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The fluted columns, lifted up on the marble stylobate which has been trodden by the feet of Pericles and Phidias, are huge in girth, and rise to a height of between thirty and forty feet.

Stylobate, stī′lō-bāt, n. the substructure of a temple beneath the columns.

This vast rotunda, forming the grand base of the Monument, is surrounded by 30 columns of massive proportions, being 12 feet in diameter and 45 feet high, elevated upon a lofty base or stylobate of 20 feet elevation and 300 feet square, surmounted by an entablature 20 feet high, and crowned by a massive balustrade 15 feet in height.

Burton's original idea was to embellish the main piers with groups of trophies; to place the figure of a warrior on each stylobate; to enrich the base with a sculptural representation of an ancient triumph; to place a statue over each column; and various other embellishments.

Had the architect wished equality of height for the eastern and western colonnades he would have been compelled to place the stylobate of the western two courses lower.