Dine lying on couches: set three couches round three sides of a low table, the fourth side left open for serving, each couch taking up to three diners propped on the left elbow; the room is named for its three couches, the triclinium.
The temple faces west
Where nothing prevents it, turn the temple and the statue in its cella to face the west, so that those who come to the altar to sacrifice face the sunrise as they face the god.
Vitruvius gives the reason: those who make vows look towards the quarter from which the sun comes, and the statues themselves seem to rise out of the east to look on those who pray. Where the site does not allow it, as on a street or by a river, the temple is to be turned so that it can be seen from the street or the bank.
Greek practice had been the other way about: most Greek temples open to the east, with the altar in front of the east front, so that the morning sun falls through the door on the statue.
Related rules
Edge the beds before the portico with box, clip box into figures of animals set facing one another, and in the garden beyond cut it into many shapes, even into the letters of the owner’s name.
Set the altar to face the east, and always lower than the statues in the temple, so that those who pray and sacrifice look up towards the god; make it high for Jupiter and the gods of the sky, low for Vesta and Mother Earth.
Give the house of a man of rank spacious atriums and peristyles, with plantations and walks of some extent in them, as befits his dignity; in a country house put the peristyle first, then the atrium, with paved colonnades opening on to walks.
Lay out a city’s streets so that they do not line up with the directions of the principal winds, which otherwise rush down them cold, violent and unhealthy.
In a peripteral temple the flanks have twice as many intercolumniations as the front: six columns in front means eleven along each side, counting the corner columns twice.
side columns = 2n − 1 (Vitruvius) · 2n + 1 (Greek practice)
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The temple faces west”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/vitruvius-temple-west. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.