The Historians' History of the World 02

It is true that the ancients ascribe in part the erection of Pasargada and Persepolis to the two earliest monarchs of the old Persian race—Cyrus and Cambyses; but this is easily reconcilable with the supposition that Darius and Xerxes were their principal founders. Niebuhr has already remarked, that the buildings of Persepolis do not appear all to belong to the same period, nor to have been constructed on one uniform plan, and this is especially true of those situated on the third terrace. It is certain that most of the considerable remains of remote antiquity (as was particularly the case with Egyptian edifices) were much more slowly erected than we might be inclined to suppose; and it is extremely probable that successive kings of Persia may have taken part in the erection of Persepolis, especially as the undertaking assumed the character of a religious duty; not to mention that continual additions must, from time to time, have been found necessary.

Persian Monument at Pasargada

We may now pronounce with certainty (what before must have been mere conjecture) that the arts of architecture and sculpture must, long before the dynasty of the Persians, have attained a much higher degree of perfection than men have been generally disposed to admit. If this be doubted, we must be prepared to show that such efforts of art as the edifices of Chehl-Menar could have started at once into existence, as if by enchantment. In these structures we see proofs that architecture must have attained, when they were erected, a wonderful degree of excellence in its mechanical department. No spot on the globe (Egypt perhaps excepted) displays such masonry as the walls of Persepolis. It was unquestionably a prodigious advantage to the architect that the neighbouring mountains afforded him materials on the very spot; but no other nation has left examples of an equally skilful combination of such enormous blocks of marble. The character and style of the building is, however, perhaps still more remarkable, being directly opposed to that of the Egyptians, with which it has been injudiciously compared; if we are not mistaken, the original modes of life of the two races may be traced even in the several styles of their architecture. The observer of Egyptian antiquities can hardly fail to remark the grotto-style of building there prevalent, bespeaking a nation long accustomed to a sort of Troglodyte life, in caverns and hollows of the rock. The gigantic temples of Thebes and Philæ are obviously imitations of excavated rocks; the short and massive pillars representing the props, left to uphold the roof of such excavations, and the whole structure conveying the impression of enormous incumbent weight, and proportionate resistance: on the other hand, the remains of Persepolis indicate a nation not in the habit of occupying the bosoms of their hills, but accustomed to wander free and unconstrained over their heights and among their forests, and who, when they forsook this nomad life, sought to retain in their new habitations as much as possible of their original liberty. Those terrace foundations, which appear like a continuation of the mountain, those groves of columns, those basins, once, no doubt, sparkling with refreshing fountains, those flights of steps, which the loaded camel of the Arab ascends with the same ease as his conductor, forming a sort of highway for the nations whose images are sculptured there—all these particulars are as much in unison with the character of that joyous land which the industry of the Persians converted into an earthly paradise as the gigantic temples of Egypt are appropriate memorials of their old grottos in the rocks. The columns of Persepolis shoot upwards with a slender yet firm elevation, conveying a fit image of the stems of the lotus and palm, from which they were probably copied. As in Egypt everything is closely covered, and, as it were, oppressed by a roof, so here is everything free and unconfined, in admirable harmony with the religion of the nation, whose sole objects of worship were the sun, the elements, and the open vault of heaven.

Bas-relief in Door Frame of Palace, Persepolis