The Ionic column betrays this relationship in both base and capital. The former consists fundamentally of a tore elevated upon a drum, usually hollowed by a scotia. This tore was employed as a footing for the columns of Nineveh, and is familiar through one example and through representations upon reliefs. From thence it was transplanted to Persia, where, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., it appears with the horizontal channelling found upon the more primitive Ionic monuments. (_Fig._ 79.) The concave profile of the under plinth is new and Hellenic. The delicate perception of the Greek designer recognized the advantage of this scotia over the clumsy heaviness which had resulted from the tore being placed immediately upon the ground or upon a rectangular slab, and the lower member was made to harmonize with the channelled moulding above it by the emphasis of horizontal lines. It is uncertain whether the slender proportions of the Ionic shaft, so marked in comparison with the strength of the Doric style, is to be attributed to Oriental influences. It agreed as well with the light Ionic entablature and ceiling as did the powerful Doric column with the great weight imposed upon it; and it may be regarded as one of the principles of architectural construction that the strength of the support has ever been originally determined by the weight of the ceiling and superstructure: the column has been adapted to the entablature, not the height of epistyle, frieze and cornice to the diameter of the shaft. With this consideration agreed the desire to attain great elegance and lightness of proportion, peculiar to the Ionic race. The Ionic column, thus made of greater proportional height, had diminution and entasis like the Doric. It differed remarkably in the fluting. A vertical grooving cannot be traced upon the columns of Assyria; upon those of Persia it is similar to the Doric channels, with sharp arrises. The development of the flute itself may perhaps be deemed peculiarly Greek. As painted ornaments were gradually given up, they were replaced by architectural carvings; such sculptured decorations were harmoniously introduced upon the shaft, and the channels were deepened to a semicircular profile. This rendered a change of the arrises necessary, for if the ends of the arcs were to have abutted, as upon the Doric column, the deep flute, with its extremely sharp edge, could only have been executed upon a plane. Upon a convexly curved surface, like that of the cylindrical drums, it would have been impossible to cut semicircular grooves immediately adjoining, as their outlines would have intersected. The sharp arrises were therefore relinquished, and a broad vertical band, the surface of the original cylinder, was left in its place, the play of light and shade which enlivened the body of the shaft being increased by these flutings, but the evidence of the derivation of the channelled column from the polygonal pier was entirely sacrificed, the cylindrical form being characterized as original by the remaining fillets. The carving of the shaft was rendered more difficult from the slight projections left at the top and bottom as transitional members to the base and to the capital. This horizontal fillet was a further gain to the outline of the column, concave and convex surfaces thus alternating from floor to ceiling. The flutings were terminated above and below, before reaching this transverse member, by a semicircle, which agreed with their sectional outline.