نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [ظ‎‎٥‎٥‎١] (١٨١٤/١١١٥)

mmm
120
PERSIA
ago that the lower of the two panels was laid bare by Messrs.
Flandin and Coste, having previously been concealed behind the
accumulations of soil. It is even now buried up to the flanks of the
horses. 1 Two mounted figures are depicted therein, charging each other
at full gallop with lances in rest. The cavalier on the left hand is
presumably the king ; he on the right wears a helmet with a knob or
some sort of projection on the top. The upper panel represents a
similar combat, but at a more advanced stage. 2 Here the horse of the
figure on the right is thrown upon its haunches, and its rider is driven
back in his saddle, while his lance is tilted up in the air by the im
petuous onset of the charging king. The latter wears a peculiar helmet,
consisting of two wings on either side of the Sassanian globe (the
headdress of Yarahran IV.), carries a great quiver at his belt, and
wears a sort of tuft on either shoulder, a similar ornament decorating
the head of his charger. 3 Behind him stands an attendant or
standard-bearer, carrying a peculiar standard, consisting of a ring at
the end of a staff* and of a cross bar below it, from which depend
tassels. The king’s horse further tramples under foot a prostrate
figure. Both on the bodies of the cavaliers in these bas-reliefs, and on
their steeds, are traces of coats of mail ; and the combined panels are
invaluable as documents concerning the military equipment of the
period. The lower of the two, owing to its long concealment, is by far
the better preserved, the upper tablet having been shockingly defaced.
The latter is 24 feet long, by 12 feet high.
Between the second and third royal sepulchres occurs the fourth
bas-relief, which is the first (hitherto mentioned) of the series at
Fourth Naksh-i-Rustam, Shapur, and Darabjird devoted to the
tablet: commemoration of the crowning exploit of the Perso-
and PU1 Roman campaigns of Shapur I., viz. the capture of the aged
Valerian Roman Emperor Valerian at Edessa in 260 a.d. The
humiliation of a Latin Caesar, whether followed or not by the
indignities described and perhaps invented by later historians, 4 was a
1 Flandin and Coste, vol. iv. pi. 184 ; Stolze, vol. ii. pi. 121.
2 Vide, in addition to the above, Texier, vol. ii. pi. 132.
3 Ker Porter, who identifies the two figures with Varahran V. and a Tartar
khan whom he killed in combat near Rhey, fancifully thinks that this ornament
was a bladder filled with stones, in order to make a noise.
4 Contemporary writers speak only of the emperor having been kept in cap
tivity till his death at an advanced old age. But in the next century Lactantius,
followed by other historians, set on foot the story that he was compelled to act as
a footstool to Shapur when the latter mounted on horseback, that he was con
stantly exposed, fettered, to the multitude, and that after his death his skin was
stuffed, and hung up in a frequented temple. The sculptures do not corroborate
these indignities, which may have owed their origin, as Gibbon suggests, to the
malice of the defeated nationality, although there was little in Persian character