to guard. In
Babylonia an elevated habitation was also more healthy and more
pleasant, being raised above the reach of many insects, and laid open to
the winds of heaven, never too boisterous in that climate. Perhaps the
Assyrians and Persians in their continued use of the custom, to some
extent followed a fashion, elevating their royal residences, not so much
for security or comfort, as because it had come to be considered that a
palace ought to have a lofty site, and to look down on the habitations
of meaner men; but, however this may have been, the custom certainly
prevailed, and at Persepolis we have, in an almost perfect condition,
this first element of a Persian palace. [PLATE XXXIX.]

[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.]

The platform at Persepolis is built at the foot of a high range of
rocky hills, on which it abuts towards the east. It is composed of solid
masses of hewn stone, which were united by metal clamps, probably of
iron or lead. The masses were not cut to a uniform size, nor even always
to a right angle, but were fitted together with a certain amount
of irregularity, which will be the best understood from the woodcut
overleaf. Many of the blocks were of enormous size; and their
quarrying, transport, and elevation to their present places, imply very
considerable mechanical skill. They were laid so as to form a perfectly
smooth perpendicular wall, the least height of which above the
plain below is twenty feet. The outline of the platform was somewhat
irregular. Speaking roughly, we may call it an oblong square, with a
breadth about two thirds of its length; but this description, unless
qualified, will give an idea of far greater uniformity than actually
prevails. [PLATE XL., Fig. 1.] The most serious irregularity is on the
north side, the general line of which is not parallel to the south side,
nor at right angles with the western one, but forms with the general
line of the western an angle of about eighty degrees. The cause of this
deviation lay probably in the fact that, on this side, a low rocky
spur ran out from the mountain-range in this direction, and that it
was thought desirable to accommodate the line of the structure to the
natural irregularities of the ground. In addition to the irregularity
of general outline thus produced, there is another of such perpetual
occurrence that it must be regarded as an essential element of the
original design, and therefore probably as approving itself to the
art