occasions were
the two fan-bearers, while near at hand were guards, scribes, grooms,
and other attendants. In their palace halls undoubtedly the ceremonial
used was stricter, grander, and more imposing. The sculptures, however,
furnish no direct evidence on this point, for there is nothing to mark
the scene of the great processional pieces.

In the pseudo-history of Ctesias, the Assyrian kings were represented as
voluptuaries of the extremest kind, who passed their whole lives within
the palace, in the company of their concubines and their eunuchs,
indulging themselves in perpetual ease, pleasure, and luxury. We have
already seen how the warlike character of so many monarchs gives the lie
to these statements, so far as they tax the Assyrian kings with sloth
and idleness. It remains to examine the charge of over-addiction to
sensual delights, especially to those of the lowest and grossest
description. Now it is at least remarkable that, so far as we have any
real evidence, the Assyrian kings appear as monogamists. In the
inscription on the god Nebo, the artist dedicates his statue to his
"lord Vol-lush (?) and his _lady_, Sammuramit." In the solitary
sculptured representation of the private life of the king, he is seen in
the company of one female only. Even in the very narrative of Ctesias,
Ninus has but one wife, Semiramis; and Sardanapalus, notwithstanding his
many concubines, has but five children, three sons and two daughters. It
is not intended to press these arguments to an extreme, or to assume, on
the strength of them, that the Assyrian monarchs were really faithful to
one woman. They may have had--nay, it is probable that they had--a
certain number of concubines; but there is really not the least ground
for believing that they carried concubinage to an excess, or
over-stepped in this respect the practice of the best Eastern
sovereigns. At any rate they were not the voluptuaries which Ctesias
represented them. A considerable portion of their lives was passed in
the toils and dangers of war; and their peaceful hours, instead of being
devoted to sloth and luxury in the retirement of the palace, were
chiefly employed, as we shall presently see, in active and manly
exercises in the field, which involved much exertion and no small
personal peril.

The favorite occupation of the king in peace was the chase of the lion.
In the early times he usually started on a hunting expedition in his
chariot, dressed as when he