Some of the animals in the Assyrian reliefs are then nothing but determinative signs, a kind of pictorial gloss. Of these it will suffice to mention the existence. Their forms are so much generalized that they offer no matter for study. On the other hand, our best attention should be given to those figures whose modelling has strongly interested the artist, who has taken a lively pleasure in reproducing their various aspects and in making them live again in all the originality of their powerful and exceptional natures. In this respect the lion deserves particular notice. He interested the Assyrian sculptors more profoundly than any other animal and they devoted extraordinary attention to illustrating his various attitudes and characteristics. One is inclined to believe that the more skilful among them chose a lion for treatment when they wished to display all the talent they possessed and to gain a reputation for complete mastery of their art.[187]
Here we find the great beast stretched carelessly upon the ground, full of confidence in his strength and careless of danger (Plate XI.); there he rises to his feet and advances ready to collect himself and spring upon any threatening enemy or passing prey (Plate VIII.). We sometimes find both these motives united, as in a bas-relief of Assurbanipal, which is unfortunately mutilated (Fig. 77). Here a lioness is stretched upon the ground, her head upon her forepaws and her tail outstretched behind her, in a favourite attitude of very young cats. The lion stands upright before her in a proud, extended attitude like that of the colossal lion from Nimroud (Plate VIII.); his head and the hind parts of his body are unfortunately missing.
BRONZE LION
FROM KHORSABAD
Louvre
Elsewhere we find the lion cautiously emerging from a stoutly-built timber cage (Fig. 78). He has been captured in a net or snare and shut up in this narrow prison until the day of some great hunt.[188] When that arrives the door is raised at a given signal by a man perched on the top of the cage and protected by a timber grating. In spite of this defence the service would hardly be free from danger but that the lion is too pleased to find himself at liberty to look behind him.[189]
Fig. 77.—Lion and lioness in a park. British Museum.
The lion finds himself confronted by the Royal huntsman who fights, as a rule, from his chariot, where two or three companions, chosen from his bravest and most skilful servants, are ready to lend him help if necessary. The British Museum possesses a great number of sculptured pictures in which every incident of the hunt is figured up to its inevitable end. We reproduce two figures from the slabs representing the great hunt of Assurbanipal. The first shows a huge lion mortally wounded by an arrow which still stands in his body. It has transfixed some great vessel, and the blood gushes in a wide torrent from his open mouth. Already the chills of death are upon him and yet with his back arched, and his feet brought together and grasping the soil, he collects his energies in a last effort to prevent himself rolling over helplessly on the sand.