Le Brun counted one thousand three hundred figures of men and animals, the half of which were as large as life, without including those on the tombs; and he counted the fragments of no less than two hundred and five columns. Destruction, however, is going on very rapidly. In one part of the remains there were twenty-five pillars standing, where now there are only thirteen. Thus,
| Della Valle, in 1621, saw 25 pillars standing. | ||
| Herbert, in 1627 | } | 19 |
| Olearius, in 1638 | ||
| Kæmpfer, in 1696 | } | 17 pillars standing. |
| Niebuhr, in 1765 | ||
| Franklin, in 1796 | } | 15 |
| Porter | ||
| Morier, &c. | ||
| Lieut. Alexander, in 1826 | 13[86] | |
Mr. Morier says, that on comparing Le Brun’s, Chardin’s, and Niebuhr’s drawings with the sculptures, he found them in general correct in outline, but imperfect in details of dress, arms, &c.; and that although the figures are in themselves ill-proportioned, inelegant, and deficient in anatomical drawing, they are exceedingly interesting in general character, and have not been done justice to in the works of these travellers. They, moreover, furnish the best models of what were the nations, that invaded Greece with Xerxes, and that were subdued by Alexander.
The Hall of Pillars appears to have been detached from the rest of the palace, and to have had a communication with the other parts by hollow galleries of stone. It is situated on an eminence, commanding an extensive view of the plain of Merdusht. It is strikingly grand, and conveys to the beholder the idea of a hall of audience of a powerful and warlike monarch.
The Palace of Forty Pillars (called Shehel Setoon) was the favourite residence of the latter Sophi kings. The front is entirely open to the garden, and it is sustained by a double range of columns, upwards of forty feet high, each column shooting up from the united backs of four lions of white marble. The exhaustless profusion of the splendid materials, of which this palace is internally formed, which reflect their own golden or crystal lights on each other, along with all the variegated colours of the garden, give the appearance of an entire surface, formed of polished silver and mother-of-pearl set with precious stones; a scene well fitted for an Eastern poet’s dream, or some magic vision in the tales of an Arabian Night.
This hall, travellers suppose to be the precise part, which formed the banqueting-hall where Alexander displayed his triumph; the place where the kings of Persia received the homage of their subjects, displayed their magnificence, and issued their beneficent orders; also the private palace which was appropriated to the domestic intercourse of the members of the royal family.
Sir Robert Porter says that he gazed at the ruins with wonder and delight. “Besides the admiration which the general elegance of their form, and the exquisite workmanship of their parts excited,” says he, “I never was made so sensible of the impression of perfect symmetry, comprising also in itself that of perfect beauty.”
Mr. Morier says, that on one of the highest columns is the remains of the sphinx, so common in all the ornaments of Persepolis; that he could distinguish on the summit of every one a something quite unconnected with the capitals; so that the high columns have, strictly speaking, no capitals whatever, being each a long shaft to the very summit on which the sphinx rests. The capitals, he continues, of the lower columns are of a complicated order, composed of many pieces. There are also three distinct species of base.
Deslandes imagined, that these columns never supported a roof, but idols: on which Porter says, “I am not aware of a precedent in any idolatrous country, for such a wilderness of gods as we should have found assembled here in effigy; and, least of all, could we expect to find such extravagant proofs of polytheism in a palace, that appears to have owed its origin to the immediate ancestors of Cyrus, the simple worshippers of Mithra, or the sun; and the proudest decorations of which may be dated from Darius, the follower of the philosophic Zoroaster, whose image, the god of his idolatry, is nothing grosser than the element of fire. To suppose these pillars to have been the supports of commemorating statues to the honour of the heroes of Persia, seems equally untenable; for it is not in absolute monarchies, as in republics, or in commonwealths, where kings form only one great member of the body politic, that the eminent warriors and worthies of the land have such monuments erected to them. In Persia we find the bas-reliefs of its kings and their attendants on the walls of its palaces; in Rome we find the statues of Brutus, and Cato, and Cicero, under the ruins of the forum.”
In regard to the magnificent colonnade, which occupies the terrace, “the imagination,” says Mr. Fraser, “cannot picture a sight more imposing than those vast, solitary, mutilated pillars, which, founded in an age beyond the reach of tradition, have witnessed the lapse of countless generations, and seen dynasties and empires rise, flourish, and decay, while they still rear their grey heads unchanged.”