alth, live,
henceforward, in the long series of pictures recovered for the world by
Layard and Botta. The stern conquerors reappear, armed, helmeted, and
cuirassed, as they passed before the trembling nations thirty centuries
ago. They are short of stature, but vigorous and sturdy, with an
exceptional muscular development. They were, no doubt, prepared for their
military duties from infancy by some system of gymnastic exercises, such as
have been practised by other nations of soldiers. Their noses are high and
hooked, their eyes large, their features as a whole strongly Semitic (see
Fig. 25).

[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Bas-relief of Tiglath Pileser II.; from Nimroud.
British Museum. Height 44 inches. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Feast of Assurbanipal; from Kouyundjik. British
Museum. Height 20-3/4 inches. No. 1, The servants of the feast.]

[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Feast of Assurbanipal, _continued_. No. 2, The
king and queen at table. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]

The moral character of the people is shown with no less clearness. The
ferocity they preserved amid all the luxurious appliances of their
civilization is commemorated. Atrocities of every kind find a place in the
reliefs. Among the prisoners of war the most fortunate are those led by a
cord passed through their lips. Others are mutilated, crucified, flayed
alive. Tiglath Pileser II. is shown to us besieging a city, before whose
walls he has impaled three prisoners taken from the defenders (see Fig.
26). Elsewhere we find scribes counting over heaps of heads before paying
the price for them.[125] When these had come from the shoulders of
important enemies they were carried in procession and treasured as
honourable trophies. In one relief we find Assurbanipal, after his return
to Nineveh from the subjugation of the southern rebels, lying upon a
luxurious couch in the garden of his harem and sharing a sumptuous meal
with a favoured wife. Birds are singing in the trees, an attendant touches
the harp, flowers and palms fill the background, while a head, the head of
the Elamite king, whom Assurbanipal conquered and captured in his last
campaign, hangs from a tree near the right[126] of the scene (see Figs. 27
and 28). The princes who took pleasure in these horrors were scrupulous in
their piety. We find numberless representations of them in attitudes of
profound respect before their gods, and sometimes they bring victims and
libations