Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/29

The Palace of S argon. ii name. That town and palace, with its situation a few. miles from the great political and commercial capital, was the Versailles of an Assyrian grand monarque. The connection between town and palace was very close. The fortified walls of the former inclosed a large rectangular parallelo- gram (Vol. I. Fig. 144), while the lofty platform on which the structures composing the king's dwelling were reared, was placed, as it were, astride of the wall on its north-western face. Its pave- ment was on a level with the summit of the wall. 1 Thus attached to the enceinte the palace esplanade shared the protection of its parapet and flanking towers, while it stood boldly out, like an enor- mous bastion, from the stretch of wall of which it formed a part. From three of its faces it commanded a view of the plain, the river, and the neighbouring mountains, so that the requirements of health and pleasure were remembered at the same time as those of safety. As for placing the king's dwelling, as it might have been placed by a modern architect, at some distance from the town, and upon the summit of some gentle height, such a notion was quite outside Assyrian ideas. A country site would have been too easily accessible to the numerous enemies of the Assyrian kings — those eastern Attilas, who could only feel themselves safe when sheltered by the impenetrable walls of dwellings perched upon an artificial hill, from which the whole surrounding country could be watched. We must refer those who wish to study the arrangements of Sargon's palace in detail to the plans and letter-press of Place. Botta discovered fourteen apartments ; Place cleared one hundred and eighty-six. A few more were suggested by him on his restored plan at points where symmetry seemed to demand their existence. His plan, therefore, includes in all, two hundred and nine apartments of various sizes. 2 The adjoining plan, which shows the actual state of the ruins, is sufficient to show the general arrangement (Fig. 3). 3 The longitudinal section (Fig. 4) is taken through the central axis of the building, the position of the staged-tower showing that it is the western half of the palace that has been 1 The palace platform was not quite in the centre of the north-western face. The Assyrians were no fonder of a rigid symmetry than the Egyptians. 2 Place, M'nwe, vol. iii. plate 7. 3 In this plan the darkest parts are those discovered by M. Botta ; the more lightly shaded lines show the rooms and courts excavated by his successor.