Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/542

* MILITARY ARCHITECTtTBE. 488 MILITARY ARCHITECTURE. the uau of fttoue lor brick were some of the re- sults. Westekn Asia. The use of oruile brick has made impossible any lU'Liiled knowledge of the methods of fortilioaliun used in Babylonian cities, though they are known to have been pro- tected by walls of immen.se tliiekness and height. The plan of placing the royal palace on one side and using it as a citadel, of rectangular shape, was followeil by the Assyrians, as shown in the city of Sargon, near Nineveh. Hut it was in the more mountainous countries of Western Asia, es- pecially in Syria and .Armenia, that the earliest really scientilic types of military engineering were thought out. The rectangular type was abandoned in favor of the ciroilar or ovoidal, by which the weak angles were entirely avoided. In place of a single wall with an advance-wall or scarp, there were usiuilly three concentric lines of increasing heights, each with towers and battlements and rhemins-de-roitde. The Hittite cities were the most famous of such fortifications, from which both the Egyptians and Assyrians learned much of the art of building, of attack- ing, and of defending fortresses. The mountain- ous races of Western Asia thus created a type that was to remain the highest known to military architecture, and to I)e perpetuated by the successors of .Alexander, by the Byzantine Emperors, and by the Crusaders. .-EiJKAN Peopi.ks. The I'elasgians and other -•Egean peoples built also in stone, often with Cyclopean and polygonal masonry. There were many tj'pes: first, the grimps of defensive forts on the outskirts, or constituting a citadel; then later, the walls encircling the entire city. This wall sometimes rises sixty or seventy feet; the citadel as much more. Creek. The great majority of fortifications found in Greece belong to the prehistoric period just descrilH'd. for instance, those in .carnania, at Orchomenus and Pliigalia. The advances made in later historic times are shown, for example, at Mantinea, with two round towers protecting its double gate, and especially at Messene. with gates within large towers having a circular inner court. The towers are battlcmcnted and are sometimes rectangular. Roman. The walls of Pompeii, of Aosta, and of Rome are a few among many examples, show- ing the use of a simple encircling wall. The walls of Aurclian show three tiers of defenses, two lines of embrasures opening on galleries, and the chrmindc-rondc behind the battlements, be- sides, a fourth and higher line at the summit of the numerous square towers. A uniiiue combina- tion of camp, palace, and fortress was Diocle- tian's palace at Spalato, also a superb work of late Roman architecture, with heavily projecting circular and rectangular towers. By/.a.ntine. The Eastern Empire continued the traditions of the ancient Orient. Antioch, Edessa, Constantinople. Amida, and other great cities trace their genealogy from .Alexander's suc- cessors to .Justinian, The essa.v of Procopius on the fortresse.i of .Fustininn shows how the Byzan- tine science of fortification was then being revo- lutionized under this Oriental influence, as in the great works at Dara. Between the towers per- manent C'chaugettes an<l inachieoilis. hurdle'^, or overhanging galleries, were built — originally of wood, but then of stone, in order better to let missile.s fall on the besiegers. The system of sev- eral concentric walls triuuiplicd jK'rmanently over the single rectangular Roman circuit. The citadel was not, as with tlic Romans, placed in the cen- tre, but in touch with one of the oviter walls, so that if the city were taken, communication could still be maintained between the citadel and the outside world. Their system was adopted through- out the Empire and even in Europe, under Jus- tinian. Mohammed-^x. In the great wars with the Byzantine Empire, the swarming Arabs and their converts quiekl.v learned the science of military engineering, and exhibited its results throughout their great empire, especially after the Titanic struggle with the Macedonian dynasty in the ninth and tenth centuries. The great field was, as always, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Asia Minor. These lands are still covered with the ruins of forts, castles, and fortified cities of this period. Even when Saladin had (aim forti- fied, its great gates built, and its triple walled citadel erected, he called architects from Syria. The Mohammedans opposed to the Byzantines lines of fortresses corresponding to theirs, whose strength is celebrated in their literature. When the Crusaders came to the East, they came into contact with these two forms of Oriental engineer- ing, and borrowed its ideas for the West. The golden age of military works in the Orient ex- tended from the nintli to the twelftli century. The combination of citadel and palace, which did not originate in Europe until the fourteenth cen- tury, was then a common thing with the emirs of "the Mohammedan world: many such castles, of which the (iranada Alhambra is an example, are still found in ruins; sumptuously beautiful within, magnificently strong without. .Medi.eval Eirope. With the barbarian inva- sions of the fifth and sixth centuries then' had been a veritable fury of haste to fortify the cities throughout the' Roman world. This was ]iarticul;nly notici'al)le in (iaul. for instance at (ircnoble and Vienna, and in Spain, as at Carta- gena. Media-val cities often — as at Carcassonne ^lave their later fortifications based on late Roman or Oothie prototypes. But ordinarily the Roman fortification was a canlniiii. which did not inclose the city. City defense seems to have remained at a higher level than feudal castle architecture until the twelfth century, for while castles long remained mere earthworks in the north of Europe, cities had stone walls, and even, as at Piaccnza. two concentric circuits; and while the castle keeps were rectangular and in the centre of the circuit, the citadels were often curvilinear and astride the outer walls. Tor a well-preserved fortified city the l)est ex- ample is Carca.ssonne in Southern France, built during the twelfth and thirtecTith centuries. It has an inner ami an outer circuit with lowers of several shapes, bastions, and barliicans, with a magnificent citadel on the west edge, Cologne, Cracow, .igues-M(Utes, and Xuremberg have more or less complete medin>val fortifications, usually of somewhat later date. In so far as military architecture is connected with art and not science, the thirteenth, and espe- cially the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the golden age in Europe, becnuse then strength was no longer the sole oliject. and irsthelie l)cauty was as miiih aimed at in these structures as in cathedral, monastic, or private architecture, in so far as consistent with safety. This trans-