For a capital city historically known as the “Athens of the South,” a stately Greek Revival was really the only option for their capitol building. Designed by William Strickland, and set atop a hill overlooking the city, the timeless building was modeled after a Greek Ionic temple, with a cupola patterned after the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, rather than a dome. Although the cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1845, the building would take fourteen years to complete; construction outlasted Strickland, who died in 1854, and was interred in a tomb he designed in the building’s northeast corner. Constructed of Bigby limestone, excavated, shaped and transported by slave and convict…