Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/301

Gems. 269 gesture in each case is almost exactly the same ; the weapon raised over the vanquished both in the Theban relief and the Chaldaean cylinder is well fitted to suggest the power of the conqueror and his cruel revenges. We have reproduced this example less for its subject than for the character of its execution. The figures are modelled in a very rough-and-ready fashion ; we might almost call it a sketch upon stone. The movement, however, of the two chief figures is well understood and expressive. Another and perhaps still richer series is composed of stones on which the war waged by Izdubar and his faithful Hea-bani against the monsters is figured. 1 We have already shown Izdubar carry- ing off a lion he has killed (see above, Fig. 35). Another task of the Mesopotamian Hercules is shown in Fig. 147, where he is engaged in a struggle with the celestial human-headed bull, who Fig. 147.- Chaldaean cylinder. Basalt. has been roused to attack the hero by Istar, whose love the hero has refused. 2 In this cylinder it will be noticed that Izdubar is repeated twice, once in profile and once full face. Close to him Hea-bani is wrestling with a lion, the bull's companion and assistant. In another example we fnd Izdubar alone (Fig. 148) and maintaining a vigorous struggle against a bull with long straight horns, and at the same time turning his head so as to follow a combat between a lion and ibex that is going on behind him. 3 The action of both these latter animals is rendered with great freedom and truth. We 1 Menant, Essai, &c, pp. 61-96. 2 Menant, Essai, p. 94. Izdubar contends not only with monsters; he pursues, for his own pleasure, all the beasts of the desert and mountain ; like the Nimrod of Genesis, he is a "mighty hunter before the Lord." See the cylinders figured and explained by S. Haffner(Z# Chasse de V Hercule assyrien, in the Gazette archéologique, 1879, p. 178-184). 3 Menant, Essai, p. 91.