BABYLON AND PERSIA

4IO MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. 'In another place, however, Mr. Dieulafoy admitsnot having found many fragments of tiles at Per¬sepolis, whence he infers that the decoration inglazed tile-work was not any thing as p-.evalent thereas it was at Susa, where in fact all the ornamenta¬tion appears to have been in that material, probablyin imitation of Nebuchadrezzar's palace at Babylon.In fact the near and ever open quarries of Mt. Rach¬med were irresistibly suggestive of sculpture, so thesterner and more solidly magnificent As.syrian modeof decoration prevailed. Unlike the A.s.syriansculptures, however, the Persian ones do not dealwith historical subjects ; there are" no battles orsieges, no marches in distant lands, no royal hunts,or^ attempts at landscapes ; all that meets our eyebrings before us various moments of court ceremonialregulated by the strictest of etiquettes. Here we seethe king on his throne, there he meets us, seeminglywalking into his own palace, through its main door(see ill. ej) ; there again along the outer wall of thebroad stair-landing, his guards are ranged in effigy asthe living ones no doubt stood in the same place,day after day, presenting arms. (Sec ill. 65). Theonly alternarion from court pageantry is to religiouscompositions, and of these the number is limited toone or two subjects of a set, unchanging type. But ifPersian art was more restricted in its range of sub¬jects, it was freer than the Assyrian in its treatmentof the human figure. Sculptors and tile-paintershad undoubtedly seen Greek models and had someGreek training; very likely the work was directedby Greek artists, and the influence tells in the natu-