The oldest and, because best-preserved, the most intelligible of the royal dwellings upon the terrace of Persepolis is that shown by inscriptions to have been built by Darius. (Fig. 85; and K upon the topographical plan of Persepolis, Fig. 78.) It exhibits a regular and well-considered plan, the oblong form and general disposition of which are somewhat similar to the simpler Greek houses. A flight of steps led from each side to the narrow southeastern front—a double tetrastyle loggia. This was flanked by two moderately large rooms, which, as they could be entered only from the portico and had no connection with the interior, were probably intended for guards or servants. A door, between four windows, opened into the square hall, the ceiling of which was supported by sixteen columns, standing in line with those of the loggia. This space corresponded to the atrium of Greek and Roman houses. Three of its sides, that of the front being excepted, had access to inner rooms—those upon the right and left being small, while, opposite the entrance, they were more spacious, and separated from the hall by a corridor. The walls were enriched by niches as well as by door and window openings. Through one of the chambers upon the left was a lateral entrance, reached by a double flight of steps upon the southwest. Notwithstanding the preservation of the special foundation terrace, of the steps, of the door, window, and niche frames, as well as of some corner piers, the ruin did not at first glance make evident the disposition here described. All the columns of the palace have disappeared. It is uncertain whether this is because the supports of the less pretentious structure were of wood, or whether stone shafts, of the moderate dimensions which must be assigned to them, were carried away during the two thousand years in which the ruins of the palace terrace have served as a quarry for neighboring towns. The square plinths upon which the columns stood have, however, remained in their original position, so that the number and site of the supports may be easily and surely determined. The greater portion of the walls has also disappeared. Some corner piers and the marble frames of doors, windows, and niches, cut from immense monolithic blocks, alone stand erect; but their perfect state of preservation and well-marked position permit the nature of the wall between them to be determined without difficulty. It seems that this was of small quarried stones, or even of brick, thus being easily removed, or, in the latter case, reduced to dust by atmospheric influences; while the massive door and window casings were secure from removal by man and from the injuries of time. Their stepped jambs are decorated upon the inner side with reliefs; the heavy lintels have a scotia cornice, carved with a triple row of leaves and bordered below by an astragal. Of the openings for providing light to the great hall no traces remain. If, as is usually supposed, the windows now recognizable were all that ever existed, the chambers of the palace would have been most gloomy, with the exception of the hall of columns, which had four openings upon the loggia, besides the door. The light of the hall itself must have been dim, for it could not enter directly, the windows and doors being beneath the shade of the deep portico, with its double range of columns; and when still more impeded by the close-standing shafts of the hypostyle, it would have been wholly insufficient for the chambers. It is further to be remarked that several of the inner rooms have no direct communication with the hall, while if they had depended on it for light they would certainly have been provided with window-openings in place of the blind niches. It is evident from the existence of a second story, presently to be discussed, that horizontal apertures in the roof and ceiling could not have existed; this would be even more inadmissible here than in the palace buildings of Nineveh. It is necessary, however, to assume other openings for illumination and ventilation than those now to be observed in the ruins, and windows were most probably arranged in the manner in which the Orientals still secure their dwellings from the view of the outer world while admitting light and air—the manner customary with the Assyrians, as well as with the more ancient Greeks. The apertures were probably upon the exterior walls, just under the ceiling, high above the ground. All traces of architectural members in such a position must necessarily have disappeared when the mass of masonry which supported them was overthrown. It is possible that their form was entirely plain, like that given in the restoration of the Palace of Darius at the head of this section (Fig. 77), and offered no carved details to aid in their recognition.

A comparison of the rock-cut façade upon the tomb of Darius with the palace of that king will aid in the consideration of the upper story. As the tomb represents the palace with but slight variations, even agreeing tolerably well with its proportions, it may be supposed that the monarch copied his dwelling upon the front of his grave, that he might, as it were, inhabit it even after his death. This is not an isolated instance of such a proceeding in the history of architecture. The second story, distinctly recognizable upon the tomb, cannot be regarded as an insignificant decoration, especially as the Palace of Darius at Persepolis seems, from its plan, to have been thus arranged. The limited area covered, exceeded by many a modern private house, renders an enlargement by a second story natural; and this is also made probable by the hypostyle, which occupies a place where an open court, with full upper light, would otherwise have been more suitable. Space for the staircases was provided by the two narrow corridors next the rear chambers. The second story was not, however, extended over the entire ground-plan, but seems to have left the flat roof of the side chambers as an elevated veranda, perhaps sheltered from the sun by canopies, as the talar, a similar though smaller upper structure, stands as a pavilion upon the modern houses of Persia. The walls of the second story could scarcely have been placed elsewhere than upon the otherwise unreasonably thick partition-enclosure of the hypostyle hall. They could not have stood over an intercolumniation, as upon the façade of the rock-cut tomb—for this would have been difficult, if not impossible of construction—but in other respects the upper part of the palace may have been like that representation. Its corner supports, which are a strange combination of scotias and roundlets, ending below in lion’s paws and above in a one-sided lion capital, have, at least, every appearance of being copied from an architectural model, and are similar in their lower half to the legs of the throne given in Fig. 87. The standing figures, which, in double row, support the ceiling, may have been carved in relief or simply painted. That this was a common ornament is evident from its repetition upon the reliefs of gateways, where such typical figures are admirably characterized as representatives of the various nations subjugated by the Persian power, they literally supporting the throne. The entrance and the second-story windows may be supposed to have been upon the side opposite the front, where the veranda was broadest and the staircases led from the lower floor, as otherwise the imitation of the façade upon the rock-cut tomb would have shown windows and doors as well as a staircase, which probably led in double flight to the uppermost roof. That this house-top was flat and accessible is evident from the reliefs considered in this connection (Figs. 83 and 87), one of which represents the royal throne shaded by a canopy, the other one of those fire-altars which, according to Persian custom, was placed upon the highest level of the house. This altar upon the summit of a royal palace is mentioned in the Bible, when Hezekiah, overthrowing the Sabæan worship of the sun, destroyed “the altar which is upon the top of the upper rooms of Ahaz.” In the restoration of the Palace of Darius (Fig. 77), the introduction of the altar with the royal canopy may be considered as more than a mere decoration of the design. This simplest and best-preserved ruin upon the terrace of Persepolis permits a comparatively trustworthy understanding of the elements of Persian palace architecture.

The ruin O of the topographical plan (Fig. 78) shows the remains of a similar structure of about the same dimensions, later, and therefore of less interest, than the Palace of Darius. The Palace of Xerxes (L, M, N) was nearly double this size, being provided with a spacious terrace before its gates, and with a colonnade upon one side, the nature of which cannot readily be explained. On the other hand, it had no large chambers behind the hypostyle, as the rooms upon the right and left seem, by their more spacious proportions, to have rendered these unnecessary. The portico was hexastyle, and the square hall behind it consequently provided with thirty-six columns. Two of the side chambers were so large that their ceilings required the support of four columns.

Of still greater dimensions, more than eight times the area of the Palace of Darius, was the Palace Hall of Xerxes (D, E, F, G) which was preceded by a magnificent double flight of steps. The ceiling of the imposing hypostyle was upheld by thirty-six columns of gigantic size. There are no traces of chambers having been connected with it; three of its sides were provided with hexastyle porticos, which masked and artistically enlivened the dead enclosing-walls. The masonry has disappeared, with the exception of unimportant remains of the portal (G), which Coste has restored as the foundations of pedestals. Although a similar ruin at Susa, examined by Loftus, was also without walls, it is impossible to agree with Coste that these were originally altogether lacking, and that the columns of the central space were unenclosed—that the three portals, provided with separate roofs, were grouped around this without any connection. While we agree with Fergusson in as far as regards the completion of the wall line and the unity of the whole under a common roof, we must yet discredit his further assumption that this building was provided, like the Palace of Darius, with an upper story; all the requisite conditions for this were lacking. The ruin is remarkable from the remains of the colossal columns being in the comparatively best state of preservation. They represent the three orders described above: those of the western portico having the double-headed bull; those of the eastern the double-headed lion, and the others the form of shaft coronation combined of three or four members. The destination of this building was not that of a dwelling, but, without doubt, that of a festive hall for the audiences and ceremonies of the vainest and most magnificent of despotic monarchs. To this end it was fittingly placed next to the entrance-gate of the palace terrace. It is one of the most enormous buildings of the world; the area covered by its plan, about 10,500 sq. m., nearly equals that of the Cathedral of Milan, and surpasses that of the Cologne cathedral by about 2350 sq. m.

Fig. 88.—Propylæa of Xerxes at Persepolis.
Fig. 88.—Propylæa of Xerxes at Persepolis.

The imposing portal next to it, B, proved by inscriptions to have also been erected by Xerxes, remains upright in the grand masses shown by Fig. 88. An adequate explanation of its nature is not possible. It is only clear that its principal disposition, like that of the similar portal, H, of the terrace, was determined by the intersection of passages, the crossing being marked by four columns, while the parallel walls were of sculptured marble blocks. In a former work upon the history of ancient architecture,[F] the author has expressed the supposition that side walls were built in the directions marked by dotted lines upon the topographical plan (Fig. 78), connecting the portal with the ascending staircase. The gate would thus receive the character of a fortification, a termination of the palace terrace, instead of being the useless structure, easily to be circumvented, which it is commonly considered. It is probable that these side walls existed also at the chief portals of the Assyrian palaces, as otherwise the entrances, especially that of the harem, would have been too much exposed. These masses of masonry have disappeared from the ruins of Nineveh, because of the crumbling of the terrace borders, and in Persepolis, where all walls have been overthrown and carried away, their extent is not marked by the more durable door and window frames, which alone remain of the palace enclosures.

The assumption of similar communicating walls in connection with the other portal structures of the palace terrace (H and Q) not only renders to these their full importance, but throws light upon a building of enormous extent (C), the destination of which has hitherto been problematical. This edifice has been called, in lack of a better name, the Hall of a Hundred Columns. It is an extended enclosure of square plan, within which stood columns, traceable by the remains of six of their number. Upon the front was a portico, not decastyle, like the interior, but octastyle; two bases remaining in situ determine its arrangement and dimensions. The columns may be calculated, from their lower diameter, to have been about 7 m. high. The enclosure of the hall, determined in extent by the remains of all the portals and niches, measured 68 m. upon each side. According to general acceptance, the building was restricted to the area now covered by its ruins, and served as a second great hall for ceremonies. Fergusson terms it a coronation hall. But, apart from the fact that the Hall of Xerxes must have been far better fitted by its imposing proportions for such a purpose than this low and broad space, where the forest of columns would have impeded the view, it is hardly possible that two such extensive buildings would have been provided upon the terrace for the same use. But some adequate space is yet to be assigned to that important necessity of Oriental custom, the harem, which tradition particularly asserts to have existed among the Persian palaces. If the ruin is examined in its relation to the other palace structures of Persepolis, it becomes plain that it can be nothing else than the central hall of a similar, but more extended, series of chambers, of which, as is also the case with the ruined remains at O, hypostyle and portico have alone been preserved, while the walls of all the outer rooms have disappeared. Only the doors and windows of any wall upon the terrace now exist; and as the entrances were naturally small and the openings for light high above the ground, in the enclosure of the harem, it is not surprising that this masonry has disappeared in almost its entire extent. Two principal portals, perhaps the only ones of the outermost walls, have been preserved, however, and mark the outline of the building. These are the gateways H and Q of the topographical plan: the first of these even shows some trace of the enclosing wall; it is the entrance from the palaces K, L, M, N, and O; the second probably led to an open court, to which access must have been allowed the fair prisoners. The space between the hypostyle and the exterior wall, indicated upon the plan by dotted lines, must have been occupied by the numerous small rooms which provided dwellings for the three hundred girls of the harem. The low and broad central hall served as a place of assemblage; the great number of its columns and the excessive lowness of the ceiling exclude the idea of its having been used for public ceremonies, but render it particularly fitted for this purpose, the many shafts separating the groups of intimate conversers. The dim twilight of the room was, at these evening assemblies, enlivened by the many-colored lamps of the East. The harem upon the terrace thus received a development analogous to that of the royal dwellings, and its necessarily great extent was provided for in a becoming place. By the assumption that the remains at P are those of the harem, an integral part of the Oriental palace is recognized, and a large tract of the terrace area is occupied, the use of which could not otherwise be designated upon the topographical plan.

The disposition of the terrace under Darius appears to have differed considerably from that under his successors. It is not known whether its extent has since been increased; to establish this point, extensive excavations would be required. It is probable that the northwestern side of the plateau has been built out by adding earth to the natural rock; the buildings upon the southern half appear the more primitive: it is certain, however, that the position of the ascent was changed during the great reconstruction completed by Xerxes, and possibly commenced during the latter part of the reign of Darius. The orientation of the Palace of Darius, which, of all the buildings at Persepolis, alone faces the south, shows the great staircase to have been originally upon the southern end of the terrace. Enormous dowelled blocks of stone assured the stability and preservation of the newer parts of the substructure. The broad and gently rising flights of steps remain in so good a condition that it is even to-day possible to ascend them upon horseback.

Fig. 89.—Altar Pedestals at Pasargadæ.
Fig. 89.—Altar Pedestals at Pasargadæ.

Among the remaining monuments of Persian architecture there are no temples; it would be vain to seek such structures; the worship of the land did not demand closed rooms, requiring only sacrifice and prayer upon the summits of mountains or artificial elevations. Herodotos relates that the Persians not only scorned temples, but did not erect images of their deities, nor even altars. This last point is certainly incorrect; the worship of fire particularly called for altars, and these are represented upon the ornamented façades of the rock-cut tombs. (Fig. 83.) It is probable that two pedestals, standing near each other upon the palace terrace of Pasargadæ, are ancient Persian. They are cubes, each about 3 m. high; one is terminated by steps, and has upon one side a straight line of ascending stairs; the platform at the summit was sufficiently large to receive an altar, or may perhaps itself have been used as a receptacle for fire and sacrifices. They are similar to the altar upon the upper story of the Palace of Darius, used for religious devotion. The supposition may be ventured that these two altars, in such vicinity, point to the dualism of the Persian worship of Ormuzd and Ahriman.

Other large monuments of the land may have had something to do with religious observances; but as they lack any characteristic form, this cannot be proved. Such is the case with the cone of Darabgerd, known as Kella Darab, apparently an imitation of a natural mound. It is surrounded by a circular wall, perforated in eight equidistant places, and rises, in two rings of masonry, to a height of 48 m. A similar structure is the massive tower of Firuz-Abad, a rectangular obelisk 27 m. high, measuring 8.5 m. upon each side of its base. Near it is an enormous platform, with broad buttresses upon the four sides, which are directed to the cardinal points of the compass; the foundation of the mass measures 61 by 78 m. The masonry is of carefully hewn stone, of a workmanship not found in the country after the advent of the Christian era; the swallow-tail dowelling of the blocks is similar to that upon the pavement of the terrace at Persepolis.

Fig. 90.—Tomb of Cyrus.
Fig. 90.—Tomb of Cyrus.

To the consideration of these structures must be added that of the semi-sacred tombs. Though few other monuments can be traced back to the age of the founder of the Persian sovereignty, the heroic Cyrus, fortune appears to have preserved his tomb almost entirely intact in architectural respects. The description of it by Arrian is not precise, but his account may still be identified with an interesting and evidently ancient Persian monument, now known as Medshed Mader-i-Suleiman, the tomb of the mother of Solomon. Its situation is in Murgab, not distant from the ruins of Pasargadæ, which contain inscriptions with the name of Cyrus, and reliefs commemorating his exploits. The monument consists of a terrace seven times stepped, covering a ground surface of 12.5 by 13.5 m.; it is built of enormous blocks carefully joined, and bears a cella with gabled roof. The simple and gently curved mouldings of the cornice and base of the cella do not betray Greek influence, but it is possible that the form of the roof, rare in the Orient, may be attributed to reminiscences of Hellenic construction observed during the campaigns of Cyrus in Asia Minor. The entrance, described by Arrian as very small, is 0.9 m. broad and 1.2 m. high; the exterior of the cella is 5.2 m. broad and 6.3 m. long; the chamber itself only 3 m. long and 2.1 m. broad and high. There is naturally no longer any trace of the objects once within the interior—the table, coffin, and bier of solid gold; the garments of royal purple. The inscriptions have, unfortunately, also disappeared. The blocks of the chamber floor are swallow-tailed into each other with great exactness; to which circumstance, and to the exact jointing of all the massive masonry, this exceptionally fine state of the building’s preservation is to be ascribed. The whole structure gives the impression of a terraced Chaldæan temple. It is not improbable that the Tomb of Cyrus received this sacred form because the character of a hero of Western Asia was attributed to the king soon after his death. A colonnade appears to have enclosed the sombre pile; several drums of its columns still project above the ground. The accounts of Greek authors refer to buildings erected for the priests to whose care the monument was intrusted; these are believed to have been recognized in the remains of a neighboring caravansary.

The tombs of later Persian kings, which, during the entire dynasty of the Achæmenidæ, were almost alike, are of a totally different nature from that of Cyrus, being cut in and upon the face of the rock. Upon the steep cliff of Naksh-i-Rustam and Persepolis there are seven of these facades, which form an imposing feature of the landscape, whether viewed in the vicinity or from afar. All follow the type of the Tomb of Darius described above, giving a representation of the royal dwelling upon the wall before the grave-chamber. (Fig. 83.) Only the lower half of the door is used as an entrance, the upper part being closed by an imitation of slat-work. It leads to a corridor running parallel to the face of the cliff; in the Tomb of Darius this extends to the left, beyond the breadth of the façade, to three chambers, each of which is arranged for three coffins. All these graves had been plundered when investigated by Coste and Flandin. A rock-cut tomb at Serpul-Zohab is of still simpler disposition; originally it had two columns upon the front, but was not further decorated; the interior consisted of a small chamber, providing only sufficient space for two sarcophagi. It is not certain whether other monuments in the vicinity of Naksh-i-Rustam and of Pasargadæ should be regarded as tombs. They resemble towers; their corners are strengthened by pilasters, and they have oblong niches upon each side, the frames of which are triply stepped. Of the tombs of Persian subjects nothing whatever is known; it may be possible that the people of that nation were accustomed formerly, as at present, to carry down their dead from the highlands to the Necropolis of Chaldæa, where millions of graves still await scientific investigation.

As little is known of Persian domestic architecture. No vestiges of private houses have been found which belong to an historical period earlier than that of the Roman emperors. The habitations of subjects were not to be compared with the magnificent palaces of their despotic rulers, and must have been built of the most destructible materials. We may imagine the Persian house somewhat to have resembled, in disposition of plan, the royal dwellings, though of course greatly simplified by the substitution of an open court for the hypostyle hall, by the omission of terraces, columns, and carvings, and by the reduction of all spaces and dimensions to a minimum.

The Persians developed far less independence in sculpture than in architecture. They showed themselves, in their carvings, to be but meanly endowed scholars of the Assyrians, and gained little by subjecting themselves to the influence of other nations, the spirit of which they did not comprehend or employ towards any possible improvement of Assyrian traditions. The Mesopotamians were, in their artistic development, thrown upon their own resources; they therefore looked earnestly to the fountain-head of nature as the model of their sculptured work; but the Persians, in the wider extent of their kingdom, instead of profiting by the study of nature, so requisite to true progress, depended upon forms and methods inherited from the Assyrians, upon which they engrafted certain peculiarities borrowed from the Egyptians, and also, in still greater measure, from the higher art practised among the Greeks of Asia Minor in the time of Darius and Xerxes. In this adoption of foreign properties, in this mingling of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Hellenic manners of expression, they utterly sacrificed originality and simplicity of style, and made of their sculpture a repulsive hybrid of inharmonious elements. It may well be conceived that with this lifeless imitation the creative impulse languished, and art became more and more limited, until it shrank at last into mere ornamental handiwork. The Persians could the more easily forego the revetment of their walls with carved slabs, after the Assyrian fashion, as their architecture itself, far more than that of Mesopotamia, fulfilled its own aim,—accomplished with its own means what was elsewhere effected by sculpture and painting.

With Persian statues in the full round we have no acquaintance. Several examples remain of colossal monsters in the half round, like those met with in Assyrian sculpture. In conception and in detail, in proportion and in situation, they scarcely differ from those of Assyria: they are only somewhat stiffer; their strap-like sinews and veins, their muscles and hair, are conventionalized almost to pure ornament; they have entirely lost the life-like natural truth of the works of Nineveh. The tendency towards decoration is well expressed in the wings of these monsters. The rectilinear feathers of the models upon the Tigris were in Persia transformed into the graceful but unnatural curves seen also in the griffins of Greek architecture. This Colossus is found in the best state of preservation at the Propylæa of Xerxes near the ascent of the terrace of Persepolis. On the front are perfect bulls, with proportionately small heads; on the back are the cherubim already mentioned, with long-bearded, tiara-crowned human heads. These purely Assyrian monsters of the gateway may perhaps be regarded as trophies from Mesopotamia, which, in the course of time, had become naturalized into the Persian practice of palace architecture.

Fig. 91.—Relief for a Portal of Persepolis. (See Fig. 86.)
Fig. 91.—Relief for a Portal of Persepolis. (See Fig. 86.)

If the masonry, probably of brick, had received a richly sculptured stone revetment, like that which covered the Assyrian walls, some remains of this would certainly have been found. It seems, however, that the wall surfaces were ornamented only with paintings. In proportion as carved decoration was diminished, the architectural treatment of the enclosing masses was increased, by doors, windows, and niches, and by the repeatedly stepped epistyle beams and its crowning scotia, richly ornamented with leaves over the lintels. Only the inner surfaces of the door-jambs were used for representations in relief, the subjects being partly mythological, partly ceremonial. The ruins of Pasargadæ show such a mythological figure, in long, close-lying garments without folds, according to the Assyrian tradition, though of somewhat lighter proportion. It has a less pronounced Semitic profile, Egyptianized by long twisted ram’s horns upon the head, and with the irrelevant ornaments of the Nile situla, disks, and uræos-serpents; the greater part of it is so destroyed that only the outline is recognizable. Upon the terrace of Persepolis there is repeated a kingly or divine being lifting a lion into the air while strangling it, such as appears in more vigorous design upon the reliefs of Nineveh; or this figure pierces with a short sword a bull, lion, or griffin standing upright upon its hinder legs. One of these peculiar mythological representations is given in Fig. 91. The head of the male figure, ornamented with a diadem, is distinguished from the Assyrian type only by a longer and less protruding nose, and by some diminution of the luxuriant hair and beard. The exposed limbs, the arms and legs, have more slender proportions; with a softer and somewhat Hellenized swing of the outlines, there is less modelling than was found upon the Tigris. The expression of great muscular power, of striking and healthy energy of action, peculiar to the Assyrians, is lost in Persia. The garments are not sack-like and close-fitting; with the richly patterned treatment of surfaces, there is an attempt, not altogether fortunate, to indicate the folds of drapery and the free flow of cloth. It is possible to recognize in this respect the influence of Asiatic Hellas, falling, indeed, upon rather sterile ground, and received with little understanding. The strapped shoes take from the cramped foot its true form, being curved in the sole even more than is the case with the naked instep. The power, long since acquired by the Greeks, of so raising the hinder foot of a moving figure that only the toes touch the ground, was as far from being possessed by the Persians as was the power of causing the whole body to take part in an action—carrying forward the momentary position. The human being is apparently able neither to turn the animal away from himself, nor, by additional exertion, to give the death-blow. The opposing griffin is similarly petrified; it here appears with eagle’s head and feathered tail, occurring in other representations with lion’s head and scorpion’s tail. Both paws of the fore feet, and one of the eagle’s claws of the hind feet, are in the position of attack; one paw grasps the right arm, as it reaches towards the head of the monster; the other is laid upon the left, which pierces its body with a broad and pointed dagger. At the same time, one of the bird-like hinder legs touches the front knee of the human figure. But nowhere is there the energetic movement of seizing or pressure found upon Assyrian sculptures; there is a posture, but no action; and thus the lion-eagle monster has no frightful power—only something hatefully comical in figure and bearing. Nor has the bull or lion, which occasionally takes the place of the griffin, anything of the Assyrian force; the scene might be considered as a harmless play of the man with the animal, were it not for the sword half buried in the body.

The most accessible subjects for such an art were naturally mere ceremonial representations, where the action, reduced to a minimum, was naturally neither momentary nor energetic. There are the promenades of the king, with staff and lotos-flower in his hands, followed by eunuchs, one third of his size, who carry his handkerchief and sunshade, and cool him with a fan of peacock’s feathers. It is worthy of curious notice that, upon a door at the back of the palace, the sunshade is omitted from the relief, as being of use only in going out. A casual observation of Persian sculpture may be deceptive, and we may seem to recognize quiet dignity in what is mere want of all expression. It is thus with the frequently repeated ceremonial scenes, the architectural employment of which has been mentioned above. (Fig. 87.) The canopied throne appears raised upon an elevation; the king sits with his feet resting upon a footstool, his retinue before him with censers. Three superposed rows of men stand as supporters of the throne, with outstretched arms bearing the platform. The figures are placed in such regular position that the effect is purely ornamental; but are individually interesting, in so far as they are intended to represent, in feature and costume, the different nationalities of the Persian empire. Notwithstanding the celebrated description of the review of the Persian army upon the banks of the Hellespont given by Herodotos, it would be hopeless to attempt to recognize among the figures the types of known tribes. Of a similar kind are the upper parts of the rock-cut reliefs upon the tombs of the Achæmenidæ, the architectural peculiarities of which have already been mentioned. Because of the sacred character of these graves, the kings are not represented enthroned, but standing upon a stepped platform before an altar, over which floats the winged and encircled deity, near the disk of the sun or moon. A consideration of the exterior treatment of the upper story of the palaces would here be in place if it could be shown that the ornamentation was indeed carved.

Persian sculpture received its most extensive application upon the buttresses of the steps placed before every palace. Here are found the ceremonial scenes of the Assyrian courts in a feeble rendering, far removed from the sharp and careful cutting of the details, and the naturalistic modelling of the bodies, peculiar to the works of Mesopotamia. Long processions of men represent different nationalities, characterized by their costumes and by the treatment of hair and beard; by their various feather-caps, hoods, capuchins, pointed hats; short skirts, with wide pantaloons; long garments, with great fulness at the bottom, and sleeves falling in multiplied folds; by the skins of animals worn as mantles; by girdles, sword-belts and swords, bows and quivers; by peculiar sandals, shoes, boots, and the like. These subjects bring to the monarch most manifold gifts—horses, dromedaries, musk-oxen, rams, goats, a wagon, elephants’ tusks, stuffs, garments (among which various kinds of stockings are even distinguishable), swords, double-headed hammers, bracelets for the arms; censers, with vessels for incense; salve, in little bowls, borne upon trays which hang like scales; wine-skins, goblets, globular and flat cake-like loaves of food, carried in the palm of the hand; carved cups and saucers; little bags, etc. Others bear only lotos-flowers and pomegranates. They are slim, narrow-chested figures; the short upper body is given in profile, without anatomical truth in general form or detail; not only without motion, but apparently incapable of it. At times the position of the arms shows, not, indeed, a gesture, but some attempt of varied position; the hands lie upon one another, or touch the mouth, the end of the beard, the hilt of the sword hanging at the side, or the quiver, or are extended so as to rest upon the shoulders of the preceding figure in the procession.

Fig. 92.—Relief from the Stairs of the Palace of Darius.
Fig. 92.—Relief from the Stairs of the Palace of Darius.

Lifeless as these appear, they are still superior to the guards, armed with a lance, who march towards each other from opposite sides, in long processions. (Fig. 92.) The heads differ from the Assyrian type only in the pointed chin-beard; the bodies alternate between uniforms of two fixed patterns. One of these is without a shield, in a closely fitting leathern garment, with awkward pantaloons bound at the ankles, and a globular cap of surpassing clumsiness. The other, distinguished by shield and plumes, with a long robe drawn up at the hips, and with wide sleeves hanging in folds, is more tolerable. The elliptical shields, like those of Bœotia, have a round cut upon both sides, in which the lance was probably placed; they are strengthened by a circular plate riveted to the centre. Upon the terrace stairs, in the triangles formed by the ascending steps, are groups of animals—lions seizing bulls from behind. Though the forms are rendered with but little understanding of detail, the entire composition is well fitted to the triangular space allowed it, and thus has a certain decorative and architectural value. The parapet of the staircase terrace is decorated with rows of highly conventionalized lotos-flowers upon leafy stems; in its centre is the winged divinity of the disk between crouching lions. These carvings upon the staircase buttress, though monotonous, were still so rich that they gave to this member much the same distinction as that of the gable in Greek architecture, to which it is somewhat similar in outline, the ascent from each side forming a triangle. The representations upon it are, in their subjects, suited to the palace fronts, where guards were in place, as well as gift-bearing deputies from tributary nations. Though the division of the surface into several horizontal stripes by rows of figures, one over another, is not artistically beautiful, it still has the advantage that the standard of proportion is not infringed upon, as is so often the case when colossal statues are placed before buildings; the disadvantage may perhaps be less when life-sized figures, like these, are dwarfed by being brought into comparison with enormous edifices.

Only one important historical scene is known—the rock-cut relief of Bi-Sueton. A king, followed by guardsmen, sets his foot and bow upon a victim lying backwards on the ground, who stretches up his hands in a beseeching manner, while a procession of nine prisoners approaches, their hands tied behind them, and bound one to the other. Above is the winged deity. The proud bearing of the king, and the stooping of the helpless enemies, show a slightly superior artistic ability. Though Persian sculpture was successful in some rare instances, the conviction must still remain that, in comparison with the art of Assyria, it was not only a dependent imitation, but failed to attain any of the superiorities of its model. That which was borrowed from other lands than Mesopotamia was superficially carried into execution in unimportant details. Strictly speaking, we can hardly acknowledge the existence of the art of sculpture in Persia, as it was without either independent foundation or any progress of its own.

Of Persian painting there are no remains or information. The walls were without doubt plastered and colored. If there had been a revetment of glazed tiles, according to the Mesopotamian practice, some fragments of this almost indestructible material would surely have been found. From analogy of the carvings, it is probable that paintings upon the walls were chiefly ornamental and of subordinate importance. Upon the principal front of the buildings there remained but little space where painted decorations could be employed; the façade of the Tomb of Darius was largely covered with inscriptions. On the other hand, the restoration of the Palace of Darius, at the head of this chapter (Fig. 77), shows that the aid of color was particularly needed upon the other sides, which would have been bare and monotonous without painted ornaments. We may suppose that the Persians felt this need, and that decorative painting was extensively employed; they were led to it by familiarity with the methods of Assyrian art, and with the colored mural decorations universal in Egypt, both which lands they considered their tributary provinces. Though we cannot speak of monumental independence in Persian sculpture and painting—of which, indeed, no ancient Orientals had any conception—the art of the land had at least the superiority that its three branches, in their application, stood in true relations to each other, inasmuch as architecture employed and brought forward the sister arts as secondary, decorative aid; painting and sculpture did not predominate in the excessive degree characteristic of the older nations of the East. The Egyptians, whose architecture, otherwise so richly developed, was chiefly restricted to the interior, made excessive use of painting and coilanaglyphics to enliven the dead masses of exterior walls. The Assyrians needed sculptured revetment and painted stucco to support and hide the weakness of their masonry, and its incapacity for architectural treatment, within and without. Merely decorative art thus gained an undue supremacy in both countries. Among the Persians, on the other hand, architecture attained its full rights by important and harmonious advances, while decorative sculpture and painting withdrew to their proper subordinate positions.

Fig. 93.—Rock-cut Tombs of Myra.
Fig. 93.—Rock-cut Tombs of Myra.

PHŒNICIA, PALESTINE, AND ASIA MINOR.

THE primitive tradition which makes the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris the centre of the most advanced culture of the earth is illustrated by the extraordinary expanse of Mesopotamian influence in both time and space. Extending eastwards even to the Ganges, in a westerly direction passing beyond the Adriatic, bounded on the north only by inhospitable Scythia (Siberia), and on the south by the Indian Ocean, its roots, long after the advent of the Christian era, sent forth fresh shoots into Western Asia, recognizable in the monuments of the Sassanidæ and in the works of the world-conquering Arabians. The spring of native civilization was not entirely exhausted, although, after the fall of the Persian empire and the foundation of a Greek Asiatic monarchy by Alexander the Great, Hellenism had expanded itself over Western Asia for five centuries,—first among the luxurious Seleucidæ, who had attached to themselves the Asiatic half of the Macedonian empire, and in later times under the strict military power of the imperial Roman period. Nor could the barbarism of the Parthians wholly obliterate from the land the reminiscences of ancient Persian and Mesopotamian culture. These influences appear again when the Persian Ardshir—boasting a direct descent from the Achæmenidæ, and therefore called Artaxerxes by the Byzantine Greeks—shook off the yoke of the barbaric Parthians in the year 226 after Christ, as his forefather Cyrus, eight centuries previously, had founded his empire upon that of the Medes. Ardshir was the first ruler of a new national Persian dynasty, named after his father, Sassan,—a race under whose sway the land east of the Tigris was raised to a glory and importance which made itself felt even in distant and powerful Rome. One Roman emperor, the unhappy Valerian, was even forced to languish during the last ten years of his life in a Persian prison, the Romans not venturing to free him from the despicable slavery of the Sassanian Shahpur I., who meanwhile took care to hand down to posterity that world-renowned result of Persian bravery and cunning by numerous monuments and rock-carved reliefs, which testify, as a leaf of authentic history, to an event so humiliating to Rome.

The Palace of Ctesiphon,—the Sassanian representative of the Hellenic Seleucia upon the Tigris, a city of the Diadochi which had itself taken the place of the Chaldæan Babylon on the Euphrates,—the dwellings of Sarbistan and Firuz-Abad, with many other buildings and monuments sculptured upon the face of cliffs, give evidence of the artistic ability of the new Persian kingdom, which continued to flourish until the foundation of the Mohammedan power in Mesopotamia, 641 A.D. Much was certainly lost, and the artistic ornamentation of architecture, as illustrated by the columns and pilasters of Sarbistan, which are without capital or base, sank again to the rudeness of the ancient monuments of Chaldæa; but, on the other hand, the constructive gain was not inconsiderable, notably in the greater development of gateways, windows, and niches, as well as in the appearance of immense arches, cylindrical vaults, and cupolas, which received peculiar forms of parabolic lines, though not excluding the round arch. The later Persians had marked influence upon the conquering Arabs, who, with few native traditions, were readily receptive: this is illustrated by the horse-shoe arch, so characteristic of Moorish architecture, which may be traced in the works of the Sassanidæ from the Palace of Ctesiphon to the Monument of Tak-i-Gero. Chronological considerations and the increasing influence of Greek and Roman elements seem, however, to forbid the treatment of Sassanian architecture in this sequence. Indian art is omitted chiefly upon the ground that the best work of the Farther East does not appertain to a history of antiquity at all; the remains antedating the Christian era, such as the columns of Asoka, are too undeveloped and wanting in independence to deserve separate consideration. This would be even less the place for a review of Sassanian sculpture, because in this, in spite of the recurrence of ancient Mesopotamian figures and details, and notwithstanding the national peculiarities observable in the modelling of muscles and draperies, the Hellenic and Roman influences are too great to allow of a proper treatment of the subject apart from the artistic development of Greece and Italy. Sassanian and Indian art, though standing in a certain relation to the civilization of antiquity, may receive a more just historical treatment if considered immediately before the advent of Mohammedan methods of building,—upon the threshold of the Middle Ages.

The chief currents of culture and intellectual development have ever flowed steadily towards the West: such was the course of the wide-spreading artistic influence of Mesopotamia. The valley of the Euphrates and Tigris is divided from the shores of the Mediterranean by desert tracts which did not allow Assyrian traditions, though directed and furthered by the important trade-roads, to take immediate and undisputed possession of the strip of Phœnician coast. Egypt lay too near for this; its influence could not remain unfelt by the seafaring inhabitants of the Syrian lands. Indefinite theories have been prevalent for some time concerning the meeting and blending of the peculiar civilizations of the lands of the Nile and the Tigris, but until recently Phœnicia was the least-known country of the ancient world. The Syrian expedition of the French under the auspices of Napoleon III., like the Egyptian under Napoleon I., presented the possibility of a thorough and systematic exploration of Phœnician remains. The difficulties of prosecuting the investigations were not less than they had been in Chaldæa. “The land,” says Renan, who was commissioned to conduct the explorations, “is now completely deserted. The destruction of the forests has everywhere done its evil work; the soil, year after year carried off by the inhabitants of the villages or washed away by the torrents of winter rain, has disappeared from the native rock; the flow of water from the springs, more and more exhausted, has become too weak to find its way to the sea against the many hinderances; hemmed in by dunes and alluvial formations, it fills the plain with the poisonous exhalations of swamps, so that the once blooming and populous land has become a pestilent desert, where for miles there is scarcely a hut to be seen.”

The remaining monuments are chiefly grouped around the five principal trading towns of the coast,—Ruad (Aradus), Amrith (Marathus), Jebeil (Byblus), Saida (Sidon), and Sur (Tyre),—which follow one another from north to south in the given succession. Still farther to the south are isolated ruins near Gabr-Hiram and Um-el-Auamid. Beyrout, now the most important city of all the original Phœnician territory, has the fewest remains of antiquity; the greater number are at the totally deserted site of Marathus, where the neighboring brook, Nahr-el-Amrith, alone retains a trace of the city’s anciently celebrated name. The city Aradus, frequently mentioned in the Mosaic Scriptures, founded Marathus, its most important colony, as well as Paltus, Balaneia, Carnek, and Enhydra. Of Aradus itself little exists beyond a few enormous blocks of hewn stone; the fanaticism of the present inhabitants of Ruad prevented an adequate examination of the site. All these cities lost their importance in the Roman period, with the ascendency of Antaradus, the mediæval Tortosa.

Fig. 94.—Temple Cella (El-Maabed) of Amrith.
Fig. 94.—Temple Cella (El-Maabed) of Amrith.

The remains at Amrith are barely sufficient to give a conception of the temple buildings and monumental tombs of the Phœnicians. One fane, in an exceptionally good state of preservation, is still called by the inhabitants El-Maabed (the temple). It consists of a rectangular area, the temenos, 48 m. broad and 55 m. long, sunk into the native rock, so that three of its sides are formed by the perpendicular cut, and reach the height of 5 m. Upon the north, the entrance, the enclosure was completed by a wall, which was also continued around the other three sides, and there heightened the boundary. Two piers, in the southeastern and southwestern corners, standing 3.5 m. from the edge of the rock, and numerous sockets for the ends of the beams, plainly visible in the walls, lead to the supposition that a gallery was carried partially or entirely around the space. The whole sunken area formed the court of a temple, perhaps a sacred lake, as many traces of paved springs in the interior seem to indicate. The small cella, which rises exactly in the centre of the quadrangle, thus became an unapproachable sanctuary. (Fig. 94.) It is formed of only five stones. The socle is hewn from the solid rock, 3 m. high and 5.5 m. square, with traces of a stairway upon the right side. The three-walled cella, open to the north, is 5 m. high; its ceiling is monolithic, while the walls consist of three superposed blocks cut to the plan of the chamber. The roof, chiselled within to the form of a flat-arched vault, juts forward over the opening; its projection may have been supported by light columns of metal, the probable form of which will be considered in connection with the rock-cut reliefs of Mashnaka. Upon the side-walls, which stand 2.34 m. apart, there are two low benches, leaving a ground-space of only 0.8 m. between them. The architectural decoration of this shrine is limited to a cornice of scotia and roundlet; though this appears also in Assyria and Persia, it still gives an Egyptian character to the cella exterior, which in plan and general disposition is very similar to the Mesopotamian chapels represented upon Assyrian reliefs (Figs. 35 and 57), and to such structures as appear to have existed upon the terraced pyramids of Chaldæa. In this cella we possess the oldest and the only Semitic temple known, still in admirable preservation, although the downfall of the crumbling mass is predicted by the authorities who accompanied the Phœnician expedition. Of two similar structures, which stood near the city of Marathus, Renan could discover only overthrown blocks buried in the swamp of Ain-el-Hayat (fountain of the serpents) and hidden by oleander-bushes. They stood at a distance of 10 m., their open sides turned towards each other. The remains of the better-preserved cella show it to have been entirely monolithic. It stood upon a double substructure, of which, strange to say, the lower part is considerably smaller than the upper. It betrays still closer relationship with Egyptian works of the kind by rows of uræos-serpents over the cornice scotia and the winged disk upon the inner ceiling. From their plan, they appear to have had no columnar supports, and resemble, in the careful restoration made by Mr. Thobois, the monolithic cellas of Philæ preserved in Leyden and in the Louvre. Traces of three other sanctuaries, or at least of their temenos enclosure, which is partly cut in the rock and partly built, exist in the vicinity of the Stadion of Amrith, now known as El-Meklaa (the quarry), and designated by Renan, upon insufficient grounds, as itself ancient Phœnician.

Fig. 95.—The Monuments El-Meghazil of Amrith.
Fig. 95.—The Monuments El-Meghazil of Amrith.

The monumental tombs of Amrith are not less important than these places of worship; the ruins known under the name El-Auamid-el-Meghazil (the spindle-columns) are truly majestic. (Fig. 95.) The first rises in three cylindrical steps upon a square platform little elevated above the ground. The lower part, 2.5 m. in height and 5.15 m. in diameter, built of two stones, is ornamented over the corners of the platform with engaged lions, which are among the most prominent works of Phœnician sculpture known, and will be considered at greater length below. Upon this first cylindrical step rests a block 7 m. high, ornamented at the base with delicately curved moulding, and at the summit with dentils and battlements. These latter are found also upon fragments from Jebeil in conjunction with squares and rosettes and a particularly characteristic frieze of straight-lined laurel branches; they show great similarity to Mesopotamian remains. In the circular plan of the structure there is no reminiscence of Egyptian methods of art; an hemispherical termination lends to the whole so marked an individuality that, although its form seems not to have been universal, or even the most common, upon the Syrian coasts, there yet may be recognized in this monument a truly original Phœnician type. In the development of memorial stones a cultured people generally expresses its fundamental artistic conceptions, as is the case with the pyramidal termination of Egyptian obelisks, and with the Assyrian piers terminated by a stepped terrace, in both of which are embodied the lines predominant in the architecture of those nations. A stairway hewn in the rock leads to the subterranean burial chambers; its entrance is at some little distance from the monument, as shown in the section Fig. 95. Only 6 m. removed from this rises a second pile, which, from a certain parallelism of position, seems to belong with it. It is simpler than the first, consisting of a cube measuring 3 m. upon the side, so roughly hewn that it appears a block taken just as it was quarried; upon it is a monolithic cylinder 4 m. high and 3.7 m. in diameter, terminated by a five-sided pyramid of steep inclination. Somewhat removed from these are two similar monuments, of which the better preserved stands upon steps and rises in two cubes, separated by a cornice of wavy outline, the upper block terminating in a four-sided pyramid, now almost entirely overthrown. It is remarkable for the monolithic horizontal covering of the entrance to the grave chambers, which is again a little distant from the base. Of the pyramidal termination of its neighbor, only traces remain. All these monuments were in part cut from the native rock and in part composed of enormous monoliths; a fifth, of considerably greater dimensions, was built of quarried stones. Of this latter, the commanding mausoleum known under the name of Burdj-el-Bezzak (Tower of the Snails), little remains beyond the platform, which measures 11 m. in height and 9 m. in the square plan. The four-sided pyramid, of obtuse inclination, placed upon this elevation, is now entirely overthrown. The blocks, 5 m. long, are hewn only upon the joints, and left with a rough face. A cornice of curved profile ran around the platform; within it are two chambers, each lighted by a small window, the existence of which rendered the otherwise customary grotto beneath the pile superfluous.

Grotto tombs, with a decorated entrance cut upon the rock wall, seem to have been most generally employed in Central Phœnicia. They are exemplified by the numerous remains of this kind at Saida (Sidon) and Jebeil (Byblus). A tomb at the latter place shows a simple but interesting façade; its ornamentation, by the heavy gable and ring-formed acroterium, is strikingly similar to forms occurring in Central Asia Minor (Phrygia). (Fig. 96.) Its flat border and plain five-leaved rosette in the tympanon triangle give no evidence of Hellenic influence. The interior of these tombs is generally a large room, with curved ceiling and niches upon three of its sides, sunk into the rock, one above another, like those of the Catacombs, to hold the rows of coffins. The finest of the sarcophagi of Jebeil is decorated with festoons, wreaths, single leaves and branches, in a naïve style of ornament betraying no knowledge of Greek sculpture. In Southern Phœnicia a monumental development of the sarcophagus seems to have been chiefly favored. The tomb known as that of Hiram (Gabr-hiram), south of Sur (Tyre), is an immense coffer, 3 m. high, with a heavy arched cover, raised upon a plinth built of hewn blocks 4.24 m. long, 2.64 m. broad, and 3 m. high, the upper part of which is formed by a monolithic slab almost one meter in thickness. Not far from this site, at Um-el-Auamid, is a large sarcophagus, 2.40 m. long and 1.24 m. broad, with a gable-shaped lid decorated by clumsy corner acroterias. Against one of its sides stands a small altar, remarkable for the corners of its battlemented termination, which must be similar to the horns of the altar which stood in the tabernacle of Solomon’s Temple.