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It is necessary to know many histories, for architects often design many ornaments in their works, and they must be able to provide the reason for these to those who ask about the arguments behind them. For instance, if anyone sets up marble statues of women wearing robes, which are called caryatides columns in the shape of women, as columns in a work, and places over them moldings and cornices, he will provide this reason to those who inquire: When the city of Carya in the Peloponnese conspired with the Persian enemy against Greece, the Greeks, after being gloriously freed from the war by victory, declared war on the Caryatids by common counsel. Thus, having captured the town, killed the men, and destroyed the city, they led their matrons into slavery. They did not allow them to lay aside their robes or matronly ornaments, so that they would appear not in one triumph, but as an eternal example of servitude, pressed by grave humiliation, seeming to pay the penalty for their city. Therefore, the architects of that time designed in public buildings their images placed to carry the load, so that the penalty for the sin of the Caryatids would be handed down to the memory of posterity.

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