MILITARY ARCHITECTURE OF GREECE. 



319 



Ann. Thucy.) This mode, as appears by inspection, was also adopted 

 in the construction of the Parthenon. It was used by the architects 

 of the ancient cities of the East ; at Babylon the stones were fixed by 

 iron fastenings, and melted lead was poured in ; Diod. S. lib. ii. 

 121. p6\i$$ov IvTyKova-a. The Turks have frequently endeavoured to 

 extract the iron and lead from the ancient buildings of Greece and 

 Asia Minor, by breaking the marble in pieces. In Italy, the Coli- 

 seum and other edifices have suffered in the same manner repeated 

 injuries. In the lower ages, MafFei observes, these metals were very 

 scarce, and the walls were destroyed for the purpose of extracting 

 them. 



The ancient architects of Egypt, Syria, and Italy, used wood also 

 to unite and bind the stones together. The French, during their 

 expedition to Egypt, observed at Ombos and Philge that pieces of the 

 Sycamore had been formed for that purpose into a dove-tail shape ; 

 at Ombos they appear to have been covered with bitumen. Fas- 

 tenings made of wood, of similar forms, (assulce ex quolibet latere ad 

 formam caudce hirundinis,) were used in some of the ancient buildings 

 of Italy, and were seen and described by F. Vacca. The Greeks, as 

 we learn from Jerome, expressed this mode of binding stones toge- 

 ther* by the word l[4avr>mmi& In the prophet Habakkuk, ii. 11., the 

 Hebrew term bearing a similar meaning is Caphis, and the passage 

 of the original is rendered by Symmachus, <ruv$e<rpog oMofypng %uXivos, 

 Hieronym. Opp. T. iii. 1610. In the Zc<pU Se<pa^, xxii. v. 16. we find 

 IpuvTutrii; fcvXivy ephfefiZwi elg omoSopvjv, which is rendered by Coverdale, in 

 the first Bible printed in English, " Like as the bond of wood bound 

 together in the foundation of an house."] — Ed. 



The sites of fortified towns may be discovered in many parts of 

 Greece ; in Phocis, the vestiges are frequent. Elatea is now occu- 



* Codinus (de orig. Constan.) observes, that in building the walls of Sta Sophia, water, 

 in which barley had been boiled, was mixed with the lime, and that the stones were as 

 strongly united together by the mortar, as if cramps of iron had been used. See Mem. 

 de l'Ac. des in. xlvii. 309. 



