Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 1.djvu/172

 152 A HISTORY OF ART IN CHALD/EA AND ASSYRIA. noticed this method of constructing city walls, but in all the enceintes that attracted his attention, the height of the plinth was much greater than that of Khorsabad. At Larissa it was twenty, and at Mespila fifty feet, or respectively a fifth and a third of the total height of the walls. 1 These figures can only be looked upon as approximate. The Greeks did not amuse themselves, we may be sure, with measuring the monuments they encountered on their march, even if Tissaphernes gave them time. But we may fairly conclude from this evidence that in some of the Assyrian town- walls the proportion between the plinth and the superstructure was very different from what it is in the only example that has come down to us. At Khorsabad, then, stone played a much more important part in the palace wall than in that of the town, but even in the latter position it is used with skill and in no inconsiderable quantity ; on the other hand, it is only employed in the interior of the palace for paving, for lining walls, for the bases, shafts and capitals of columns, and such minor purposes. In the only palace that has been completely excavated, that of Sargon at Khorsabad, every- thing is built of brick. Layard alone speaks of a stone-built chamber in the palace of Sennacherib at Kouyundjik, but he gives no details. It would seem as if the Assyrians were content with showing themselves passed-masters in the art of dressing and fixing stone, and, that proof given, had never cared to make use of the material in the main structures of their buildino-s. Like the Chaldseans, o J they preferred brick, into the management of which, however, they introduced certain modifications of their own. The crude brick of Nineveh and its neighbourhood was used while damp, and, when put in place, did not greatly differ from pise. 2 Spread out in wide horizontal courses, the slabs of soft clay adhered one to another by their plasticity, through the effect of the water with which they were impregnated and that of the 1 XENOPHON, Anabasis, iii. 4, 7-11. The identity of Larissa and Mespila has been much discussed. Oppert thinks they were Resen and Dotir-Saryoukin ; others that they were Calech and Nineveh. The question is without importance to our inquiry. In any case the circumference of six parasangs (about 2o miles) ascribed by the Greek writer to his Mespila can by no means be made to fit Khorsabad. 2 See the History of Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i. p. 113.