(Athena) statue. If the concept bespoke megalomania, the cost suggested pure spendthrift lunacy. Over 2,500 pounds of gold-worth more than 3,500,000 drachmas-had gone into it, and another 1,386,000 drachmas had been expended on ivory, wood, sculptors’ fees, and miscellaneous expenses. By any estimate the total bill far outstripped the cost of the Parthenon itself. The building project of the Old Parthenon never reached completion, for when the columns were still half erected and no more than a few courses of the inner chambers, or cella, had been laid, all buildings on the Acropolis abruptly ceased. Modern visitors to the Acropolis can still see dark pinkish marks, indelibly seared into the stone that indicate where the Older Parthenon’s scaffolding went up in flames. The Parthenon is a Doric peripheral temple, which means that it consists of a rectangular floor plan with a series of low steps on every side, and a colonnade (8 x 17) of Doric columns extending around the periphery of the entire structure. Each entrance has an additional six columns in front of it. The larger of the two interior rooms, the Naos, housed the cult statue. The smaller room was used as a treasury. The Naos is probably the most picturesquely interesting part of the temple because it was the room, which contained the Phidian statue of Athena. Everything above the floor of this room at the east end has disappeared except a few of the first wall course stones. The eastern room was 29.8 m long by 19.2 m wide (98 ft x 63 ft), with internal Doric colonnades in two tiers, structurally necessary to support the roof timbers. The three main types of columns used in Greek temples and other public buildings are Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The truest and most basic difference among the orders has to do with proportions. Doric is not only a type of column, but an “order”; this means that temples of the Doric order not only have this t...
