ngs which had contented the Parthians, as well as
those in which their own ancestors, the tributary kings of Persia under
Parthia, had passed their lives. But these residences have almost wholly
disappeared. The most ancient of the Sassanian buildings which admit of
being measured and described are assigned to the century between A.D.
350 and 450; and we are thus unable to trace the exact steps by which
the Sassanian style was gradually elaborated. We come upon it when it is
beyond the stage of infancy, when it has acquired a marked and decided
character, when it no longer hesitates or falters, but knows what it
wants, and goes straight to its ends. Its main features are simple,
and are uniform from first to last, the later buildings being merely
enlargements of the earlier, by an addition to the number or to the size
of the apartments. The principal peculiarities of the style are, first,
that the plan of the entire building is an oblong square, without
adjuncts or projections; secondly, that the main entrance is into a
lofty vaulted porch or hall by an archway of the entire width of
the apartment; thirdly, that beside these oblong halls, the building
contains square apartments, vaulted with domes, which are circular
at their base, and elliptical in their section, and which rest on
pendentives of an unusual character; fourthly, that the apartments
are numerous and en suite, opening one into another, without the
intervention of passages; and fifthly, that the palace comprises, as a
matter of course, a court, placed towards the rear of the building, with
apartments opening into it.

The oblong square is variously proportioned. The depth may be a little
more than the breadth, or it may be nearly twice as much. In either
case, the front occupies one of the shorter sides, or ends of the
edifice. The outer wall is sometimes pierced by one entrance only;
but, more commonly, entrances are multiplied beyond the limit commonly
observed in modern buildings. The great entrance is in the exact centre
of the front. This entrance, as already noticed, is commonly by a lofty
arch which (if we set aside the domes) is of almost the full height of
the building, and constitutes one of its most striking, and to Europeans
most extraordinary, features. From the outer air, we look; as it were,
straight into the heart of the edifice, in one instance to the depth
of 115 feet, a distance equal to the length of Henry VII.'s Chapel
at Westminster. T