,
and the architrave turned into an archivolt over the tympana of the
pediments all occur at about this period. At Laodicea, Baalbek, Palmyra,
and Petra, _motifs_ which were in use till the end of the Byzantine
period appear. Tesserae of mosaic have been found in one of the vaults at
Spalato, showing that it played a part in the decoration, as might be
expected in so magnificent a building. Dr. Stmygowski says: "What we
have in Spalato grew in that corner of Central Syria which we call
Hittite, and in the hinterland of Asia Minor, which communicated with
the sea by way of Antioch." In Khorsabad a glazed brick frieze has been
found in which the horizontal member became an arch over the door. The
new thing was the putting it on pillars ranged before the facade, which
he thinks was probably done at Seleucia on the Tigris. The plan of the
palace at Spalato, with projecting towers, and the soldiers' quarters
against the walls, is Syrian, of which examples may be cited at
Kasr-el-Abjad and Deir-el-Khaf (which is dated 306). The colonnaded
streets are a well-known Syrian town feature, and the plan resembles
that of Antioch, as described by the rhetorician Libanios, scarcely
fifty years after the death of Diocletian. Dr. Strzygowski concludes
that the emperor had seen the palace at Antioch, which was commenced by
Gallienus, and possibly was completed. He wished it copied, and
therefore brought over Antiochenes to do it.

There are other Eastern characteristics both here and in other places on
the coast, such as the sheet of lead upon which the bases of columns are
set, as in Byzantine work; the free-standing apse, found at Salona in
two places, and in the earlier church at Parenzo; the plan of S. Maria
delle Grazie, Grado, with the apse in the centre, and the two chambers
flanking it, an arrangement found in a temple of 192 A.D., at Is-Sanamen
in the Northern Hauran, by Mr. H.C. Butler, while the former arrangement
was seen by Miss Lowthian Bell in many ruins in Lycaonia, as has been
already noted.

The Egyptian influence also appears to be made out. Upon heathen tomb
monuments of the second and third centuries at Ghirza in Tripoli are
columns supporting arches cut out of a thin slab, not constructional, an
arrangement just like the Lombard ciborium tops. The connection appears
clear. The ciborium was a tomb generally erected over a martyr's grave
or the relics of a saint to whom the altar was dedicated, and the form
of these