Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Metopa

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

MET'OPA (μετόπη). A metope in Doric columnar architecture; i. e. the panel which covered the opening between the triglyphs (Vitruv. iv. 2. 4. iv. 3. 5.) in a frieze, sometimes left with a plain face, at others richly ornamented with sculpture, like those of the Parthenon, now preserved in the British Museum, and the annexed example (Metopa/1.1) from the Temple of Theseus at Athens. The triglyphs represent externally the heads of the tie-beams (tigna), and in the early wooden structures the space between one tie-beam and another (intertignium) was left open; so that a stranger could effect an entrance through them, as Orestes did into the temple of Diana at Tauris. Eurip. Iph. Taur. 113.

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  Metopa/1.1