Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/584

558 style of the lofty palaces, colonnades, and vestibules most imposing. Especially striking are the huge pillars, of which a number still stand erect. No traveller can escape the spell of these majestic ruins. 1 It is impossible to give a minute account of them here ; the reader must refer to the numerous descriptions and illustrations in the works of ancient and modern travellers. 2 It is to be observed that several of the buildings were never finished. Stolze has shown that in some cases even the mason s rub bish has not been removed, and remarks accordingly that in those early times, just as at the present day, an Oriental prince would rather commence a new building of his own than complete the unfinished work of his predecessor. These ruins, for which the name Chihil mendre or "the forty minarets " 3 can be traced back to the 13th century, 4 are now known as Takhti Jamshid, "the throne of Jamshid" (a mythical king). That they represent the Persepolis captured and partly destroyed by Alexander the Great has been beyond dispute, at least since the time of Pietro della Valle. 5 Amongst the earlier scholars the fanciful notions of the Persians, who are utterly ignorant of the real history of their country before Alexander, often re ceived too much attention ; hence many of them were of opinion that the buildings were of much higher antiquity than the time of Cyrus ; and even those who rightly regarded them as the works of the Achsemenians were unable to support their theory by conclusive evidence. 6 The decipherment of the cuneiform Persian inscriptions found on the ruins and in the neighbourhood has put an end to all doubt on this point. We now read with absolute certainty that some of the edifices are the work of Darius L, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes III. (Ochus), and with equal certainty we may conclude that all the others were built under the Achagmenian dynasty. Behind Takhti Jamshid are three sepulchres hewn out of the rock in the hillside, the facades, one of which is incomplete, being richly ornamented Avith reliefs. About 8 miles to the north-north-east, on the opposite side of the Pulwar, rises a perpendicular wall of rock, in which four similar tombs are cut, at a considerable height from the bottom of the valley. The modern Persians call this place Nakshi Rustam (" the picture of Rustam ") from the Sasanian reliefs beneath the opening, which they take to be a representation of the mythical hero Rustam. That the occupants of these seven tombs were kings might be inferred from the sculptures, and one of those at Nakshi Rustam is expressly declared in its inscription to be the tomb of the great Darius, concerning whom Ctesias relates 1 See the description of Mas udi (e<. Barbier de Meynard, iv. 76 sq.}, written 944 A.D. ; and that of Makdisi (Mokaddasi, ed. De Goeje, p. 444), written forty years later. 2 See especially Chanlin, Kaempfer, Niebulir, and Ouseley. Niebuhr s drawings, though good, are, for the purposes of the architectural student, inferior to the great work of Texier, and still far more to that of Flandin and Coste. Good sketches, chiefly after Flandin, are given by Kossowicz, Inscriptioncs palseo-persicse, St Petersburg, 1872. In addition to these we have now the photographic plates in Stolze s Persepolis (2 vols., Berlin, 1882). Stolze s " photogramnietric " plan surpasses all previous attempts in accuracy. The numerous reliefs found in this group of ruins (especially on the great double stair), executed in a very remarkable style of art, were first brought within the scope of accurate examination by these works, since, with some individual exceptions (as in Ouseley), the drawings of the figures in the older works were quite inadequate. 3 Neither "the forty towers" nor "the forty pillars" is a correct rendering of the expression. The round pillars with their heavy capitals have a much closer resemblance to the turrets of the Moham medan mosques than to our church towers. An older name for all the splendid ruins through the Pulwar valley is hnzAr sut&n, "the thousand pillars" (Hamza Isp., ed. Gottwaldt, p. 38). A thousand is, of course, like forty, a round number. 4 Sir W. Ouseley, Travels, ii. 309. 5 Lettera xv. (ed. Brighton, 1843, ii. 246 57.). 6 See the discussion of this question in Ouseley. that his grave was in the face of a rock, and could be reached only by means of an apparatus of ropes. Ctesias mentions further, with regard to a number of Persian kings, either that their remains were brought es nj/xras, "to the Persians," or that they died there." Now we know that Cyrus was buried at PasargacUe, the modern Murgab, two days journey north-east from Persepolis, s and if there is any truth in the statement that the body of Cambyses was brought home " to the Persians " his burying-place must be sought somewhere beside that of his father. In order to identify the graves of Persepolis we must bear in mind that Ctesias assumes that it was the custom for a king to prepare his own tomb during his lifetime. Hence the kings buried at Nakshi Rustam are probably, besides Darius, Xerxes I., Artaxerxes L, and Darius II. Xerxes II., who reigned for a very short time, could scarcely have obtained so splendid a monument, and still less could the usurper Sogdianus. The two com pleted graves behind Takhti Jamshid would then belong to Artaxerxes II. and Artaxerxes III. The unfinished one is perhaps that of Arses, who reigned at the longest two years, or, if not his, then that of Darius III. (Codo- mannus), who is one of those whose bodies are said to have been brought " to the Persians." 9 Another small group of ruins in the same style is found at the village of Haji abaci, on the Pulwar, a good hour s walk above Takhti Jamshid. These formed a single building, which was still intact 900 years ago, and was used as the mosque of the then existing city of Istakhr. For there is no other place that can have answered to the description of the eminent geographer Makdisi, who was himself in this neighbourhood, when he says : "The chief mosque (jdmi 1 } of Istakhr is situated beside the bazaars. It is built after the fashion of the principal mosques in Syria, 10 with round pillars. On the top of each pillar is a cow. 11 Formerly it is said to have been a fire-temple. The bazaars surround it on three sides " (p. 436). In the time of its greatest prosperity the Persian metro polis must undoubtedly have covered a great part of the extremely fertile valley of the Pulwar. It is not at all necessary to suppose that its limits are determined by the two heaps of ruins. The great bulk of the houses would, of course, be built in the wretched manner which is all but universal in the East. Since Cyrus was buried in Pasargadte, which moreover is mentioned in Ctesias as his own city, 12 and since, to judge from the inscriptions, the buildings at Persepolis commenced with Darius L, it was probably under this king, with whom the sceptre passed to a new branch of the royal house, that Persepolis became the capital. At least it is probable that the great city, in the original home of the dynasty, with its lordly palaces and royal sepulchres, was theoretically considered the metropolis of the whole empire. But certainly, as a residence for the rulers of such extensive territories, a remote place in a 7 This statement is not made in Ctesias (or rather in the extracts of Photius) about Darius II., which is probably accidental ; in the case of Sogdianus (Sekydianus), who as a usurper was not deemed worthy of honourable burial, there is good reason for the omission. 8 See art. PERSIA (p. 567 below). The complete proof will be found in Stolze s work already mentioned, and in his paper cited below. 9 Arrian, iii. 22, 1. 10 This refers only to its solidity and magnifi cuce, and perhaps also to some of its minor features, but not to its general style. These Moslems had no great discernment in matters of style. For instance, Makdisi and others compare the ruins of Takhti Jamshid to those of Palmyra and Baalbek. 11 Capitals formed of recumbent animal figures are peculiar to the buildings of the Achremenians. 12 Cf. also in particular, Plutarch, Arinx., iii., where Pasargadaa is distinctly looked on as the sacred cradle of the dynasty. 13 The story of ^Elian (//. A., i. 59), who makes Cyrus build his royal palace in Persepolis, deserves no attention.