History op Art in Antiquity. edifice " which was ths pride and glory of Persian architecture ; '* that it lacked stone antae and frames, that is to say materials of great size, which would not only endow the building with an air of solidity, but lend themselves well to the chiselling of profiles frankly and boldly salient in a fashion not to be obtained from brick, providing at the same time large fields for the sculptor where the sacred image of the monarch might be repeated under various semblances? Of all the hypotheses that ccmld have been adduced, it is about the most improbable, and in direct opposition to what we know of the habits of the Persian builder, and, above all, the ideas we have gathered during our survey of the preserved parts. Then, too, beside the great sculptured pages that extend down the sloping sides of the stairs, along bases^ enormous shafts, and superb capitals boldly carved in the finest stone that could be extracted from the flanks of the hill, how poor and clumsy would a flat mud wall have looked, no matter how rich and gay the colours with which it had been clothed. Again, the hollows and entrances to the monument would have been mean and poor when compared with the amplitude and noble aspect which the companion buildings owe to the stone member- ing and the firm accents of the bas-reliefs with which the door- frames are embellished. The balance of evidence, then, is that no wall ever existed here akin to that of the Hall of a Hundred Columns^ with stone ants, side-posts, and lintels of the same material ; nor was there a brick wall around it. This, though its disappearance might be accounted for, would have been incongruous in the general conditions of Persian architecture, more especially in an edifice whose existing remains testify to the care and luxury bestowed upon it. It behoves us, however, to test, as an arithmetician would say, the operation by which the above result has been obtained. We subjoin the restored plan of Fergusson (Fig. 151), so as to enable the reader to follow our argument. Reference to it will show that between the principal and minor colonnades he places a wall whose extremities at the four corners project, anta- fashion, on the small sides of the porches ; these are all made to open outwardly so as to form porticoes or covered walks on three sides of the building. This arrangement, reproduced with slight variations by Dieulafoy in his reconstruction of the great palace at Susa, is open to grave objections. In the first place, it has not the advantages
