Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/411

 Bk. IV. Ch. VI. SASSANIAN ARCHITECTURE. 379 these is that represented in i^an on Woodcut No. 252. It consists of three large and four smaller halls placed side by side, with various smaller apartments in the rear. All these halls are roofed by semi^ circular tunnel-vaults, without ribs or other ornament, and they are all entirely open in front, all the light and air being admitted from the one end. There can be very little doubt that these halls are copies, or in- tended to be so, of the halls of the old Assyrian jjalaces ; but that strange mania for vaulted roofs Avhich seized on all the nations of the East as well as on those of the West durino; the Middle Ages led the architect on to a new class of arrangements, which renders the resem- blance by no means apparent at first sight. The old halls had almost invariably theii" entrances on the longer side ; but with a vault this would have required immense abutments ; and without in- tersecting vaults, Avliich had not then come into general use, would even in that case have been diffi- cult. The most obvious mode of meeting the diffi- culty was that adopted here of using the halls as abutments the one to the other, like the ai-ches of a bridge ; so that, if the two external arches were firm, all the rest were safe. This Avas provided for by making the outer halls smaller, as shown in the elevation (Woodcut No. 253), or by strengthening the outer wall. But even then the architect seems to have shrunk from weakening the intermediate walls by making too many o]>enings in them. Those which do exist are small and infre- quent ; so that there is generally only one entrance to each apartment, and that so narrow as to seem incongruous with the size of the room to which it leads. It is by no means clear to what use the square apartment in the rear, with the double wall, was applied. It may have been a temple, but more probably contained a stair or inclined plane leading to the roof or upper rooms, which almost certainly existed over the smaller halls at least. All the details of the building are copied from the Roman — the archivolts and pilasters almost literally so, but still so rudely executed as to prove that it was not done under the direct superintendence of a Roman artist. This is even more evident with regard to the griffins and scroll-work, and the acanthus-leaves which ornament the ca])itals and friezes. The most peculiar ornament, however, is the range of iiinsk- 253. Elevation of part of Ibc I'aUioe of Ad Hadhr. Scale 50 ft. to 1 iu.