buildings, halls, theaters, porticoes, and especially the temples.

TEMPLES. The temples were not intended to hold hundreds of worshipers
like the large churches of Europe and America to-day. Religious
ceremonies were most often carried on in the open air. The Parthenon,
the most famous temple of Ancient Times, was small. Its principal room
measured less than one hundred feet in length. Part of this room was
used for an altar and for the ivory and gold statue of the goddess
Athena.

[Illustration: THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS AS IT IS TO-DAY]

THE PARTHENON. In a picture of the Parthenon, or of a similar temple,
we notice the columns in front and along the sides. The Parthenon had
eight at each end and seventeen on each side. They were thirty-four
feet high. A few feet within the columns on the sides was the wall of
the temple. Before the vestibule and entrances at the front and at the
rear stood six more columns. The beauty of the marble from which
stones and columns were cut might have seemed enough, but the builders
carved groups of figures in the three-cornered space (called the
pediment) in front between the roof and the stones resting upon the
columns. The upper rows of stones beneath the roof and above the
columns were also carved, and continuous carvings (called a frieze)
ran around the top of the temple wall on the outside. The temple was
not left a glistening white, but parts of it were painted in blue, or
red, or gilt, or orange.

[Illustration: THE TOP OF THE ACROPOLIS 2000 YEARS AGO The
Parthenon is the large temple on the right]