Rules · Walls · Doors & windows · Cities
Set the main gate back in a narrow court between the wall and a projecting bastion placed on the right hand of those who approach, so that an enemy at the gate has his unshielded side to the defenders.
Soldiers carried their shields on the left arm. At the Lion Gate the approach runs along the foot of the wall and turns into a court some 15 m long between the wall and a great bastion of conglomerate ashlar on the right, so that anyone forcing the gate could be struck from above on three sides. Vitruvius gives the same advice twelve centuries later (Towers that project, approaches that turn).
In a bonded masonry wall the courses above an opening corbel over it of their own accord, so the lintel carries roughly the triangle of wall with sides rising at 60° from its ends; everything above that triangle arches onto the jambs.
load ≈ equilateral triangle on the span: W ≈ 0.43 · L² · t · ρ g
Over a large lintel leave a triangular opening by corbelling the courses on either side, so that the wall’s weight passes to the jambs; close the triangle with a thin slab.
Build fortification walls of huge, roughly shaped limestone blocks, with small stones packed into the gaps between them; reserve cut ashlar for gates and façades.
Wall the whole hill; put the ruler’s megaron on its summit, reached by a ramp from the main gate; keep stores, shrines and the ancestral graves inside the walls, and bring water within reach by a hidden stair.
Dig the tholos tombs of later rulers into the hillsides outside the walls, along the roads that approach the city, each entered by a long open passage.
Build the house on a levelled terrace with a socle of rubble stone, walls of mud brick in a timber frame, and a flat roof of reeds and clay; store oil and wine in the basement rooms against the hill.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Make the attacker turn his right side to the wall”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/lion-gate-bastion. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.