490 History of Art in Antiquity. drums of those airy shafts which, by their proportions, recall the trunks of trees whence they sprang ; it is probable that they were even then surmounted by those strangely shaped capitals, for the origin of which we should apparently look towards Assyria. But is it conceivable that without the thrill of admiration stirred in their breast in &ce of the buildings of the Nile Valley, they would have had the notion and the desire thus to elongate and adorn the column ; to multiply it, as it were, by itself ; to raise on the esplanades those forests of pillars where the eye, wherever it turns, sees nothing but long and lofty vistas of naves, bounded by walls on which, through the haze, is discreetly reflected the sheen of gay hangings and enamels ? Imiution seems self-evident ; with this difference, that in Egypt, where the temple is the principal monument, the hypostyle hall servies as vestibule to the sanctuaries of the gods. Here, however, where the temple is only an altar open to the sky placed upon a slightly raised stage, the hypostyle chamber has been transferred to the palace. With this exception the general principle and effects are identical in both instances. So remarkable a correspondence as this would by itself enable us to affirm that contact with Egypt was not barren in its effects ; that study of the monuments of that grand civilization was mainly answerable for the turn taken by Persian art in the reign of the son of Hjrstaspes, when the empire reached the zenith of its power and of its inventive activity. Should our evidence be thought inadequate* we can complete it by pointing out other indications in proof of the borrowings, together with the testimony of an ancient writer, to the efiect that Egyptian artists were called in by the Achsmenid kings to help in the works then in progress at Persepolis and Susa. We might almost have dispensed with the testimony of Diodorus, since these alien workmen signed, so to speak, their work. Thus, in the complex type of the volute capital, among the several elements of which it is composed, we think we find the head of a palm tree, a form derived from a certain class of Egyptian capitals. But what is still more significant is that, without one exception, all the openings of the edifices of the Takht-i-Jamshid, niches, windows, and portals, are surmounted by the " Egyptian gorge," a moulding which strictly belongs to the Delta, and of which they not only reproduced the profile but the grooves which seam its surface and impart thereto so peculiar an aspect It is almost a literal transcript ; if details Digitized by Google
