Page:Vitruvius the Ten Books on Architecture.djvu/159

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5. Some take the arrangement of columns belonging to the Tuscan order and apply it to buildings in the Corinthian and Ionic styles, and where there are projecting antae in the pronaos, set up two columns in a line with each of the cella walls, thus mak­ing a combination of the principles of Tuscan and Greek build­ings.

6. Others actually remove the temple walls, transferring them to the intercolumniations, and thus, by dispensing with the space needed for a pteroma, greatly increase the extent of the cella. So, while leaving all the rest in the same symmetrical proportions, they appear to have produced a new kind of plan with the new name "pseudoperipteral." These kinds, however, vary according to the requirements of the sacrifices. For we must not build tem­ples according to the same rules to all gods alike, since the per­formance of the sacred rites varies with the various gods.

7. I have now set forth, as they have come down to me, all the principles governing the building of temples, have marked out under separate heads their arrangements and proportions, and have set forth, so far as I could express them in writing, the dif­ferences in their plans and the distinctions which make them un­like one another. Next, with regard to the altars of the immortal gods, I shall state how they may be constructed so as to conform to the rules governing sacrifices.


CHAPTER IX

ALTARS


Altars should face the east, and should always be placed on a lower level than are the statues in the temples, so that those who are praying and sacrificing may look upwards towards the divin­ity. They are of different heights, being each regulated so as to be appropriate to its own god. Their heights are to be adjusted thus: for Jupiter and all the celestials, let them be constructed as high as possible; for Vesta and Mother Earth, let them be built