But after the conquest of Egypt, Darius, who, as we saw, admired the monuments in the valley of the Nile, resolved to have a sepulchral cave hewn for himself, in the form of a speos, in the side of the rock, and analogous to the sepulchral hypogæa of the Pharaohs. His successors acted like him. The caverns of Darius and the princes of his dynasty, which are to be seen in the rocks of Nakhsh-i-Rustam and Takht-i-Jemshid, near Persepolis, differ in all points from the tombs of Cambyses I. and Cyrus: while the latter are square towers of masonry, those of the second Achæmenid dynasty are cut out side by side in the vertical wall of the mountain, and the façade, like that of the hypogæa at Beni-Hassan, is decorated with bas-reliefs. To reach these chambers it was necessary in the time of the Achæmenids, as in our own day, to be hoisted by ropes to a level with the aperture. The exterior sculptures are interesting. A colonnade with bicephalic capitals supports an architrave, the frieze of which is adorned with a procession of lions and surmounted with bas-reliefs. Two rows of soldiers fully armed raise their hands to sustain a sort of platform, the borders of which are decorated with two symbolical figures of lions provided with bulls’ horns. These Persian warriors remind the spectator of the Assyrian soldiers who form the decoration of Sennacherib’s throne. On the platform stands Darius on a pedestal in steps, dressed in the persis described by Herodotus, crowned with the cidaris, resting the end of his bow on the ground and stretching out his hand. Opposite him is a lighted fire-altar and the image of Ormuzd. Round this bas-relief and serving as its frame stand the figures of the satraps who helped Darius to slay Gaumates. The door of the cave is opened in the central intercolumniation. The interior of the chambers was as severe as possible; the roof is hewn into the form of a vault; in obedience to the law of Ormuzd there is no trace anywhere of painting or inscription. The cavities for the sarcophagi are formed in the side walls, as in the sepulchral caverns of Egypt, Palestine, and Phœnicia.
§ V. Engraved Gems and Ornaments.
The glyptic art and the jewellery of the Persians maintain nobly and without any sign of decadence the artistic traditions of Chaldæa and Assyria. Assurbanipal and Nebuchadnezzar, when they made expeditions into the most distant provinces of Persia, Media, and Armenia, had spread through all these countries the productions of Assyrian industry and the taste for luxury and works of art; their artists recruited their disciples there: like Alexander, they carried the torch of civilisation everywhere by their arms, and when the Achæmenids took up their residence at Susa and Ecbatana, they found the inhabitants profoundly impregnated with Chaldæo-Assyrian ideas and customs. To as high a degree as the Babylonians, the Persians love full dress and ornaments: each citizen of distinction has his cylinder or his seal hung from his neck; he is covered with bracelets, rings, necklaces; his tiara is decorated with pearls and sparkling stones; his tunic, delicately embroidered, is encrusted with gems. In his house he displays a luxury in furniture which, handed on to the Parthians, will astonish the Romans and Byzantines: cups of gold and silver enriched with crystal and coloured glass, and adorned with figures in relief; chairs, couches and tables overlaid with silver, gold, and carved ivory. In short, everything begotten of the passion for luxury among the Chaldæans in the matter of tapestry, embroidery, and goldsmiths’ work, is also found among the Persians.
Only, the Persians were not servile imitators; they could give an original turn to the productions of their industry, even when they copied the Assyrians. There is in their cylinders and their seals a dry and nervous execution which characterises them as distinctly as the bulls of Persepolis are distinguished from the Ninevite monsters. It goes without saying also that the inscriptions and the details of costume give an absolutely precise character to the classification of the productions of the glyptic art under the Achæmenids. Here is, for instance, the cylinder of Darius, preserved at the British Museum. The whole scene is evidently copied from Assyrian seals, but the figure of the rampant lion and those of the horses are quite different in treatment from Ninevite art; the denticulated tiara of the prince, the disk of Ormuzd hovering in the air, and finally the inscription traced with mathematical regularity, complete the proofs of Persian origin in this fine cylinder.
Fig. 142.—Cylinder of Darius (after J. Menant).
As we remove ourselves chronologically from the origin of the art, more perceptible modifications are introduced into the technique, and new foreign influences are revealed in Persian work. A cylinder ([fig. 143]), which belongs to a Russian collector, represents a scene which might be supposed to be imitated from the bas-relief at Behistun. Darius is here seen slaying with his lance a kneeling enemy, whose head-dress is Egyptian.