Gods, Heroes, and Athletes: The Art of Ancient Greece

Terms	Definitions
abacus	The uppermost portion of the capital of a column.
acropolis	Greek, "high city." In ancient Greece, usually the site of the city's most important temple(s).
agora	An open square or space used for public meetings or business in ancient Greek cities.
aisle	The portion of a basilica flanking the nave and separated from it by a row of columns or piers.
Alexandros Of Antioch-On-The-Meander	Sculptor of Aphrodite or Venus de Milo, ca. 150-125 BCE. The base, which was inscripted with the artist's name, is now lost.
Amazonomachy	In Greek mythology, the legendary battle between the Greeks and Amazons.
amphiprostyle	The style of Greek building in which the colonnade was placed across both the front and back, but not along the sides.
andron	Dining room in a Greek house.
antae	The molded projecting ends of the walls forming the pronaos or opisthodomos of an ancient Greek temple.
apse	A recess, usually semicircular, in the wall of a Roman basilica or at the east end of a church.
apsidal	Rounded; apse shaped.
arch	A curved structural member that spans an opening and is generally composed of wedge-shaped blocks (voussoirs) that transmit the downward pressure laterally.See also thrust.
architrave	The lintel or lowest division of the entablature; also called the epistyle.
arrises	In Doric columns, the raised edges of the fluting.
attic	The uppermost story of a building.
balustrade	A railing held up by small posts, as on a staircase.
Baroque	A blanket designation for the art of the period 1600 to 1750.
basilica	In Roman architecture, a civic building for legal and other civic proceedings, rectangular in plan with an entrance usually on a long side. In Christian architecture, a church somewhat resembling the Roman basilica, usually entered from one end and with an apse at the other.
bilingual vases	Experimental Greek vases produced for a short time in the late sixth century BCE; one side featured black-figure decoration, the other red-figure.
black-figure painting	In early Greek pottery, the silhouetting of dark figures against a light background of natural, reddish clay, with linear details incised through the silhouettes.
caduceus	In ancient Greek mythology, a magical rod entwined with serpents carried by Hermes (Roman, Mercury), the messenger of the gods.
canon	A rule, for example, of proportion. The ancient Greeks considered beauty to be a matter of "correct" proportion and sought a canon of proportion, for the human figure and for buildings.
capital	The uppermost member of a column, serving as a transition from the shaft to the lintel. In classical architecture, the form of the capital varies with the order.
caryatid	A female figure that functions as a supporting column. See also atlantid.
cavea	Latin, "hollow place or cavity." The seating area in ancient Greek and Roman theaters and amphitheaters.
cella	The chamber at the center of an ancient temple; in a classical temple, the room (Greek, naos) in which the cult statue usually stood.
centaur	In ancient Greek mythology, a fantastical creature, with the front or top half of a human and the back or bottom half of a horse.
centauromachy	In ancient Greek mythology, the battle between the Greeks and centaurs.
chiton	A Greek tunic, the essential (and often only) garment of both men and women, the other being the himation, or mantle.
chryselephantine	Fashioned of gold and ivory.
cire perdue	See lost-wax process.
column	A vertical, weight-carrying architectural member, circular in cross-section and consisting of a base (sometimes omitted), a shaft, and a capital.
contrapposto	The disposition of the human figure in which one part is turned in opposition to another part (usually hips and legs one way, shoulders and chest another), creating a counterpositioning of the body about its central axis. Sometimes called "weight shift" because the weight of the body tends to be thrown to one foot, creating tension on one side and relaxation on the other.
Corinthian capital	A more ornate form than Doric or Ionic; it consists of a double row of acanthus leaves from which tendrils and flowers grow, wrapped around a bell-shaped echinus. Although this capital form is often cited as the distinguishing feature of the Corinthian order, there is, strictly speaking, no Corinthian order, but only this style of capital used in the Ionic order.
cornice	The projecting, crowning member of the entablature framing the pediment; also, any crowning projection.
course	In masonry construction, a horizontal row of stone blocks.
cuneus	(pl. cunei) In ancient Greek and Roman theaters and amphitheaters, wedge-shaped sections of stone benches separated by stairs.
Daedalic	Refers to a Greek Orientalizing style of the seventh century BCE named after the legendary Daedalus.
demos	The Greek word meaning "the people, " from which the word democracy is derived.
dipteral	See peristyle.
Doric	One of the two systems (or orders) evolved for articulating the three units of the elevation of an ancient Greek temple the platform, the colonnade, and the superstructure (entablature). The Doric order is characterized by, among other features, capitals with funnel-shaped echinuses, columns without bases, and a frieze of triglyphs and metopes. See also Ionic.
drum	One of the stacked cylindrical stones that form the shaft of a column; the cylindrical wall that supports a dome.
echinus	In architecture, the convex element of a capital directly below the abacus.
elevation	In architecture, a head-on view of an external or internal wall, showing its features and often other elements that would be visible beyond or before the wall.
emblema	The central section or motif of a mosaic.
encaustic	A painting technique in which pigment is mixed with wax and applied to the surface while hot.
entablature	The part of a building above the columns and below the roof. The entablature of a classical temple has three parts: architrave or epistyle, frieze, and pediment.
entasis	The convex profile (an apparent swelling) in the shaft of a column.
epistyle	See architrave.
fasciae	In the Ionic order, the three horizontal bands that make up the architrave.
fillets	In Ionic columns, the flat ridges of the fluting.
flute	or fluting Vertical channeling, roughly semicircular in cross-section and used principally on columns and pilasters.
foreshortening	The use of perspective to represent in art the apparent visual contraction of an object that extends back in space at an angle to the perpendicular plane of sight.
fret	or meander An ornament, usually in bands but also covering broad surfaces, consisting of interlocking geometric motifs. An ornamental pattern of contiguous straight lines joined usually at right angles.
frieze	The part of the entablature between the architrave and the cornice; also, any sculptured or painted band in a building. See register.
gigantomachy	In ancient Greek mythology, the battle between gods and giants.
glaze	A vitreous coating applied to pottery to seal and decorate the surface; it may be colored, transparent, or opaque, and glossy or matte. In oil painting, a thin, transparent, or semitransparent layer put over a color to alter it slightly.
Gnosis	Gnosis
gorgon	In ancient Greek mythology, a hideous female demon with snake hair. Medusa, the most famous gorgon, was capable of turning anyone who gazed at her into stone.
graver	An incising tool used by engravers and sculptors.
Hellenes	(adj. Hellenic) The name the ancient Greeks called themselves as the people of Hellas.
Hellenistic	The term given to the culture that developed after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE and lasted almost three centuries, until the Roman conquest of Egypt in 31 BCE.
herm	A bust on a quadrangular pillar.
himation	An ancient Greek mantle worn by men and women over the chiton and draped in various ways.
Hippodamian plan	A city plan devised by Hippodamos of Miletos ca. 466 BCE, in which a strict grid was imposed on a site, regardless of the terrain, so that all streets would meet at right angles.
hydria	An ancient Greek threehandled water pitcher.
hypaethral	A building having no pediment or roof, open to the sky.
in antis	In ancient Greek architecture, between the antae.
in situ	In place; in the original position.
interaxial	The distance between the center of the lowest drum of a column and the center of the next.
Ionic	One of the two systems (or orders) evolved for articulating the three units of the elevation of a Greek temple: the platform, the colonnade, and the superstructure (entablature). The Ionic order is characterized by, among other features, volutes, capitals, columns with bases, and an uninterrupted frieze.
Kallikrates	Kallikrates was one of the two architects of the Parthenon, active mid-5th century BC. He was responsible for the Temple of Athena Nike, also on the Acropolis.
kore	(pl.korai) Greek, "young woman." An Archaic Greek statuary type depicting a young woman.
kouros	(pl. kouroi) Greek, "young man." An Archaic Greek statuary type depicting a young man.
krater	An ancient Greek wide-mouthed bowl for mixing wine and water.
kylix	An ancient Greek shallow drinking cup with two handles and a stem.
lekythos	(pl. lekythoi) A flask containing perfumed oil; lekythoi were often placed in Greek graves as offerings to the deceased.
lost-wax process	(cire perdue) A bronze casting method in which a figure is modeled in wax and covered with clay; the whole is fired, melting away the wax and hardening the clay, which then becomes a mold for molten metal.
mausoleum	A monumental tomb. The name derives from the mid-fourth century BCE tomb of Mausolos at Halikarnassos, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
meander	or key See fret.
metope	The panel between the triglyphs in a Doric frieze, often sculpted in relief.
Mnesikles	Greek architect, 5th cent. b.c. He designed the propylaea, and the Erechtheum is also sometimes ascribed to him. Both are on the acropolis at Athens.
modeling	The shaping or fashioning of three-dimensional forms in a soft material, such as clay; also, the gradations of light and shade reflected from the surfaces of matter in space, or the illusion of such gradations produced by alterations of value in a drawing, painting, or print.
monolith	A column shaft that is all in one piece (not composed of drums); a large, single block or piece of stone used in megalithic structures.
mosaic	Patterns or pictures made by embedding small pieces (tesserae) of stone or glass in cement on surfaces such as walls and floors; also, the technique of making such works.
naos	See cella.
necking	A groove at the bottom of the ancient Greek Doric capital between the echinus and the flutes that masks the junction of capital and shaft.
nymphs	In classical mythology, female divinities of springs, caves, and woods.
opisthodomos	In Greek architecture, a porch at the rear of a temple, set against the blank back wall of the cella.
orchestra	Greek, "dancing place." In ancient Greek theaters, the circular piece of earth with a hard and level surface on which the performance took place.
order	In classical architecture, a style represented by a characteristic design of the columns and entablature. See also superimposed orders.
Orientalizing	The early phase of Archaic Greek art, so named because of the adoption of forms and motifs from the ancient Near East and Egypt.
orthogonal	A line imagined to be behind and perpendicular to the picture plane; the orthogonals in a painting appear to recede toward a vanishing point on the horizon.
orthogonal plan	The imposition of a strict grid plan on a site, regardless of the terrain, so that all streets meet at right angles. See also Hippodamian plan.
Paionios Of Ephesos	One of the architects, with Daphnis of Miletos, of the Temple of Apollo, Didyma, Turkey, begun 313 BCE.
palaestra	An ancient Greek and Roman exercise area, usually framed by a colonnade.
pebble mosaic	Mosaic made of irregularly shaped stones of various colors.
pediment	In classical architecture, the triangular space (gable) at the end of a building, formed by the ends of the sloping roof above the colonnade; also, an ornamental feature having this shape.
peplos	A simple long woolen belted garment worn by ancient Greek women.
peristyle	In ancient Greek architecture, a colonnade all around the cella and its porch(es). A peripteral colonnade consists of a single row of columns on all sides; a dipteral colonnade has a double row all around.
pinakotheke	Greek, "picture gallery;" a room or building for the exhibition of paintings on wooden panels.
plan	The horizontal arrangement of the parts of a building or of the buildings and streets of a city or town, or a drawing or diagram showing such an arrangement. In an axial plan, the parts of a building are organized longitudinally, or along a given axis; in a central plan, the parts of the structure are of equal or almost equal dimensions around the center.
polis	(pl. poleis) An independent city-state in ancient Greece.
Polydoros Of Rhodes	Polydoros Of Rhodes
portico	A roofed colonnade; also an entrance porch.
pronaos	The space, or porch, in front of the cella, or naos, of an ancient Greek temple.
prostyle	A style of ancient Greek temple in which the columns are only in front of the cella and not on the sides or back.
provenance	Origin or source; findspot.
raking cornice	The cornice on the sloping sides of a pediment.
red-figure painting	In later Greek pottery, the silhouetting of red figures against a black background, with painted linear details; the reverse of black-figure painting.
ridgepole	The beam running the length of a building below the peak of the gabled roof.
satyr	A part-human, part-goat male follower of the ancient Greek god Dionysos.
shaft	The tall, cylindrical part of a column between the capital and the base.
siren	In ancient Greek mythology, a creature that was part bird, part woman.
skenographia	Greek, "scene painting"; the Greek term for perspective painting.
skiagraphia	Greek, "shadow painting"; the Greek term for shading, said to have been invented by Apollodoros, an Athenian painter of the fifth century BCE.
slip	A mixture of fine clay and water used in ceramic decoration.
stoa	In ancient Greek architecture, an open building with a roof supported by a row of columns parallel to the back wall. A covered colonnade or portico.
stylobate	The uppermost course of the platform of a Greek temple, which supports the columns.
symmetria	Greek, "commensurability of parts." Polykleitos's treatise on his canon of proportions incorporated the principle of symmetria.
tesserae	Greek, "cubes." Tiny stones or pieces of glass cut to the desired shape and size to form a mosaic.
tetrarchy	Greek, "rule by four." A type of Roman government established in the late third century CE by Diocletian in an attempt to establish order by sharing power with potential rivals.
theatron	Greek, "place for seeing." In ancient Greek theaters, the slope overlooking the orchestra on which the spectators sat.
Theodoros Of Phokaia	Architect attributed with the design of the Tholos in Delphi, Greece, ca. 375 BCE.
Theotokos	Greek, "bearer of God." The Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.
thrust	The outward force exerted by an arch or a vault that must be counterbalanced by a buttress.
torque	The neck band worn by Gauls.
treasury	In ancient Greece, a small building set up for the safe storage of votive offerings.
trident	The three-pronged pitchfork associated with the ancient Greek sea god Poseidon (Roman, Neptune).
volute	A spiral, scroll-like form characteristic of the ancient Greek Ionic and the Roman Composite capital.
white-ground painting	An ancient Greek vase painting technique in which the pot was first covered with a slip of very fine white clay, over which black glaze was used to outline figures, and diluted brown, purple, red, and white were used to color them.

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Gods, Heroes, and Athletes: The Art of Ancient Greece

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