either a lion, a
bull, or a grotesque monster. In every case the animal is rampant, and
assails his antagonist with three of his feet, while he stands on the
fourth. The lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar;
but the monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One
of them has the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in
the capitals of columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird's wings,
a scorpion's tail, and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The
other has an eagle's head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the
breast, and the back, with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. [PLATE
LV., Fig. 1.] Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess
certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria,
and have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian
specimens are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. The idea of
the Assyrian artist has, indeed, been borrowed; but Persian fancy has
worked it out in its own way, adding, modifying, and subtracting in such
a manner as to give to the form produced a quite peculiar, and (so to
speak) native character.

[Illustration: PLATE LV.]

Persian gems abound with monstrous forms, of equal, or even superior
grotesqueness. As the Gothic architects indulged their imagination
in the most wonderful combinations to represent evil spirits or the
varieties of vice and sensualism, so the Persian gem-engravers seem
to have allowed their fancy to run riot in the creation of monsters,
representative of the Powers of Darkness or of different kinds of evil,
The stones exhibit the king in conflict with a vast variety of monsters,
some nearly resembling the Persepolitan, while others have strange
shapes unseen elsewhere. Winged lions, with two tails and with the horns
of a ram or an antelope, sphinxes and griffins of half a dozen different
kinds, and various other nondescript creatures, appear upon the Persian
gems and cylinders, furnishing abundant evidence of the quaint and
prolific fancy of the designers.

The processional subjects represented by the Persian artists are of
three kinds. In the simplest and least interesting the royal guards, or
the officers of the court, are represented in one or more lines of very
similar figures, either moving in one direction, or standing in two
bodies, one facing the other, in the attitude of quiet expectation. In
these subjects there is a great sameness,