Pythius, also known as Pytheos or Pythis, was a Greek architect

Architecture of Ancient Greece

The architecture of Ancient Greece is the architecture produced by the Greek-speaking people whose culture flourished on the Greek mainland and Peloponnesus, the Aegean Islands, and in colonies in Asia Minor and Italy for a period from about 900 BC until the 1st century AD, with the earliest...

 of the 4th century BCE. He built the Temple of Athena Polias cited by Vitruvius

Vitruvius

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....

 (I.1.12): "Pythius, the celebrated builder of the temple of Minerva at Priene".

Pythius disparaged the Doric order

Doric order

The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...

, according to Vitruvius (IV.3.1), for the "faults and incongruities" caused by the inconvenient placing of triglyph

Triglyph

Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze, so called because of the angular channels in them, two perfect and one divided, the two chamfered angles or hemiglyphs being reckoned as one. The square recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric...

s, and cultivated instead the Ionic order

Ionic order

The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...

 used extensively in Asia Minor

Asia Minor

Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

. The dedicatory inscription, of the Temple of Athena which today is in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

, records that the founder was Alexander the Great. Vitruvius

Vitruvius

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....

 (I.1.12 and VII.Introduction.12) twice mentions the lost Commentaries of Pythius, which explicated his system of proportions at Priene.

Pythius and Satyros

Satyros

Satyros or Satyrus was an Greek architect in the 4th century BC. Along with Pythius of Priene, he designed and oversaw the construction of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus....

 were the co-designers of the great Mausoleum at Halicarnassus on the Aegean Sea

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

 opposite Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, with Pythius being creditted with the great marble quadriga

Quadriga

A quadriga is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast . It was raced in the Ancient Olympic Games and other contests. It is represented in profile as the chariot of gods and heroes on Greek vases and in bas-relief. The quadriga was adopted in ancient Roman chariot racing...

which surmounted the mausoleum.