uct the main
building. Its position seems to mark it as designed to give entrance
to the structure, whatever it was, which occupied the site of the great
mound (M on the Plan) east of Darius's palace, and north of the palace
of his son. The ornamentation, however, would rather connect it with
the more eastern of the two great pillared halls, which will have to be
described presently.

A third edifice of the same kind stood in front of the great eastern
hall, at the distance of about seventy yards from its portico. This
building is more utterly ruined than either of the preceding, and its
dimensions are open to some doubt. On the whole, it seems probable that
it resembled the great propylaea at the head of the stairs leading from
the plain rather than the central propylaea just described. Part of its
ornamentation was certainly a colossal bull, though whether human-headed
or not cannot be determined.

The fourth of the propylaea was on the terrace whereon stood the palace
of Xerxes, and directly fronting the landing-place at the head of its
principal stairs, just as the propylaea first described fronted the
great stairs leading up from the plain. Its dimensions were suited to
those of the staircase which led to it, and of the terrace on which it
was placed. It was less than one fourth the size of the great propylaea,
and about half that of the propylaea which stood the nearest to it.
The bases of the four pillars alone remain in situ; but, from the
proportions thus obtained, the position of the walls and doorways is
tolerably certain.

We have now to pass to the most magnificent of the Perse-politan
buildings--the Great Pillared Halls--which constitute the glory of Arian
architecture, and which, even in their ruins, provoke the wonder and
admiration of modern Europeans, familiar with all the triumphs of
Western art, with Grecian temples, Roman baths and amphitheatres,
Moorish palaces, Turkish mosques, and Christian cathedrals. Of these
pillared halls, the Persepolitan platform supports two, slightly
differing in their design, but presenting many points of agreement. They
bear the character of an earlier and a later building--a first effort
in the direction which circumstances compelled the architecture of the
Persians to take, and the final achievement of their best artists in
this kind of building.

Nearly midway in the platform between its northern and its southern
edges, and not very far from the boundary of rock