IN THE NARA EPOCH
provinces, and there can be no doubt that the noble rows of pines lining some of the public avenues of Japan were a later outcome of the custom thus inaugurated in the middle of the eighth century.
Architectural improvement was another conspicuous feature of the Nara epoch, and, like most incidents of Japanese progress, it owed much to official influence. A tiled roof seems to have been the chief ambition in the early stage of development, but the first attempt to construct one for the palace of the Empress Saimei (655–661) proved a failure, and it was not till the time of her successor, the Empress Jito, that the Government found itself able to issue an order for the tiling of all the State offices. There is difficulty in believing that during an era when applied art made such remarkable strides as it did in the second half of the seventh century, the bulk of the people were content to inhabit rudely built hovels with thatched or shingled roofs, and that even the imperial princes lived in houses of timber from which the bark had not been removed. It is true that to be a prince in those days did not necessarily imply the possession of wealth or even of a moderate competence, for sometimes the sovereign had to make special allowances of rice and salt to his relatives to save them from absolute want. But the opulent as well as the indigent were alike satisfied with dwellings of the lowliest character until the
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