all the arches, and form in fact the principal features of the deco

rations.

Even tradition is silent regarding the date of these remarkable ruins. The style of architecture, however, certainly points to a period anterior to the age of Constantine, but not so early as the time of Aurelian and the flourishing days of Palmyra. They are probably nearly coeval with those at Diarbekr. It is difficult, however, to speak at all confidently, as we are so entirely ignorant of the local circumstances of the place at the time the buildings were erected, and local peculiarities often influence a style as much as the age in which it flourished.

With the accession of the Sassanians, A.D. 223, Persia regained much of that power and stability to which she had been so long a stranger. The capture of the Roman Emperor Valerian by the 2nd king of the race, the conquest of Armenia and victories over Galerius by the 7th, and the exploits of the 14th, Bahram Gaur, and his visit to India and alliance with its kings, all point to extended power abroad; while the improvement in the fine arts at home indicates returning prosperity and a degree of security unknown since the fall of the Achæmenidæ.

These kings seem to have been of native race, and claimed descent from the older dynasties; at all events they restored the ancient religion, and many of the habits and customs with which we are familiar as existing before the time of Alexander the Great.

As before remarked, the fire-worship does not admit of temples, and we consequently miss that class of buildings which in all ages best illustrates the beauties of architecture; and it is only in a few scattered remains of palaces that we are able to trace the progress of the style. Such as they are, they indicate considerable originality and power, but at the same time a state of society when attention to security hardly allowed the architect the free exercise of the more delicate ornaments of his art.

The Sassanians took up the style where it was left by the builders of Al Hadhr, but we only find it after a long interval of time, during which changes had taken place which altered it to a considerable extent, and made it in fact into a new and complete style.

They retained the great tunnel-like halls of Al Hadhr, but only as entrances. They cut bold arches through the dividing walls, so as to form them into lateral suites. But above all they learnt to place domes on the intersections of their halls, not resting on drums, but on pendentives,' and did not even attempt to bring down simulated lines of support to the ground. Besides all these constructive peculiarities, they lost all trace of Roman detail, but adopted a system of long reedlike pilasters, extending from the ground to the cornice, below which

These are expedients for filling up the corners of square lower stories on which it is intended to place a circular superstructure. They somewhat resemble very large brackets

or corbels placed in an angle. Examples of them will be found in the chapter on Mahometan Architecture in India, further

on.

they were joined by small semicircular arches. They in short adopted all the peculiarities which are found in the Byzantine stvle as carried out at a later age in Armenia and the East. We must know more of this style, and be able to ascribe authentic dates to such examples as we are acquainted with, before we can decide whether the Sassanians borrowed the style from the Eastern Romans, or whether they were in fact the inventors from whom the architects of the more western nations took the hints which they afterwards so much improved upon.

The various steps by which the Romans advanced from the construction of buildings like the Pantheon to that of the church of St. Sophia at Constantinople are so consecutive and so easily traced, that they are intelligible in themselves without the necessity of seeking for any foreign element which may have affected them. If it really was so, and the architecture of Constantinople was not influenced from the East, we must admit that the Sassanian was an independent and simultaneous invention, possessing characteristics well worthy of study. It is quite certain too that this style had a direct influence on the Christian and Moslem styles of Asia, which exhibit many features which they could not have derived from any of the more western styles.

A few examples will render this clearer than it can be made in words. The plan and section (woodcuts No. 303 and No. 304) of a

B

304. Section on line A B of Palace at Serbistan. From a drawing in Flandin and Coste's Voyage en Perse. Scale 50 ft. to 1 in.

small but interesting palace at Serbistan will explain most of the peculiarities of the style. The entrances, it will be observed, are deep tunnel-like arches, but the centre is covered by a dome resting on pendentives, not filling up the angles by a great bracket, as was usual with the Romans, but constructed by throwing a series of arches across them, as shown in the woodcut, so as to convert the square into the circular form required. The dome too is elliptical, not semicircular, and is the next step to the pointed or conical dome, which was necessarily introduced in the more rainy climates further north. Being of brick, the building depended externally on stucco for its ornaments; and this having perished, we are left without the means of judging of its details or ornamental features.

In the lateral halls, pillars are placed at some distance from the walls, from which heavy transverse ribs spring. The builders thus

obtained the means of counteracting the thrust of the vault, without breaking the outline by buttresses externally, and without occupying much room on the floor, while at the same time these projections added considerably to the architectural effect of the interior. The date of this building is not correctly known, but most probably it belongs to the age of Shapour in the middle of the third century.

The palace at Firouzabad is probably a century more modern, and erected on a far more magnificent scale, being in fact the typical building of the style, so far at least as we at present know.

As will be seen in the plan (woodcut No. 305) the great central entrance opens laterally into two side chambers, and these into a suite of three splendid domed apartments, occupying the whole width of the building. Beyond this is an inner court, surrounded by apartments all opening upon it.

As will be perceived from the woodcut No. 306, representing one of the doorways in the domed halls, the details have nothing Roman about them, but are borrowed directly from Persepolis, with so little change that the style, so far as we can now judge, is almost an exact reproduction. The portion of the exterior represented in woodcut No. 307 tells the same tale, though for its prototype we must go back still further to the ruins at Wurka-the building called Wuswus at that place (see page 185) being a palace arranged very similarly to these, and adorned externally by panellings and reeded pilasters, differing from these buildings only in detail and arrangement, but in all essentials so like them as to prove that the Sassanians borrowed most of their peculiari- 306. Doorway at Firouzabad. From Flandin ties from earlier native examples.

and Coste.

10 feet.

The building itself is a perfectly regular parallelogram, 332 ft. by 180, without a single break, or even an opening of any sort, except

the one great arch of the entrance; and externally it has no ornament but the repetition of the tall pilasters and narrow arches represented in woodcut No. 307. Its aspect is thus simple and severe, but more

307. Part of External Wall, Firouzabad. No scale. turesque arrangements of the palace at Serbistan last described.

Another century probably elapsed before Khosru (Nushirvan) commenced the most daring, though certainly not the most beautiful, building ever attempted by any of his race; for to him we must ascribe the well-known "Tâk Kesra" (woodcuts No. 308 and No. 309), the only important ruin that now marks the site of the Ctesiphon of the Greeks the great Madain of the Arabian conquerors.

As it is, it is only a fragment of a palace, a façade similar in

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arrangement to that at Firouzabad, but on a much larger scale, its width being 370 ft., its height 105. Instead of the plain circular arch of the earlier example, the architect here has attempted the section of one of his domeshoping thus to avoid some, at least, of the

lateral thrust-to obtain, in short, by an ellipse what the Gothic architects managed by the pointed arch. As a mere scientific point of construction it is not clear that the Sassanian did not take the best mode of attaining his end; but to our eyes, at least, it appears fortunate that the Gothic architects had other models before them, or they might have copied what perhaps even their ability would never have rendered a beauty.

Another detail in which this building contrasts most painfully with the last described is that, instead of the tall, simple, and elegantlyshaped pilasters that adorned its exterior, we here find a number of stories of blind arches superimposed the one on the other without any apparent motive, and certainly without any compensating degree of elegance. The foiling of small arches, however, round the great one

is curious, and points to a mode of decoration which subsequently played an important part in the history of architecture.'

309.

Though it may not perhaps be beautiful, there is something certainly grand in a great vaulted entrance, 72 ft. wide by 85 ft. in height, and 115 in depth, though it makes the entrance at the inner end and all the adjoining parts look singularly small. It would have required. the rest of the palace to have been carried out on an unheard-of scale to compensate for this defect. The Saracenic architects got over the difficulty by making the great portal a semidome, and by cutting it up with ornaments and details, so that the doorway looked as large as was required for the space it occupied. Here, in the parent form, all is perfectly plain in the interior, and painting only could have been employed to relieve its nakedness, which however it never could have done effectually..

Taking it altogether the building is interesting as containing the germs of much that followed, rather than for any intrinsic merit of its own. The same is perhaps true of the style to which it belongs. If properly worked out and illustrated it would probably explain nearly all the difficulties of the Eastern forms of the Byzantine style; and there can be little doubt but that ample materials exist for the purpose, and will be made available as soon as attention is fairly directed to the subject.