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The Platform at Persepolis. 289 it expedient to say a few words about the palaces the town con- tained, palaces rendered famous for their magnificence. The citadel was imposing from its situation, and surrounded by a triple wall. The first, provided with crenelations, rested on foundations sixteen cubits high, the construction of which had cost vast sums of money. The second was built like the first, and had double its height. Finally, the third, whose circumference described a square, attained to a height of sixty cubits ; it was made of very hard stone, and seemed destined to last for ever. Bronze gates appeared on each of the four sides, and near them railings of the same metal. With the gates the safety of the enceinte was assured, whilst the bronze ramparts were calculated to astonish the beholder." * In the group of buildings we have studied there a naught resembling, even at a distance, the presentment found in the narrative of Diodorus. He speaks of three ramparts, which, though he does not expressly say so, he pictures to himself as concentric ; yet there is but one on the site, that which serves as substructure to the esplanade. With regard to the other two walls— of which nobody has seen a vestige — it might be supposed that, being of brick, they have disappeared, and that the material has been reduced to powder or re-used in the construction of modern houses. It might be said that their foundations lie, perhaps, buried under the crops of the plain, for the configuration of the soil will not permit us to seek them anywiiere else. Granting that it is so, they would surround the city, which stretched at the foot of the royal residences and protected these at a distance. The height of the externa], or first, wall was sixteen cubits, and that of the second rampart was thirty-two cubits; fur, in describing the defences of a place, one must proceed as would a besieging enemy, who has to take each successive wall ere he can enter the fortress. < Diodonis, xvU. 71. Suabo speaks of Persepolis in veiy vague terras. " Perse* polis," he says, "after Susa, was the greatest and finest town of the empire; it possessed palaces whose magnificence was as nothing when compared with the riches of ail kinds they contained" (XV. iii. 6). Plutarch, whilst mentioning the burning of the palace {A/extuidert 38), does not name PeisepoU^ and is silent as to its edifices. >Klian certainly mentions it, but he ascribes its foundation to Cyrus — a glaring mistake (//is/. Anim., L 59). The one instance which is correct in Quintus Curtius' account (vu 6, 7) is the indication of the great part timber played in the constniction of the Persepoliian palaces | but the antluMr seems to think that in his time all that was known as to the situation of Persepolis was through vague tradition— that nothing remained of the imposing pile which even now calls forth the admiration of travellers. u Digitizeu l> ^oogle