THE SASANIAN STYLE.
the dismemberment of the Macedonian empire the Selencids ruled Persia until 246 i,. C. ; after them came the Arsacids, who founded the Parthian kingdom, which lasted until 229 A. D. Its relations with the Greeks, and afterward with Rome, made the land accessible to the Greek culture of the age, though it did not become a province of Rome. But under the SAsanians there was developed a peculiar art of which we must take some notice. The Sasanian mon archy, the romantic epoch of Persia, lasted from 229 A. D. to 636 A. D., when the Arabs brought the land under their sway, at once put an end to the fire-worshipping cult, which had been restored by the Sasanians, as well as to Sasanian art, and, together with the sway of Islam, planted. Islamitic art throughout the land.
Khosrau principal theme of Sathnian history is the struggle with the Romans until Khosrau (Chosroes) II. Parvez, " the Conqueror " (died 628 B. c.), who is known in Christian legend, after subduing Syria,. Asia Minor, and Egypt, threatened Constantinople itself, but was over thrown by the emperor Herachus. Khosrau is the hero of folk-lore, and his love for his Christian spouse, Shirin, and their relations to their archi tect, Firduz, have occasioned the most beautiful and poetical narrations. The architect has rightly received his place on the roll of fame, since' Khosrau erected magnificent structures which to a certain extent excited the imagination of his contemporaries and have not ceased to be admired by their posterity. The splendor of his palace has been extolled by visitors and poets, and grave historians speak minutely of its adornments, of its forty thousand columns, of the contents of a hundred subterranean vaults, and of the beauty of its paradise, or park.
The Architectural Remains of the SasAnians, so far as they have been investigated, certainly teach us little concerning the splendor described by poets and narrators. Their style is essentially a barbarizing of classical architecture, which under the influence of untutored fancy was compelled to harmonize with the ancient national Asiatic elements.
Characteristics (ye Sr stinian cupola plays the chief role, not as a low half-sphere, as it exhibits itself in classical architecture, but in high elliptical forms similar to those which we find in ancient Assyrian reliefs. While the principal halls are roofed with such cupolas,. the adjacent rooms are ceiled with elliptical tunnel-vaults. Externally, flat roofs appear, from which rise cupolas of different heights. The walls had their surfaces richly moulded with blind arcades and niches which did not form an organized system. The details were crude: columns without base or capital are abundant; among the rest are capitals exactly like those of the post-Roman period of the sixth and seventh centuries in Italy. Some of the kings invited Greek architects into the country.
Khosran I.—surnamed AnOsharvan, " the Blessed "—was so impressed with the beauty of Antioch, which he bad conquered, that not far from his capital, Ctesiphon, he built a new city (Khosran-Antiochia) which was as exact a copy of Old Antioch as possible, and was a notable tribute to the superiority of Roman culture and life. The inhabitants were estab lished in comfort and had religious freedom, and even a Christian mayor. They retained their national manners until the fall of the empire. Chariot races, for example, were as popular as they had been in Old Antioch.
There is here the irresistible tendency to copy the already degraded classical architecture just as it was exhibited at the same period, and even two hundred years later, by the Germanic peoples in Italy find Germany, both overrun by barbarism; but in Persia, through the Oriefital high dome and the general application of the elliptical arch for large openings, the works were endowed with a peculiar character.