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The Small Temple of Victory
A perfect miniature on the southern bastion
A jewel of a temple, no larger than a modest room, perched on the bastion that guards the gateway from the south. It is the first Ionic building on the citadel and one of the most quietly elegant structures of the ancient world.
Four columns front and back
The temple is amphiprostyle tetrastyle — a precise way of saying that it has four slender Ionic columns at the front and four at the back, and no columns along the sides. Its proportions are so exact that it has been measured by architects for two and a half millennia.
The wingless Victory
The goddess inside was depicted without wings, so she could never fly away from the city. The image is lost; the legend, tenacious.
The frieze of battle
A narrow band of carved relief once ran around the building, showing scenes of combat and the seated assembly of the gods. The fragments are now sheltered indoors; from below you can still read the pediment line against the sky.