on, antelope's flesh, hares, partridges, and
other game, varied perhaps occasionally with such delicacies as the
flesh of the wild ox and the onager.

Fish must have been an article of food in Assyria, or the monuments
would not have presented us; with so many instances of fishermen.
Locusts were also eaten, and were accounted a delicacy, as is proved by
their occurrence among the choice dainties of a banquet, which the royal
attendants are represented in one bas-relief as bringing into the palace
of the king. Fruits, as was natural in so hot a climate, were highly
prized; among those of most repute were pomegranates, grapes, citrons,
and, apparently, pineapples. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 4.]

There is reason to believe that the Assyrians drank wine very freely.
The vine was cultivated extensively, in the neighborhood of Nimrud and
elsewhere; and though there is no doubt that, grapes were eaten, both
raw and dried, still the main purpose of the vineyards was
unquestionably the production of wine. Assyria was "a land of corn and
wine," emphatically and before all else. Great banquets seem to have
been frequent at the court, as at the courts of Babylon and Persia, in
which drinking was practised on a large scale. The Ninevites generally
are reproached as drunkards by Nahum. In the banquet-scenes of the
sculptures, it is drinking and not eating that is represented.
Attendants dip the wine-cups into a huge bowl or vase, which stands on
the ground and reaches as high as a man's chest and carry them full of
liquor to the guests, who straightway fall to a carouse. [PLATE
CXXXVIII., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 138]

The arrangement of the banquets is curious. The guests, who are in one
instance some forty or fifty in number, instead of being received at a
common table, are divided into messes of four, who sit together, two and
two, facing each other, each mess having its own table and its own
attendant. The guests are all clothed in the long tasselled gown, over
which they wear the deeply fringed belt and cross-belt. They have
sandals on their feet, and on their arias armlets and bracelets. They
sit on high stools, from which their legs dangle; but in no case have
they footstools, which would apparently have been a great convenience.
Most of the guests are bearded men, but intermixed with them we see a
few eunuchs. Every guest holds in his right hand a wine-cup of a most
elegant shape, the lower part modelled into the form o