usson assigns the
date A.D. 250, must be regarded as probably at least a century earlier,
and consequently as indicating the character of the architecture
which prevailed under the later Parthians, and which, if Sassanian
improvements had not obliterated them, we should have found upon the
site of Ctesiphon.

The city of Hatra was enclosed by a circular wall of great thickness,
built of large square-cut stones, and strengthened at intervals of
about 170 yards by square towers or bastions. [PLATE IV. Fig. 1.] Its
circumference considerably exceeded three miles. Outside the wall was a
broad and very deep ditch, and on the further side of the ditch was
an earthen rampart of considerable height and thickness. Two detached
forts, situated on eminences, commanded the approaches to the place, one
towards the east, and the other towards the north. The wall was pierced
by four gateways, of which the principal one faced the east.

[Illustration: PLATE 4.]

The circular space within the walls was divided into two portions by a
water-course passing across it from north to south, and running somewhat
east of the centre, which thus divided the circle into two unequal
parts. The eastern portion was left comparatively clear of buildings,
and seems to have been used mainly as a burial-ground; in the
western were the public edifices and the more important houses of the
inhabitants. Of the former by far the most remarkable was one which
stood nearly in the centre of the city, and which has been called by
some a palace, by others a temple, but which may best be regarded as
combining both uses. [PLATE IV. Fig. 2.] This building stood within a
walled enclosure of an oblong square shape, about 800 feet long by 700
broad. The wall surrounding it was strengthened with bastions, like the
wall around the city. The enclosure comprised two courts, an inner and
an outer. The outer court, which lay towards the east, and was first
entered, was entirely clear of buildings, while the inner court
contained two considerable edifices. Of these the less important was
one which stretched from north to south across the entire inclosure, and
abutted upon the outer court; this was confused in plan, and consisted
chiefly of a number of small apartments, which have been regarded as
guard-rooms. The other was a building of greater pretensions. It was
composed mainly of seven vaulted halls, all of them parallel one to
another, and all facing eastward, three