Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/112

 The Column. 99 slender tree. But what was its capital like ? Nobody knows. As to the base, it is a simple round torm interposed between the shaft and the ground, even more rudimentary than the cube which does duty as a plinth in the rustic house (Fig. 39). Less rain falls in the plain where rose Pasargadie than on the northern slopes of the Elburz ; hence there was no danger of the water rising to a certain height and damaging the support. A block such as we find here was enough to prevent the wood coming in contact with the damp earth. Was it the huts of the peaaauitry which gave the hint to the lirst architects in the employ of Persian sovereigns to try- their hand at transcribing upon stone shapes derived from timber ? We very much doubt it Persia is very far removed from Hyrcania, so that the inhabitants of the Polvar valley were unacquainted with dwellings of the type of our iUustration (Fig. 39). Models nearer home, were far better calculated to provoke imitation among the builders entrusted with the building of the palace of the conqueror, through whom the supremacy of the Medes was transferred to the Persians. In a country such as Media, adjoining on one side to a forest-clad r^on, and Persia on the other, wood architecture was developed in very early days. Edifices, the size and beauty of which were famous all over Iran, were built at Ecbatana, a town that for the space of a hundred years had been among the queens of the Oriental worldl Polybius, one of the most exact and well-informed writers of antiquity, not only defines the site and gives a rapid' summary of the history of the town at the time of the expedition of Antiochus the Great, but also describes the palace which formed the chief glory of the place. "The palace measures seven stadia in circum- ference. The magnificence of the various buildings of which it is composed give one a high notion of the wealth of the princes who first raised the noble pile. Although none but cedar and cypress were employed in the construction, they were plated throughout Rafters about ceilings, wainscoting, columns supporting porticoes, and peristylae, all were sheathed in metal ; here shone fortli silver, there it was gold, and every tile was silver." * Then the historian speaks of a temple at /Ena, in honour of the goddess of the same name, which should be read Anahita, and he declares that when Antiochus entered the town, the columns of the porticoes surround Digitized by Google
 * Polybius, X. xxvii. 9, 10.