CARIATIDES,
Statues in the Shape of Women without Arms, habited genteelly, which served for Ornament and Support to the Chapi∣ters of Pillars in Edifices. Vitruvius in L. 2. C. 1. of his Architecture, relates the Story of them thus,
That the Inhabitants of Caria, which was a City of Peloponnesus, in former times had joyn'd with the Persians when they made War against the People of Greece; and that the Greeks having put an End to that War by their glorious Victories, declared afterwards to the Cariates, that their City being taken and ruin'd, and all their Men put to the Sword, their Women should be carried away Captive; and that to make the Disgrace the more re∣markable, their Ladies of Quality should not be suffered to put off their Garments, nor any of their usual fine Dresses. Now to make the Ca∣riates an everlasting Monument of the Punish∣ment they had endured, and to inform Poste∣rity what it was, the Architects of that Time instead of Pillars, placed this sort of Statues in publick Buildings.Some remains of this sort of ancient Statues are still to be seen at Rome. Montiosius, who had much ado to find out some Signs of these Cariatides, which Pliny says were placed by Diogenes, an Athenian Ar∣chitect to serve for Pillars in the Pantheon, re∣lates that he saw Four of them in the Year 1580, which were buried in the Ground as high as the Shoulders on the Right-side of the Portico, in Demi-relief, and which sustain'd upon their Heads a kind of Architrave of the same Stone. This kind of Cariatides is still to be seen at Bourdeaux in a very ancient Building which they call Tuteles; as also in the old Louvre at Paris in the Hall of the Swiss Guards: They are Sta∣tues Twelve Foot high, and support a Gallery enriched with Ornaments which are very well cut, done by Goujon, Architect and Engraver to Henry II.