Spirits of good and evil, the Ahuras and Devas of the mythology, were
represented by the Persians under human, animal, or monstrous forms.
There can be little doubt that it is a good genius--perhaps the
"well-formed, swift, tall Serosh"--who appears on one of the square
pillars set up by Cyrus at Pasargadae. This figure is that of a colossal
man, from whose shoulders issue four wings, two of which spread upwards
above his head, while the other two droop and reach nearly to his feet.
[PLATE LIX.] It stands erect, in profile, with both arms raised and the
hands open. The costume of the figure is remarkable. It consists of a
long fringed robe reaching from the neck to the ankles--apparently of
a stiff material, which conceals the form--and of a very singular
head-dress. This is a striped cap, closely fitting the head,
overshadowed by an elaborate ornament, of a character purely Egyptian.
First there rise from the top of the cap two twisted horns, which,
spreading right and left, become a sort of basis for the other forms to
rest upon. These consist of two grotesque human-headed figures, one at
either side, and of a complex triple ornament between them, clumsily
imitated from a far more elegant Egyptian model. [PLATE LX., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE LIX.]

The winged human-headed bulls, which the Persians adopted from the
Assyrians, with very slight modifications, were also, it is probable,
regarded as emblems of some god or good genius. They would scarcely
otherwise have been represented on Persian cylinders as upholding the
emblem of Ormazd in the same way that human-headed bulls uphold the
similar emblem of Asshur on Assyrian cylinders. [PLATE LX., Fig. 2.]
Their position, too, at Persepolis, where they kept watch over the
entrance to the palace, accords with the notion that they represented
guardian spirits, objects of the favorable regard of the Persians. Yet
this view is not wholly free from difficulty. The bull appears in
the bas-reliefs of Persepolis among the evil, or at any rate hostile,
powers, which the king combats and slays; and though in these
representations the animal is not winged or human-headed, yet on some
cylinders apparently Persian, the monarch contends with bulls of exactly
the same type as that which is assigned in other cylinders to the
upholders of Ormazd. It would seem therefore that in this case the
symbolism was less simple than usual, the bull in certain combinations
and positions rep