[Illustration: Fig. 160.--Plan of the Temenos of Eleusis.]
Other Attic remains, some of which date from the end of the fifth century, also show traces of the deterioration of the art. Chief among these are the Propylæa of Eleusis and the house of assemblage for those initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, known as the Telesterion, a square hypostyle hall, fronted by a portico of twelve columns, apparently without a gable. (_Fig._ 160.) It is not known how soon after the Persian wars the temples of Rhamnous and Sunion were rebuilt; they may have slightly preceded the age of decline. The increasing love of magnificence and luxury felt among the Greeks was not satisfied with the simple majesty of the Doric style; the Ionic was more and more frequently substituted in preference. The latter had been employed for the Propylæa of the Athenian acropolis, and had appeared independently in smaller temples, and, finally, in the national shrine of Attica, the Erechtheion. The Doric became restricted to porticos and peristyles, and, in double-storied interiors, to the lower order, for which important constructional functions it was fitted by the great solidity of the column. But the desire to simplify the execution of Doric members, and reduce the expense which must have been attendant upon the delicate refinements of curvatures, introduced dry and hard geometrical forms, and the æsthetic value of the style was, for the greater part, lost. An example of this debasement is offered by the portico of Philip upon Delos, where the echinos projects in an absolutely straight line. (_Fig._ 151.) In the colonies, upon the other hand, even as late as the Roman period, the style was archaistically treated, with a provincial lack of good taste, illustrated by the weak echinos and apophyge of the capital of the so-called Temple of Demeter at Pæstum. (_Fig._ 152.)
An entirely different manner of building had early appeared by the side of the Doric style, which cannot be accounted of quite equal birth with that eldest male offspring of Hellenic civilization, but, to carry out the simile, should rather be considered as a step-sister. The development of the peripteral plan, the echinos coronation of the channelled shafts, and the entablature of triglyphs, metopes, and mutules, appear autochthonic and purely Greek; while the Ionic style, though adopting the plan and general disposition of the former, was, in its most characteristic details, an importation from Asia. It is not meant by this that the perfected style was not characteristically Hellenic. The Greeks accepted none of the products of their neighbors without a change--a transformation of disposition and detail by their peculiar genius. But the fundamental motives, the elements of the style, in as far as these are not identified with the Doric, had been taken from neighboring Eastern lands of primitive civilization: from the coasts of Asia Minor and Syria.