ighboring
ones, a very much more favorable judgment will be passed. The Saseanian
reliefs need not on the whole shrink from a comparison with those of
the Achaemenian Persians. If they are ruder and more grotesque, they are
also more spirited and more varied; and thus, though they fall short in
some respects, still they must be pronounced superior to the Achaemenian
in some of the most important artistic qualities. Nor do they fall
greatly behind the earlier, and in many respects admirable, art of the
Assyrians. They are less numerous and cover a lees variety of subjects;
they have less delicacy; but they have equal or greater fire. In the
judgment of a traveller not given to extravagant praise, they are, in
some cases at any rate, "executed in the most masterly style." "I never
saw," observes Sir R. Kerr Porter, "the elephant, the stag, or the boar
portrayed with greater truth and spirit. The attempts at detailed human
form are," he adds, "far inferior."

Before, however, we assign to the Sassanian monarchs, and to the people
whom they governed, the merit of having produced results so worthy of
admiration, it becomes necessary to inquire whether there is reason
to believe that other than native artists wore employed in their
production. It has been very confidently stated that Chosroes the Second
"brought Roman artists" to Takht-i-Bostan, and by their aid eclipsed the
glories of his great predecessors, Artaxerxes, son of Babek, and the
two Sapors. Byzantine forms are declared to have been reproduced in the
moldings of the Great Arch, and in the Victories. The lovely tracery
of the Mashita Palace is regarded as in the main the work of Greeks and
Syrians.06 No doubt it is quite possible that there may be some truth in
these allegations; but we must not forget, or let it be forgotten, that
they rest on conjecture and are without historical foundation. The works
of the first Chosroes at Ctesiphon, according to a respectable Greek
writer, were produced for him by foreign artists, sent to his court by
Justinian. But no such statement is made with respect to his grandson.
On the contrary, it is declared by the native writers that a certain
Ferhad, a Persian, was the chief designer of them; and modern critics
admit that his hand may perhaps be traced, not only at Takht-i-Bostan,
but at the Mashita Palace also. If then the merit of the design is
conceded to a native artist, we need not too curiously inquire the
nationality of t