T. E. Lawrence’s Undergraduate Dissertation – Page 160

and rock before the towers. The design is simply unintelli- gent,a reworking of the old ideas of Procopius, only half understood. Justinian, except in rare exceptions, had not intended his fortresses to stand alone, as the last refuge in a conquered country:they were temporary defences to assist the unrivalled Greek field-army. Given unlimited time and labour, anyone can make a ditch so deep and a wall so high of stones so heavy as to be impregnable : but such a place is as much a prison for its defenders as a refuge : in fact a stupidity. Such is Athlit. Of The other still preserved Templar fortresses, at Arayṃah (ِْٰلجرم)ُٰ is a little better. The Templars there inherit- ed a Byzantine site, and merely rebuilt the inner ward. It stood on a hill so precipitous that attack could only be de- livered on the horn-work to the West : and after that had been carried there was an outer-ward, cut off from the inner ward by a ditch. The plan explains easily the arrangement of the place. One might wish only for some curtain towers in an attack. Parts of the wall are a little bare against unexpect- ed escalade, above all as they are mostly of very poor height. The horn-work too is not intended seriously. The Templars, in their very early days, built Safad, where nothing is left but an admirable series of ditches ; probably also the polygonal wall, that girdles the hill of (37) Safita is due to them. It is a low wall to-day, but may have