[185] Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 437.
[186] Layard, Monuments, series ii. plates 32 (Khorsabad), and 40 (Kouyundjik).
[187] A lion hunt is to be found in the bas-reliefs of Assurnazirpal, dating from the ninth century, B.C. (Layard, Monuments, first series, plates 10 and 31); but it is especially in those of Assurbanipal (7th century), that the animal becomes so conspicuous.
[188] On the subject of these great hunts and their arrangements, see Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 505–512. The custom is still kept up in Eastern countries, and their personnel is pretty much the same as it was in antiquity. See Chardin, Voyage en Perse (Langles’ edition), vol. iii. p. 399; and Rousselet, L’Inde des Rajahs, pp. 202, 464, 468.
[189] These caged lions are only found in the bas-reliefs of Assurbanipal. The number of lions killed between the eleventh and seventh centuries B.C. must have been something extraordinary. Tiglath-Pileser I. boasts in one of his inscriptions of having done eight hundred lions to death. In time they must have become rare in Assyria. They must then have been brought from Chaldæa or Susiana, where they have always been more abundant, and transported to the north in carts, cages and all, there to afford sport for the king. In our day lions are hardly to be found higher up the Tigris than Bagdad; but on the Euphrates they occur much farther north, as far as Bir and all over the valley of the Khabour (Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 48). They are most numerous in the marshes of the lower Euphrates, where they were hunted in boats by the kings of Assyria (Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, vol. i. pp. 361 and 508). Most of the lions of Mesopotamia have very little mane, but a few have been encountered here and there in which that feature is largely developed. These seem to have been chosen as models by the Assyrian artists.
[190] In one single series of these reliefs, there are eleven lions killed and seven terribly wounded.
[191] The king sometimes found himself engaged with a lion at the closest quarters. In an inscription on one of these reliefs, Assurbanipal thus expresses himself. “I, Assurbanipal, king of the nations, king of Assyria, fighting on foot in my great courage with a lion of terrifying size, I seized him by the ear(!), and, in the name of Assur and Istar, goddess of war, I put an end to his life with the lance I held in my hand.” (Fox Talbot in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xix. p. 272).
[192] Layard, Discoveries, p. 487. As to the part played by the lion in the ceremonies of the present court of Abyssinia, see Georges Perrot, Les Fouilles de M. de Sarzec en Chaldée, pp. 532, 534, of the Revue des deux Mondes for October 1, 1882.
[193] The same rock may be identified in the fragments from Tello. There is a kind of cylindrical base in the Louvre, which appears to have been cut from a material differing in no respect from that of the object figured above. Lions’ heads appear upon it also.
[194] Upon the employment of the head and paws of the lion as an ornament, see also Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 301.