such as the Maison Carrée at Nîmes. End of Greek temple construction: Roman Greece In the early 1st century BCE, the Mithridatic Wars led to changes of architectural practice. The role of sponsor was increasingly taken by Roman magistrates of the Eastern provinces, who rarely demonstrated their generosity by building temples. Nevertheless, some temples were erected at this time, e.g. the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias. The introduction of the principate lead to few new buildings, mostly temples for the imperial cult or to Roman deities, e.g. the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek. Although new temples to Greek deities still continued to be constructed, e.g. the Tychaion at Selge they tend to follow the canonical forms of the developing Roman imperial style of architecture or to maintain local non-Greek idiosyncrasies, like the temples in Petra or Palmyra. The increasing romanisation of the east entailed the end of Greek temple architecture, although work continued on the completion of unfinished large structures like the temple of Apollo at Didyma or the Olympieion at Athens into the later 2nd century AD. Abandonment and conversion of temples: Late Antiquity The edicts of Theodosius I and his successors on the throne of the Roman Empire, banning pagan cults, led to the gradual closure of Greek temples, or their conversion into Christian churches. Thus ends the history of the Greek temples' original purpose, although many of them remained in use for a long time afterwards. For example, the Athenian Parthenon, first reconsecrated as a church was turned into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest and remained structurally unharmed until the 17th century AD. Only the unfortunate impact of a Venetian cannonball into the building, then used to store gunpowder, led to the destruction of much of this important temple, more than 2,000 years after it was built. Structure Canonical Greek temples maintained the same basic structure throughout many centuries. The Greeks used a limited number of spatial components, influencing the plan, and of architectural members, determining the elevation. Floor plan The central cult structure of the temple is the or cella, which usually contained a cult statue of the deity. In Archaic temples, a separate room, the so-called adyton was sometimes included after the for this purpose. In Sicily, this habit continued into the Classical period. and In front of the , there is a porch, the pronaos, created by the protruding side walls of the