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394 History of Art in Antiquitv. and the composition is well ordered and easily grasped. Darius, a crown upon his head, is erect, and towers far above the people by whom he is surrounded ; with one foot he presses down a vanquished foe, who, prostrated upon the ground, raises suppli- catingly his arms to him. The king rests his left hand against his bow, and with the right, which is uplifted, seems to point with imperious and contemptuous gesture to a group of ten prisoners moving towards him, their hands tied behind their backs, chained together by a cord passed round their neck. Their costume is not uniform, and a high pointed tiara singles forth the last in the ring to the riglit. These dilTercnces were insufficient guides, even for contemporaries, in helping to put a name upon the various delin- quents, whilst posterity must have groped hopelessly in the dark. To obviate this, therefore, a label was engraved with the titles and the crime of the individual specified on it, either above his head, below his feet, or on his garment. Two guards stand behind the king ; in the hand of one is carried a bow, whilst in the other is grasped a spear, and above the scene, with winged circle around his middle, hovers the image of Ahuri'Ma2da, by whose help Darius has overcome his competitors.* Persian sculpture has already lost its Assyrian aspect ; with the exception of one feature, the dress, the arms, the types, and the make, all is different As at Nineveh, the sculpture is a plastic translation of a page of history, supplemented by an inscription, in which Darius records the years of strife which had marked the beginning of his reign, the pretenders he had to contend with, and how those over whom his avenging hand was now raised, had been defeated one after another. Did the art of which this sculpture is one of the oldest emanations continue in the same • In Zagros, not far from Holwan, is a rock-cut bas-relief, of which no drawing has yet appeared, but which Sir Henry Rawlinaon unheritatingly ascribes to the Achsemenid period. "The picture represents a man clad in a tunic and rounded cap ; his left arm supports a shield and his right a mace, whilst his left foot tramples upon a fallen foe. Before the king stands a prisoner, his hands tied behind his back, whose height is equal to that of the king. In the background, four figures, smaller and without clothes, kneel and pray ; they would seem to represent the sidie of the vanquished chief. The platform upon which this scene is enacted is upheld on the heads and hands of a row of tiny figures, a disposition known to us from the tombs at Persepolis " (" March from Zohab to Khuzistan," p. 37, Journal of //i* Ri^al Geographical Society^ torn, ix., 1839). The upper section of this monument, therefore, would recall BehistQn, whilst the lower is reminiscent of Persepolis.