ey did not strike in the
same way the imagination of the lively Greeks, who moreover could not
but feel a certain jealousy of artistic successes, which had rewarded
the efforts of a living and rival people. It happened, moreover, that
the Persian masterpieces were less accessible to the Greeks than the
Babylonian, and hence there was actually less knowledge of their real
character in the time when Greek literature was at its best. Herodotus
and Xenophon, who impressed on their countrymen true ideas of the
grandeur and magnificence of the Mesopotamian structures, never
penetrated to Persia Proper, and perhaps never beheld a real Persian
building. Ctesias, it is true, as a resident at the Achaemenian Court
for seventeen years, must certainly have seen Susa and Ecbatana, if not
even Persepolis, and he therefore must have been well acquainted with
the character of Persian palaces; but, so far as appears from the
fragments of his work which have come down to us, he said but little
on the subject of these edifices. It was not until Alexander led his
cohorts across the chain of Zagros to the high plateau beyond, that a
proper estimate of the great Persian buildings could be made; and then
the most magnificent of them all was scarcely seen before it was laid
in ruins. The barbarous act of the great Macedonian conqueror, in
committing the palace of Persepolis to the flames, tended to prevent
a full recognition of the real greatness of Persian art even after the
Greeks had occupied the country; but we find from this time a certain
amount of acknowledgment of its merits--a certain number of passages,
which, like that which forms the heading to this chapter, admit alike
its grandeur and its magnificence.

If, however, the ancients did less than justice to the efforts of the
Persians in architecture, sculpture, and the kindred arts, moderns have,
on the contrary, given them rather an undue prominence. From the
middle of the seventeenth century, when Europeans first began freely to
penetrate the East, the Persian ruins, especially those of Persepolis,
drew the marked attention of travellers; and in times when the site of
Babylon had attracted but scanty notice, and that of Nineveh and the
other great Assyrian cities was almost unknown, English, French, and
German savans measured, described, and figured the Persian remains with
a copiousness and exactness that left little to desire. Chardin, the
elder Mebuhr, Le Brun, Ouseley, Ker Por