Bassae a subtly curved floor, though the columns have entasis. The temple is unusual in that it has examples of all three of the classical orders used in ancient Greek architecture: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Doric columns form the peristyle while Ionic columns support the interior and a single Corinthian column features in the centre of the interior. The Corinthian capital is the earliest example of the order found to date. It was relatively sparsely decorated on the exterior. Inside, however, there was a continuous Ionic frieze showing Athenians in battle with Amazons and the Lapiths engaged in battle with Centaurs.
Ionic bonding cannot exist, as the proximity of the entities involved in the bonding allows some degree of sharing electron density between them. Therefore, all ionic bonding has some covalent character. Thus, bonding is considered ionic where the ionic character is greater than the covalent character. The larger the difference in electronegativity between the two types of atoms involved in the bonding, the more ionic (polar) it is. Bonds with partially ionic and partially covalent character are called polar covalent bonds. For example, Na–Cl and Mg–O interactions have a few percent covalency, while Si–O bonds are usually ~50% ionic and ~50% covalent.