day, but from the 5th century BCE onward, payment by piece or construction stage became common. Costs The costs could be immense. For example, surviving receipts show that in the rebuilding of the Artemision of Ephesos, a single column cost 40,000 drachmas. Considering that a worker was paid about two drachmas, that equals nearly two million euro (at a modern western European wage scale). Since the overall number of columns required for the design was 120, even this aspect of the building would have caused costs equivalent to those of major projects today (circa 360 million euro). Temples of the different architectural orders One of the criteria by which Greek temples are classified is the Classical order chosen as their basic aesthetic principle. This choice, which was rarely entirely free, but normally determined by tradition and local habit, would lead to widely differing rules of design. According to the three major orders, a basic distinction can be made between the Doric, the Ionic and the Corinthian temple. Doric temples The modern image of Greek temple architecture is strongly influenced by the numerous reasonably well-preserved temples of the Doric order. Especially the ruins of Southern Italy and Sicily were accessible to western travellers quite early in the development of Classical studies, e.g. the temples at Paestum, Akragas or Segesta, but the Hephaisteion and the Parthenon of Athens also influenced scholarship and Neoclassical architecture from an early point onward. Beginnings The beginnings of Greek temple construction in the Doric order can be traced to early in the 7th century BCE. With the transition to stone architecture around 600 BCE, the order was fully developed; from then on, only details were changed, developed and refined, mostly in the context of solving the challenges posed by the design and construction of monumental temples. First monumental temples Apart from early forms, occasionally still with apsidal backs and hipped roofs, the first peripteral temples occur quite soon, before 600 BCE. An example is Temple C at Thermos, , a , surrounded by a of 5 × 15 columns, its divided in two aisles by a central row of columns. Its entirely Doric entablature is indicated by painted clay plaques, probably early example of metopes, and clay triglyphs. It appears to be the case that all temples erected within the spheres of influence of Corinth and Argos in the 7th century BCE were Doric . The earliest