Basilica at Paestum
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Basilica at Paestum
The Basilica is a Doric temple (characteristics of the Doric order include a pincushion shaped echinus, alternating triglyphs and metopes, and unbased columns). This style was preferred in the western Greek colonies. In my further research, I found that the Basilica still has the colonnades of the peristyle and part of the central interior colonnade (http://www.bluffton.edu). It was made of local stone and is about 80 x 170 feet (the building is rectangular in shape). In looking at the picture in our textbook (Culture and Values, page 47), it has nine columns in the front which sits on a stylobate. The columns (which have no base) are strong bulging structures that hold up an architrave. There are eighteen such columns on the side. The architecture is characteristic of the Archaic Greek period...