The Hypostyle Hall of Xerxes. 311 course, see nothings of what was going on inside the pavilion. Hence the space they cover, which is about two-thirds of the ground occupied by the building, would, in a manner, have been thrown away. A critical analysis of what may be termed the " walled system " has brought us round to Coste's solution of the problem, the general principle of which we have adopted, whilst reserving to ourselves the right of modifying and perfecting it in more than one particular. Agreeably with Costc, then, there would be no enclosure, strictly so called, between the central and the three other colonnades ; a simple balustrade, breast high, sufficed to divide off the various sections of the building, and to keep the classes quite distinct. In this manner not only would the honoured guests gathered in the great hall see the king on these festive occasions, but the people about the minor porticoes would witness the imposing scene as well, and see their monarch surrounded by his personal attendants and the great nobles of the realm. The king from his lofty seat, situated in the middle of the room, would look down upon every head, and could thus descry the humblest and meanest of those present, clustering about the last rows of pillars. These, hung with curtains or awnings, fixed by a light wooden frame, would give a welcome shelter to those grouped about the colonnades ; for the roof was much too high to screen the spectators against the sun. The situation occupied in our restoration by this light and movable veil, better than aught else defines the diflferenoe between ours and Fergusson's plan. In the latter the porches look on the open ; in the former, however, they are turned the other way about — they all face the royal pavilion. There is but one point of diver- gence between the minor colonnades. That which rises behind the stairs was to serve as passage to the throne-room as well ; three wide doors have been pierced in the wall, and over them drapery, . regulated by pulleys, rises and falls like an ordinary porHhre of modem Persia (Plate X. and Fig. 128). It may be objected that naught resembling these open- porticoes occurs either in Egyptian or Assyrian art; but Persian culture, which borrowed certain elements from its predecessors, is distin- guished by arrangements that are peculiar thereto, one of them being that iidiich we think we are justified in introducing in the reconstruction of the Palace of Xerxes. Anybody having doubts on the subject need but glance back at the Propylsea on the Digitized by Copgle
