other
gem, while there is less of artistic excellence, we have a scene of
peculiar interest placed before us. A combat between two Persians and
two Cythians seems to be represented. The latter marked by their peaked
cap and their loose trousers, fight with the bow and the battle-axe,
the former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his
death-wound, the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the
same time half inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors
on the one side contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their
weaker and smaller rivals. [PLATE LVII., Fig. 3.]

The vegetable forms represented on the gems are sometimes graceful
and pleasing. This is especially the case with palm-trees, a favorite
subject of the artists, who delineated with remarkable success the
feathery leaves, the pendant fruit and the rough bark of the
stem. [PLATE LVIII., Fig 1.] The lion-hunter represented on the
signet-cylinder of Darius Hystaspis takes place in a palm-grove, and
furnishes the accompanying example of this form of vegetable life.

[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.]

One gem, ascribed on somewhat doubtful grounds to the Persians of
Achaemenian times, contains what appears to be a portrait. It is thought
to be the bust of a satrap of Salamis in Cyprus, and is very carefully
executed. If really of Persian workmanship, it would indicate a
considerable advance in the power of representing the human countenance
between the time of Darius Hystaspis and that of Alexander [PLATE LVII.
Fig. 2.]

Persian coins are of three principal types. The earliest have on the one
side the figure of a monarch bearing the diadem and armed with the bow
and javelin, while on the other there is an irregular indentation of the
same nature with the _quadratum incusum_ of the Greeks. This rude form
is replaced in later times by a second design, which is sometimes a
horseman, sometimes the forepart of a ship, sometimes the king drawing
an an arrow from his quiver. Another type exhibits on the obverse the
monarch in combat with a lion while the reverse shows a galley, or a
towered and battlemented city with two lions standing below it, back to
back. The third common type has on the obverse the king in his chariot,
with his charioteer in front of him, and (generally) an attendant
carrying a fly-chaser behind. The reverse has either the trireme or the
battlemented city. A specimen of each type is given. [PLATE LVII., Fig