332 History of Art in Antiquity. a finer and greater architectural wonder than the masterpiece of the preceding reign. The royal whim gave birth to the hypostyle hall, with its fair Propybea and portico four times repeated. It is possible that the Propylaea were in imitation of a type invented . by the builders of Darius ; for the Hall of a Hundred Columns seems to have had a monumental avenue situated in front of its porch. At the distance of some fifty-eight metres from the latter are ruins which look as if they might belong to a pylon analogous to the one we have described and restored. At this point are encountered remains of several courses of masonry, fragments of pillars, capitals, bulls in high relief, set up against the walls (F^. lo, No. 9). In the general view of the Persepolitan buildings, this porch has been restored from instances furnished by the structure to which it served as model or of which it was the copy (Plate X.). As already adverted to, certain portions of the building are very rudely put together, whence one might be tempted to conclude that the edifice was never completed.* If so, it would involve seeing in it a later addition to the primitive plan by one or other of the last sovereigns of Persia, when, the fall of the monarchy having supervened, nothing more was ever done to it. There are evident traces that the royal house which Alexander burnt down at Persepolis, urged thereto, say his historians, by the courtesan Thais, must have been the Hall of a Hundred Columns.^. The condition in which the shell is found confirms the conjecture. No other palace has been discovered with so enormous an amount of rubbish inside, the floor lying under a thick bed of ashes, which the microscope has revealed to be carbonized cedar.' When the timber roof, half consumed by the flames, yielding, too, under the superimposed weight of earth and brick casing, suddenly fell in, it carried along with it capitals and pillars, the broken fragments of which have lain undisturbed until the other day.
Inhabited Palaces. The throne-rooms were reserved for rare occasions, days when the king showed himself in all his bravery to his people. By the side of these it was necessary to have dwellings ordained in view > Flandin and Costs, Perse andemu, p. 1 27. ' Pn'TARCH, AUxmd^t xxxviiL
- Stoue, Ferstpolis^ Bemerkungen.
