382 History of Art in Antiquity. acropolis, and which had belonged to the monuments within the enceinte ? Here, however, such an hypothesis is untenable, because all the roofs were timber.' Suppose they had been of stone, we should trace some rare vestige among the number of fragments of shafts, capitals, and door-frames that strew the esplanade, or in the field of ruins presented by the Hall of a Hundred Columns. But among these stones, earth, and potsherds, nothing of the kind has been recovered. Remains of the em- battlement are found in the plain only ; they lie a little in front or near the foot of the wall, and are therefore relics of the cornice that decorated the supporting wall. This great work is signed by Darius. On the southern face of the platform four inscriptions are engraved with his name. Two are written in Persian, one in Susian, and the other in Assyrian. In the first two Darius invokes Ahurft- Mazda; he enumerates the peoples that pay tribute to the empire^ and places the building under the safeguard of the army.* Was this stupen- dous wall completed by Darius ^ We know not ; in any case he conceived the plan and carried it so far as to justify us in crediting him with the honour of the emprise. A carriage road winding round the southern face led from the plain to the platform ; it then went behind the edifice along the first slope of the hill, to approach again the esplanade towards the east angle, whence it mounted as far as the pair of tombs situated in the rock behind the level (Fig. 143). A road that required so long a ddtour ztsxs. have been iisrd by none but heavily laden carts ; it was what we should call the tradesmen's entrance. Neither the tracing of the road nor that part of the esplanade where it abutted show sign or token of buildings to indicate that a royal corUg$ ever took that direction. The true, the monumental entrance, the one used by the king on his going out or coming in and visitors bringing gifts in their hands or simple homage, was the superb staircase by which even now the level is reached (Plate X.).
- Hist o/Ari^ ton. v. j>p. 479'486.
' SriK.Ki , Die aUpersisihen Keilinsfhri/fen, pp. 47-51 (h, i), and p. 79. M^.vant {I.es Acheuunidcs, pp. 80, 81) reprodiires the translations which have been made of the Susian and Assyrian texts. The first is supposed to contain a formal mention of the pakces erected on the great level, but the interpretation of Siubn texts is still open to many doubts. Altogether these inscriptioiis fonn a band 7 n. 70 c. towards the top of the wall (Flandin and Costs, ^rse andetuu, Plates LXXI, LXXIL). Digitized by Google
