, and notably for reminiscences of primitive wooden construction, which are almost as evident in the Ionic as in the Doric style. The epistyle, formed in the latter by a single plane block, was here triply stepped to agree with the multiplied beams required by the nature of Oriental timber--generally provided by the various species of palms. According to the description of Vitruvius, the motive was also employed for the wooden epistyle beams of Etruscan temples.