rably behind the Greeks and
Romans. Their architecture was not so imposing as that of the Egyptians
and Babylonians; it had no striking originality, and it was only in the
palaces of great monarchs that anything approached magnificence. Still,
there were famous palaces at Ecbatana, Susa, and Persepolis, raised on
lofty platforms, reached by grand staircases, and ornamented with
elaborate pillars. The most splendid of these were erected after the
time of Cyrus, by Darius and Xerxes, decorated with carpets, hangings,
and golden ornaments. The halls of their palaces were of great size and
imposing effect. Next to palaces, the most remarkable buildings were the
tombs of kings; but we have no remains of marble statues or metal
castings or ivory carvings, not even of potteries, which at that time in
other countries were common and beautiful. The gems and signet rings
which the Persians engraved possessed much merit, and on them were
wrought with great skill the figures of men and animals; but the nearest
approach to sculpture were the figures of colossal bulls set to guard
the portals of palaces, and these were probably borrowed from the
Assyrians.

Nor were the Persians celebrated for their textile fabrics and dyes. "So
long as the carpets of Babylon, the shawls of India, the fine linen of
Egypt, and the coverlets of Damascus poured continually into Persia in
the way of tribute and gifts, there was no stimulus to manufacture." The
same may be said of the ornamental metal-work of the Greeks, and the
glass manufacture of the Phoenicians. The Persians were soldiers, and
gloried in being so, to the disdain of much that civilization has
ever valued.

It may as well be here said that the Iranians, both Medes and Persians,
were acquainted with the art of writing. Harpagus sent a letter to Cyrus
concealed in the belly of a hare, and Darius signed a decree which his
nobles presented to him in writing. In common with the Babylonians they
used the same alphabetic system, though their languages were
unlike,--namely, the cuneiform or arrow-head or wedge-shaped characters,
as seen in the celebrated inscriptions of Darius on the side of a high
rock thirty feet from the ground. We cannot determine whether the Medes
and Persians brought their alphabet from their original settlements in
Central Asia, or derived it from the Turanian and Semitic nations with
which they came in contact. In spite of their knowledge of writing,
however, they pro