The general movement of art in Egypt may therefore be compared to that of art in Greece and Italy; and yet there is a difference. From the rise of Greek architecture until its decay, the proportions of its vertical members underwent a continual, _but consistent_, modification of their proportions. Century after century the figure in which their height was expressed proportionately with their bulk, became greater. In the height of the Doric columns of the old temple at Corinth there are fewer diameters than in those of the Parthenon, and in those of the Parthenon there are fewer than in the doric shafts of Rome. This tendency explains the neglect which befel this order about the fourth century before our era. In the sumptuous buildings of Asia Minor and Syria and of the "Lower Period" in Egypt, it was replaced by the graceful and slender outlines of the Ionic order. A similar explanation may be given of the favour in which the Corinthian order was held throughout the Roman world.
Such a development is not to be found in Egypt. The forms of Egyptian architecture did not become less substantial with the passage of the centuries. It is possible that familiarity with light structures of wood and metal had early created a taste for slender supports. The polygonal and faggot-shaped columns of Beni-Hassan are no thicker than those of far later times. A comparison of the columns at Thebes points to the same conclusion. The shortest and most thick-set in its proportions of them all (Fig. 78) is at Medinet-Abou, and is about two centuries later than those of the same order which decorate the second court at Luxor (Fig. 77). Its heaviness is even more apparent when we compare it with the great columns of a different order, at Karnak (Fig. 80), and the Ramesseum (Fig. 81), which precede it by at least a century.
The progress of Egyptian art was, then, less continuous and less regular than that of classic art. It had moments of rest, of exhaustion, even of retrogression. It was not governed by internal logical principles so severe as those of the Greeks.
The manner in which the capital is allied to the shaft below, and the architrave above shows changes of the same kind.
The first duty of the capital is to oppose a firm and individual contour to the monotony of the shaft. The constructor has to determine a point in the length of the latter where it shall cease to be, where its gradual diminution in section, a diminution which could not be prolonged to the architrave without compromising the safety of the building, shall be arrested. The natural office of the capital would seem to be to call attention to this point. The architect, therefore, gives it a diameter greater than that of the shaft at the point where they meet. This salience restores to the column the material which it has lost; it completes it, and determines its proportion, so that it is no longer capable of either increase or diminution.