The part of the building over the walls and the columns, the entablature, comprised the architrave, the frieze and the cornice. Initially, the entablature was either made wholly of wood, or it was wooden with a ceramic facing. Later on, a part of it was made of stone or marble, but its roofing remained in clay except in some special cases, as in the Parthenon where even that was marble. The roof, wooden or sculptured in stone, usually had the form of decorated successive square set backs, which were called coffers. The two inclining sides of the roof created the pediment, on its narrow sides a triangular space, the back side of which was enclosed by a vertical wall, the tympanum. In the early years, the pediment was decorated by relief representations and later by mainly sculptures. Floral motifs or statues, known as acroteria, were also placed on the six angles of the saddle roof.

The Greeks mostly used two types of roof tiling. The Laconian type, where the pan-tiles and the cover-tiles are convex, and the Corinthian one, where both these elements are flat. One third category, less frequent, combines flat pan-tiles with convex cover-tiles and is called Sicelian. The pan-tiles of the eaves of the roof ended in a vertical section, the sima, intended to drain the rainwater. The sima had openings for the flow of water, which were usually decorated with lion heads. Respectively, the cover-tiles of the eaves of the roof, which were called antefixes, ended in human heads or heads of mythical beings and later in palmettes. The central cover-tiles on the ridge of the roof were also decorated with palmettes.

The decoration, either sculptured or painted, interchanged with the plain surfaces. Over the simple structure the columns with the flutes rose, crowned by the decorated capital. Following, there was the plain architrave and the decorated frieze. Finally, in the simple and plain walls the roof juxtaposed with a rich decoration of forms on the pediment, acroteria and sima.