BABYLON AND PERSIA

33^MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.collected, Mr. Dieulafoy succeeded in reconstructinganother marvellous piece of work, a frieze represent¬ing archers of the royal guard. "One day," he says,"they would bring me a hand, the next a foot in agolden boot. Adding piece to piece as they fitted,I put together the feet, ankles, legs, the skirt, thebody, the arm, the shoulder, and at last the head ofan archer." There was a procession of them as wellas of the lions. (See Frontispiece.) The costume issumptuous to the last degree ; it is the graceful andbecoming " Median robe," the drapery of which, inthe natural fall and softness of the folds already be¬trays the influence of Greek art, grafted on the con¬ventional model of Assyrian slab-sculpture. Thecut of the clothes is the .same for all, but the mate¬rial, or at least the design, varies, clearly showing thatthe archers wear the uniforms of different corps.Their hair is held by circlets of gold ; they havegolden bracelets at the wrist and golden jewels intheir ears. Their spears have a silver call at thelower end. Wc know from Plerodotus that thisequipment belonged to the royal bodyguard ofpicked warriors, known by the name of " The TenThousand," or, " The Immortals," from their num¬ber, and because, as soon as a man died, in battle orfrom sickness, another forthwith took his place, sothat there never were more nor less than ten thou¬sand, and it is highly interesting to find oneselfconfronted with contemporary and authentic repre¬sentations of members of that famous body. Per¬haps the most interesting detail aboift them is thefact, revealed by this discovery, that some of their