Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/393

 Towns and their Defences. 371 the fact that the inner defences and the towers had lost their crown, I was unable to determine their height, which, to judge from the accumulated rubbish at their base, was not great. Study of the surveys of the ancients, as well as examination of the fortress at Susa and of Assyrian bas-reliefs, a study undertaken with the view of acquainting myself with the ancient mode of defence and attack, enables me to fix the command each of these defences had over that immediately below, at about ten Babylonian cubits. " Granting the altitude of 22 metres, which I measured directly on the external curtain, would bring the crest of the first towers to about 27 metres, the second curtain to 32 metres, and the last and highest towers from 37 to 42 metres. The height of the defences around the apad&na was somewhat less ; but these were considerably higher at one point of the Elamite tumulus, and around the citadel, as the amount of rabbish gathered here plainly showed. In this last rampart curtains and towers would have attained severally 46 metres and 51 metres. The dispositions adopted by the Susian engineers were not simple by any means. They approached the Babylonian defences, both in height, the situation of their barracks, and their enormous masses. In the tracing, however, notably the profiles, the Susian fortification works bdong to the Grseco-Phoentcian group of which Philo is the his- torian. This is not the place to discuss the origin of a defensive system, the oldest application of which goes back to the early Aryan kings of Ecbatana and the youngest to the Emperor Theo> dosius, who reigned at Byzantium in 4 1 3 a.d. I confine myself for the present to noting the facts without drawing inferences therefrom." * We cannot question assertions entirely based on measurements and observations of which a more detailed account has been promised by Dieulafoy. When the documents in question are to hand, we s^U be able to determine whether the juxtaposition between the fortifications at Susa and the Grasco-Phcenician group can be justified, or whether the nature of the materials employed in the Elamite castellum does not per s$ explain the peculiarities which struck Dieulafoy. Flankers are the due accompaniment of earthworks. . The defender," says a great authority, " cannot see the foot of the wall by which he is protected ; that portion of the rampart must be defended by projectiles from some other Digitized by Google
 * DiBVLAFOV, Deux&me Rafport^ pp. 33-36.