caryatides
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Caryatides at the Acropolis in Athens
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(Plural of caryatis, literally "a woman of Caryae"), a name given
to female figures in Greek architecture, when used instead of columns to
support an entablature. The traditional account of the origin of the name
is that the inhabitants of Caryae, a city in Arcadia, having joined the
Persians after the battle of Thermopylae, the Greeks, after their victory
over the Persians, destroyed the town, slew the men, and carried the women
into captivity. As males figures representing the Persians were already
used for this purpose, it occurred to Praxiteles, and other Athenian artists,
that female Caryatides, in their national costume, might be thus employed
to commemorate the disgrace of their country. Male figures used for the
same purpose are called Atlantes. The caryatides which form the portico
of St Pancras Church (1822) in London are a reproduction from the Erchtheum
on the Acropolis at Athens.
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