[205] Strabo, xvi. i. 5, Ὁι οικοι καμαρωτοι παντες δια την αξυλιαν.
[206] For a description of these buildings see Flandin and Coste, Voyage en Perse, Perse ancienne, Text, pp. 24-27, and 41-43 (6 vols. folio, no date. The voyage in question took place in 1841 and 1842).
[207] Brick played, at least, by far the most important part in their construction. The domes and arcades were of well-burnt brick; the straight walls were often built of broken stone, when it was to be had in the neighbourhood. At Ctesiphon, on the other hand, the great building known as the Takht-i-Khosrou is entirely of brick.
[208] See M. Auguste Choisy's Note sur la Construction des Voûtes, &c. p. 14. This exact and penetrating critic shares our belief in these relations between the Chaldæan east and Roman Asia.
[209] Note sur la Construction des Voûtes sans cintrage, p. 12.
[210] Place, Ninive, vol. i. pp. 266-267.
[211] As M. Choisy remarks (L'Art de bâtir chez les Romains, p. 80), each horizontal course, being in the form of a ring, would have no tendency to collapse inwards, and a dome circular on plan would demand some means for keeping its shape true rather than a resisting skeleton.
[212] Ninive, vol. i. p. 131.
[213] In both the examples here reproduced the sculptor has indicated the cords by which the canvas walls were kept in place. We find almost the same profile in a bas-relief at Khorsabad (Botta, Monument de Ninive, pl. 146), but there it is cut with less decision and there are no cords. Between the two semi-domes the figure of a man rises above the wall to his middle, suggesting the existence of a barbette within. Here the artist may have been figuring a house rather than a tent.
[214] Strabo, xv. 3, 10.