About
Before it was completed, this Doric temple was abandoned.
A wonderfully well preserved Doric temple stands atop a hill overlooking the Gulf of Castellammare, just outside the ruins of the ancient city of Segesta. The old structure is thought to have been built around 420 BC by an architect from Athens, and is regularly deemed the best surviving example of Doric architecture in Europe. The Doric order was one of the three orders of Greek and Roman architecture (the other two are Ionic and the Corinthian), and this temple, which fortunately survived the destruction that ensued during the Carthaginian sacking of Segesta, is a fantastic relic from that architectural era.
