Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/215

204 History of Art in Antiquity. the only instance we have in all that remains of Persian architecture. The doorway is below man's stature, being no more than 78 centi- metres by r m, 35 c. in height. The expression used by Arrian certainly implies more than simple stooping of head and slioulders ; indeed, it might be argued that quite exceptionally, to roundoff his sentence, he somewhat forced the sense of the text he followed. There is, however, a more natural explanation. If Uieulafoy is not mistaken in supposing that a double door occurred here, it is very likely that Aristobulus, not prepared for the second door, let go the first before he was aware of the fact, when he suddenly found himself in a pitch-dark recess, of barely a square yard, inter- vening between the doors (Fig. 97). He may not unnaturally have voted this a troublesome mode of entrance, and the disagreeable impression was retained. A last correspondence between the described and the real edifice is found in the mediocre height of the mausoleum, hidden, as Strabo has it, by trees whose branches overtop its roof. To the objection that Trupyo? is improper as applied to the Gabre, we may answer that it had a wider significa- tion, and that it denoted not only strong towers flanking the wall of a town or a bridge, but, as several Hellenists have pointed out, was often used to designate isolated buildings situated away from busy centres.' But what is more decisive still is the fact that the word is not found in Arrian, who seems to have followed more closely the text of Aristobulus. Who knows but that it may after all be an addition of Strabo, who, having no drawing of the monument to refer to, formed a somewhat confused notion of it and used ratlicr at random an inappropriate word in defining it ? Nor is this all. It is urged also that a chamber 3 m. 16 c. wide and 2 m. 18 c. long, or a trifle over six square metres, could never have contained all the objects enumerated by Arrian and Strabo but we submit that the space was sufificient, and with something over, for a bed, a coffin, and a table. Bed and coffin can scarcely have been more than two metres long, placed crosswise tn the chamber, leaving therefore enough room between the foot of the bed and the wall for a table upon which were spread jewels and vases. If we allow a width of about a yard to bed and coffin, there remains a narrow passage on either side. The problem is further simplified if we ' So Jacops, in his Commtntary upon the Anthology, vol. viiL p. 333 J CORA?, Notes on Ueliodorus, voL ii. p. 28 ; Thtsaurus^ ed. Didot, s.v. ' Six square metrei is exactly equal to 636 centimctret. Digitized by Google