Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/420

 388 SASSANIAN ARCHITECTURE. Part I. far there is nothing either remarkable or interesting, except the peculiarity of finding a Persian building in such a situation, and in the fact that the capitals of the pillars are of that full-curved shape which are first found in the works of Justinian, which so far helps to fix the date of the building. It seems, however, that at a time when Chosroes possessed all Asia and part of Africa, from the Indus to the Nile, and maintained a camp for ten years on the shores of the Bosphorus, in sight of Constantinople, that this modest abode no longer sufficed for the greatest monarch of the day. He consequently determined to add to it th& enclosure above described, and to ornament it with a portal which should exceed in richness anything of the sort to be found in Syria. Unfortunately 263. Interior of ruined triapsal Hall of Palace. for the history of art, this design was never carried out. When the walls were raised to the height of about twenty feet, the workmen were called off, most probably in consequence of the result of the battle of Nineveh in 627 ; and the stones remain half hewn, the ornament unfinished, and the whole exactly as if left in a panic, never to be resumed. The length of the fayade — marked a a in plan, Woodcut No. 262 — between the plain towers, which are the same all round, is about 170 ft.,1 the centre of which Avas occupied by a square-headed portal flanked by two octagonal towers, Eacli face of these towers was or- 1 The plan made by Dr. Tristram's I a hurried sketch, and cannot bedepended partj, which is all we yet have, was only 1 upon for minute details.