THE PERSIAN PERIOD
dens"—keepers of the books or book keepers.
It appears from this that the "House of books" or "House of rolls" was in the "House of treasures" which was in turn in the "Palace" (or "citadel"). This is highly interesting, for each of these buildings, one within the other; archive, treasury, and palace is famous in history, the palace for its splendor, the treasury for its gold and silver spoils of war and the archive not only on account of this "little separate roll' which it contained, but as one of the chief repositories of the "laws of the Medes and Persians" which were written on leather rolls.
Ecbatana "originally the royal city of the Medes and vastly superior to the other cities in wealth and in splendor of its buildings" was "unwalled but contained an artificially formed citadel fortified to an astonishing strength." In the time of Cyrus and to the time of Herodotus the
[133]
