same features
interested and attracted the attention of both; they had the same
prejudices and the same conventions. The symbols and combinations of forms
we have noticed as proper to Chaldaean art are here also; scenes of
invocation to gods and genii; ornamental groups and motives. An instance of
the latter is to be found in the rich embroidery with which the robes of
the Assyrian kings are covered.[124] Finally, we must remember that all
Assyrian art was not included in the adornment of the palace. Before a
complete and definite judgment can be formed upon it the monuments of
religious and industrial art should be passed under review, but, unhappily,
no temple interior, and a very small number of objects of domestic luxury
and daily use, have come down to us. These gaps are to be regretted, but we
must not forget that the bas-reliefs were ordered by the king, that the
thousands of figures they contain were introduced for the sake of giving
_eclat_ to the power, the valour, and the genius of the sovereign, and that
the best artists of which Assyria could boast were doubtless entrusted with
their execution. Under the reserves thus laid down we may, then, devote
ourselves to the study of the Ninevite sculptures that fill the museums of
London and Paris; we may consider them the strongest and most original
creations of Assyrian art.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Fragment of a bas-relief in alabaster. Louvre.
Height 23 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

Now the sculpture upon the alabaster slabs with which the palace walls of
Shalmaneser and Sargon, of Sennacherib and Assurbanipal, were covered,
confines itself mainly to marches, combats, and sieves, it is more
_realistic_ than the sculpture of Chaldaea, a country that had done less,
especially upon fields of battle, but had invented more and done more
thinking than its bellicose rival. We owe no small debt of gratitude to the
swordsmen of Assyria, in spite of the blood they shed and the horrible
cruelties they committed and delighted in seeing commemorated in the
figured histories of their reigns. The works entrusted to their artists
have left us precious documents and the elements for a restoration of a
vanished world. Philologists may take their time over the decipherment of
the texts inscribed on the reliefs, but the great people of prey who, for
at least four centuries, pillaged all Asia without themselves becoming
softened by the possession of so much accumulated we