A term transmitted by Vitruvius (3,3,13), a term, that however is not documented in Greek architectural inscriptions, for the swelling of the column, which is to express the tension of this architectural part under the load of the entablature. Together with the inclination and the curvature, the entasis forms the most important element of the optical refinements in Greek column construction; the entasis turns up in an extreme form in the archaic architecture of Western Greece (e.g. Paestum, ‘Basilica’), is reduced in the later 6th,…