BASE, in Architecture, is used for any body which bears another, but particularly for the lower part of a column and pedestal.—The ancients, in the early times of architecture, used no bases. The Doric columns in the temple of Minerva at Athens have none, but stand immediately upon the floor of the porch. Columns came afterwards to be supported on square pieces called plinths, and after that on pedestals. When we see a column, of whatsoever order, on a pedestal, the base is that part which comes between the top of the pedestal, and the bottom of the shaft of the column; when there is no pedestal, it is the part between the bottom of the column and the plinth: some have included the plinth as a part of the base; but it is properly the piece on which the base stands, as the column stands upon that.—The pedestal also has its base, as well as the column, and the pilaster. The base of columns is differently formed in the different orders; but in general it is composed of certain spires or circles, and was thence in early times called the spire of a column. These circles were in this case supposed to represent the folds of a snake as it lies rolled up; but they are properly the representations of several larger and smaller rings or circles of iron, with which the trunks of trees, which were the ancient columns, were surrounded to prevent their bursting: these were rude and irregular, but the sculptor who imitated them in stone found the way to make them elegant.