BABYLON AND PERSIA

304MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIAis a clumsy imitation of an Assyrian stele. That theTomb of Kyros (ill. 42) reproduces, on a small scaleand in different material, the Assyro-BabylonianZiggurat is too obvious to need demonstration,while the chapel is distinctly Greek in design, andwhat little remains of Kyros' own constructions,shows that he employed Greek artists from the col¬onies on the sea-shore : the column-bases are exactlylike those found in the ruins of some Ionian tem¬ples, and the masonry of the great platform recallseariy Greek wall-masonry (see ill. 29). We shallsoon become acquainted with far more numerous,imposing, and elaborate monuments of Persian art,but shall find nothing, even in its most beautifulproductions, to reverse the verdict of lack of origi¬nality which was pronounced on that, art assoon asit was discovered.II. But, to return to the political worid of West¬ern Asia, which we left unheeded for years to followthe rising star of Persia. With Kyros still on theeastern side of the Halys, the balance of power, es¬tablished after the Battle of the Eclipse (see pp. 220-222), was as yet unbroken, no changes having takenplace in the territorial conditions of the potentateswho concluded that memorable agreement. Thegreatest of the three stat'es in point of extent hadmerely changed hands and name: it was the Me¬dian Empire no longer, but the Persian, that wasall. In 546 B.C. every thing was apparently undis¬turbed, yet every thing trembled in the balance.For the men were no longer the same. The petty,indolent, tyrannous Mede had been forced to yield