The lay -- out of the second great peripteral
temple an the Acopolis may be explained as a reaction to the early
archaic plan of the temple C that matured under
the influence of new ideas that came from the Greek motherland. The eccessive archaic length is drastically reduced with only 13
columns being placed on the long sides. At the same time the ratio of the interaxes is inverted so that now they are larger at the sides
than on the facades.
But most important, the second colonnade of the eastern side is eliminated.
This side seems rather to melt into the facade of the cella itself thanks to the contrivance that not onlv places the two
columns between the heads (antae) of the walls of the pronaos but the formation
of the antae themselves in the shape of 3/4 columns, whicch makes them appear, together with
the two central columns, as a real prostyle tetrastyle colonnade. But the facade of
the cella itself is rather special while the spatial ratios of the remainder, both
of the inside of the cella and of the peristasis, are unchanged. The modernity of this new
solution is particularly evident from the comparison with temple F of the
Eastern Hill, where the second colonnade is obviously too close to
the frent of the cella. The ample discussion of the problem between contemporary architects who wish to stress
the fact that the cella itself is the centre of the cult, is evident also from a comparison
with the lay - outs of the two coeval temples of Paestum in Magna Grecia. Tha measurements of the elevation and specially the
remaining problems in the proportioning of tbc members of the entablature, on
the other hand, permit a glimpse of how many evolutionary steps are still missing before arriving at the
equilibrium of the classic order of the two temples E
and the temple A.
Il Tempio D sorge a
nord di quello C: periptero esastilo, misura 56 X 24 metri ed ha la cella con
adito e
pronao prostilo; le colonne, 6 X 13, erano alte 7,51 metri ed hanno un numero vario di
scanalature.
Ad est di esso, sono stati ritrovati i resti di un tempietto in
antis, probabilmente di
epoca arcaica.
Questa zona comprende anche un megaron arcaico, lungo l'arteria est-ovest,
probabilmente il pių antico edificio sacro, ed il cosėdetto tempio
Y, megaron
anch'esso, dal quale si presume provengano le sei metope raffiguranti
Artemide, Latona,
Apollo, la Sfinge alata, il ratto di Europa, Eracle in lotta col toro, Demetra e Kore, una
quadriga. Presentano tratti arcaici. L'area su cui sorgono i templi C e D č occupata da resti di edifici e di altari.