Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

96
HISTORY OF PERSIA.
ablest travellers, as to the meaning of this sculptured
scene before Sir H. C. Rawlinson gave to the world, for
the first time, in the tenth volume of the Asiatic Journal
(1847), the true meaning of the inscription. Thus,
Sir R. K. Porter, in an age when every new discovery
in the East was assumed to have reference to Holy
Scripture, beheld in these figures, Tiglath-Pileser and ten
captive tribes, combining with a somewhat fanciful inter-
pretation a singular ignorance of Bible history, in that
he assigned to the tribe of Levi, to whose representative
he gave a sort of sacerdotal costume, a place among
the captive tribes ; while another and later traveller,
Keppel, conceiving one of the figures a female,
changed both scene and locality, confounded Susa
with Ecbatana, and converted the whole train into
Esther and her attendants, entreating the king of
Persia to have mercy on her countrymen !
But although the Behistfin inscription is by far the
most important memorial of Darius and of the Persian
state and system of his day, there are others having
reference to him, at different places in Persia and
Armenia. The information, however, we get from
them, is by no means so full. In these inscriptions, as
Sir H. C. Rawlinson has remarked, " we must be con-
tent for the most part to peruse a certain formula of
invocation to Ormazd, and a certain empty parade of
royal titles, recurring
appointing uniformity."
with a most wearisome and dis-
I will now briefly notice the inscriptions of Darius
at Persepolis. Sir H. C. Rawlinson thinks that during
the lifetime of Darius, the platform, the pillared colon-
nude, and one of the palaces were constructed; the