Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/120

IQ2 A History of Art in Chald.ea and Assyria. The long inscriptions and the endless series of pictures with which the palace walls were covered were no more than an illustrated book. And in what class of literature should that book be placed ? It has been called an epic illustrated by sculptors — a description that seems hardly just. For in every epic worthy of the name the marvellous occupies an important place, while in these reliefs it scarcely has a place at all. With few exceptions the belief in a superior and divine world makes itself felt in Assyrian art only in those effigies of gods and demons we have already described. And such images have their places rigidly fixed by tradition ; they stand at the palace gates, but are scarcely ever found within its saloons, and are entirely absent from the marches, battles, and sieges. Here and there among such pictures, but at long intervals, we find some feature that reminds us of the aid that Assur and ,,.,;;/ Fig. 46. — Assyrian standard ; from JLajard. the other national gods afforded their worshippers ; now it is an eagle floating over the king's chariot ; l now the god himself, sur- rounded by a winged circle, draws his bow and launches his formidable shafts against the enemies of his people. 2 He is thus represented mounted on a galloping bull in the ring by which the standards of the Assyrian legions were surmounted. All these details were small in scale and unobtrusive. The role played by the architect was similar to that of the draughts- men and photographers who sometimes accompany princes and generals on a modern campaign. The programme placed before him was as narrow as it could well be ; he was required to be faithful and precise, not to give proof of inventive power. The sculptor was, in a way, the editor of the military bulletins ; 1 Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 437. 2 Layard, Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 44c.