scarcely seems to remain more than a single
fragment which can be assigned on even plausible grounds to the Median
period. A portion of a colossal lion, greatly injured by time, is still
to be seen at Hamadan, the site of the great Median capital, which the
best judges regard as anterior to the Persian period, and as therefore
most probably Median. It consists of the head and body of the animal,
from which the four legs and the tail have been broken off, and measures
between eleven and twelve feet from the crown of the head to the point
from which the tail sprang. By the position of the head and what
remains of the shoulders and thighs, it is evident that the animal was
represented in a sitting posture, with the fore legs straight and the
hind legs gathered up under it. To judge of the feeling and general
character of the sculpture is difficult, owing to the worn and mutilated
condition of the work; but we seem to trace in it the same air of calm
and serene majesty that characterizes the colossal bulls and lions of
Assyria, together with somewhat more of expression and of softness than
are seen in the productions of that people. Its posture, which is unlike
that of any Assyrian specimen, indicates a certain amount of originality
as belonging to the Median artists, while its colossal size seems to
show that the effect on the spectator was still to be produced, not so
much by expression, finish, or truth to nature, as by mere grandeur of
dimension. [PLATE VI., Fig. 3.]

CHAPTER IV. RELIGION.

The earliest form of the Median religion is to be found in those
sections of the Zendavesta which have been pronounced on internal
evidence to be the most ancient portions of that venerable compilation;
as, for instance, the first Fargard of the Vendidad, and the Gathas, or
"Songs," which occur here and there in the Yacna, or Book on Sacrifice.
In the Gathas, which belong to a very remote era indeed, we seem to have
the first beginnings of the Religion. We may indeed go back by their aid
to a time anterior to themselves--a time when the Arian race was not yet
separated into two branches, and the Easterns and Westerns, the
Indians and Iranians, had not yet adopted the conflicting creeds of
Zoroastrianism and Brahminism. At that remote period we seem to see
prevailing a polytheistic nature-worship--a recognition of various
divine beings, called indifferently Asuras (Ahuras) or Devas, each
independent of the rest, and all seem