province. In the compartments below rows of Persian soldiers are drawn up in line, probably those that composed the famous guard of the Immortals; they carry lances, bows and quivers, and have swords at their sides. The throne is of a truly Assyrian form. “The canopy, made of woven stuff,” says M. Dieulafoy,[59] “is decorated with a very curious design. Each strip is composed of two similar bands heavily embroidered. A band covered with rosettes is followed by a band adorned with bulls like those which decorate the cornice of the royal tombs; in the centre appears the winged emblem of Ahura-Mazda. The lower band ends in a trimming covered with rosettes, and a thick fringe; round patches adorn the angles. The position of the winged emblems on the top give this piece of drapery the appearance of an Egyptian tent, but the procession of bulls, the trimmings, the fringes, and the rich embroidery are of Assyrian origin.”
Fig. 134.—Portico at Persepolis (after Flandin and Coste).
The symbolic figure of Ormuzd, with his winged disk, is a reproduction of the similar divine figure so often seen hovering over the king and his soldiers on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Scenes of most significant cruelty also passed from Chaldæo-Assyrian sculpture into Persian sculpture. On the bas-relief which Darius caused to be carved upon the rock of Behistun, to recount his exploits to distant posterity, the king is holding his bow as Sennacherib does, and placing his foot on the breast of a prisoner who holds out his hands in supplication, while nine other kings stand bound with chains, with their hands behind their backs and cords around their necks[60].
Like the porticoes of Ninevite palaces, those of Persepolis are garnished with human-headed bulls; the latter have preserved the walking attitudes, the curled hair, and often even the high tiara decorated with rosettes and feathers, which characterise their elder brothers on the banks of the Tigris. Only, while the Assyrian bulls are sometimes placed even with the surface of the façade and facing one another in the doorway, the Persepolitan bulls, on the contrary, are always placed parallel on each side of the opening and look outwards, facing the terrace. Finally, in the sculpture of these gigantic monsters the Persian artist shows himself superior to the Assyrian artist: while preserving the animals in the same hieratic posture, he has had the skill to soften the modelling of the limbs, and to give to the wings a more elegant and graceful curve; the bulls have only four legs instead of five; their flanks are more supple and plumper; the horns, emblems of strength, which surround the head of the Ninevite monsters, are suppressed; the anatomical forms and the respective proportions of the different parts of the body are more closely studied; we have here Assyrian art interpreted by artists formed in the school of the Greeks.
§ III. Painting and Enamelling.
The art of enamelling brick, invented by the Chaldæans, did not perish with Babylon. The Achæmenids