Corinthian order simply an example of a votive column. A few examples of Corinthian columns in Greece during the next century are all used "inside" temples. A more famous example, and the first documented use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a structure, is the circular Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, erected c. 334 BC. A Corinthian capital carefully buried in antiquity in the foundations of the circular "tholos" at Epidaurus was recovered during modern archaeological campaigns. Its enigmatic presence and preservation have been explained as a sculptor's model for stonemasons to follow in erecting the temple dedicated to
Ancient Greek architecture Ionic and foliate in the Corinthian. Doric and usually Ionic capitals are cut with vertical grooves known as "fluting". This fluting or grooving of the columns is a retention of an element of the original wooden architecture. The columns of a temple support a structure that rises in two main stages, the entablature and the pediment. The entablature is the major horizontal structural element supporting the roof and encircling the entire building. It is composed of three parts. Resting on the columns is the architrave made of a series of stone "lintels" that spanned the space between the columns, and