Doric order

Order, any of several styles of classical or Neoclassical architecture that are defined by the particular type of column and entablature they use as a basic unit. A column consists of a shaft together with its base and its capital. The column supports a section…

The Doric order was invented in the second half of the 7th century, perhaps in Corinth. Its parts—the simple, baseless columns, the spreading capitals, and the triglyph-metope (alternating vertically ridged and plain blocks) frieze above the columns—constitute an aesthetic development in stone that incorporated variants on…

…the Greek Doric, the Roman Doric order almost invariably had a base molding that was probably taken from the Etruscan Doric or Tuscan column. Examples of Roman Doric are to be found in the Tabularium (78 bc), Rome, and in the lowest order of the Colosseum (ad 80), where it…

On a Doric temple, for instance, the metope frieze offered a series of rectangular plaques for reliefs that could accommodate two or three figures. There was a tendency in the Archaic period to let the action run on from one metope to the next, regardless of the…

…Etruscan invention, and the Etruscan-style Doric column (rather than the Greek version) became a mainstay of architecture of both the Renaissance and the later Classical revival. Etruscan influence on the ancient theatre survives in their word for “masked man,” phersu, which became persona in Latin and person in English.…