Fig. 126.—Base of a column (after Dieulafoy).
Besides columns, the Persepolitan and Susian palaces had pilasters placed at the extremities of the porticoes, as continuations of the façades. In the façades of the palace of Darius at Persepolis two square pilasters of porphyry are seen, so perfectly preserved that in the upper part they still have holes, cut to receive the ends of the entablature. They would suffice to prove, if any proof were wanting, that in these structures, the columns, which are placed at long intervals and are tall and slender, did not support stone but wooden architraves. These were enormous beams which formed a line even with the tops of the columns, and, running from capital to capital, and placed in grooves contrived with this object, contributed to give homogeneity and solidity to the structure. Upon these great beams the rafters of the roof were arranged, and then a flat ceiling supporting neither a terrace nor a second story.
Fig. 127.—Façade of the Apadâna of Artaxerxes (restoration by M. Dieulafoy).
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the palaces, the elements of which we have just described, constitute an official kind of architecture implanted in Persia by the “kings of kings” who were pleased with the monuments that they had observed in Egypt, Assyria, and Asia Minor. Springing from the caprice of sovereigns, this foreign architecture never took root in the country, and was not required by the nature of the ground and the necessities of existence on the mountainous table-land of Persia; it disappeared with the Achæmenid dynasty. But by the side of this conventional architecture there was that created by the natives of the country, because it had been imposed upon them as a condition of life. As well as the people of Chaldæa and Assyria, the Persians must have known how to build vaulted houses, alone capable of protecting them from the rays of a too ardent sun; they also built, at least in the cantons of Susiana, houses with terraces, supported by palm beams and trellis-work arranged over the rooms which were narrow like passages. Strabo tells us this while speaking of Susiana: “To protect the rooms from the excessive heat, the roofs are covered with two cubits’ depth of earth; the weight of this earth obliges the people to build all the houses long and narrow, because, although the beams must not be very long, nevertheless the rooms must be spacious; otherwise the people would be stifled.” Even at the present day, since the climatic conditions of the country have not changed, the method of building houses is the same as that practised by the ancient inhabitants of Iran. Travellers find houses, according to the wealth of the owner, surmounted by vaults, domes, and terraces, wonderfully suited to local requirements. It is, then, quite certain that the Iranians in the time of the Achæmenids knew the vault and the cupola as well as their neighbours on the banks of the Tigris.
But have the vaults and domes of Persia, more fortunate than those which rose above the Mesopotamian edifices, come down to us, at least in a few instances? M. Dieulafoy believes so. The ruins held to be of the Sassanian epoch at Sarvistan, Firuzabad, and Ferashbad, would date, in his opinion, from the Achæmenid period. A certain reserve, however, is required, from the chronological point of view, in speaking of these monuments in which the traveller can still see brick cupolas supported by pendentives,[57] these cupolas being 97 ft. high and 49 ft. in diameter, semicircular vaults, pointed vaults nearly similar to those of our Gothic churches of the thirteenth century—in short, all the elements of Sassanian and Byzantine architecture. On the other hand, the decoration of these buildings seems to have been remarkably poor; at Sarvistan the interior columns are heavy and badly hewn, the cornice placed at the foot of the vaulting is composed of nothing but a serrated ornament; the interior walls must have been coated with red paint; the exterior walls were smooth, and even the façade showed no decoration except groups of half-columns buried in the masonry. Not the smallest trace has been remarked among these ruins of bricks, whether enamelled or bearing figures in relief, or of those slabs imitating the wall sculptures of Assyria which were such characteristic elements of Achæmenid art. The same reflections are applicable to the monument of Firuzabad, the architectural decoration of which has preserved, perhaps only by tradition, elements of Persepolitan origin.