نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [و‎‎٥‎٥‎٧] (١٨١٤/١١٢٦)

PERSEPOLIS, AND OTHER RUINS
129
Their style is in no sense borrowed from the Achsemenian models that
stared them in the face. On the contrary, it is the offspring of its
own age, and while it is unmistakably affected, and in its later periods
may even have been actually assisted, by those Roman influences
with which Peisia, under its Parthian rulers, had come into such close
contact, it yet remains a Persian, not a Roman, art, as its handling of
Roman figures and costumes sufficiently betrays. There is a certain
simplicity, and even nobility, in its presentment of the monarch, who is
everywhere the centre of the piece ; and in the modelling of flesh and
form, particularly of the horses’ bodies, as well as in the treatment of
aimour, equipments, and dress, there is a notable advance upon any
previous Persian sculpture. To me this appears the more remarkable
because it arose in such swift succession to a period when there is
little or no evidence that art existed at all. ^VTth the overthrow of
the Arsacid^e, and the restitution of the national religion, there must
have been a genuine re-awakening of the national spirit. This is
expressed in the vigorous bas-reliefs of the first Sassanian kings, as
well as in the palaces and public works which they constructed. Then
followed a decline of art, until the second revival, in or about
the time of Varahran IN. A further reaction was succeeded by one
final effort of recovery, probably under Byzantine influence, in the
days of the splendid Chosroes II. or Parviz. Into the effects of
Sassanian art and sculpture upon other countries and later times, a
subject which has been somewhat conjecturally treated by certain
writers, I must here forbear from entering. Let me, however,
recommend, in addition to M. Dieulafoy’s somewhat fanciful work, a
paper by Mr. A. Phene Spiers, published in the ‘ Proceedings ? of the
Institute of British Architects, 1892.
There remain only to be noticed two Pehlevi inscriptions, one of
eleven, the other of twelve lines, which occur on the south portal of the
Sassanian Palace of Darius on the platform at Persepolis. 1 They relate
tions iP " re ^» ns Shapur II. and Shapur III., and were first
at Perse- copied and brought to England by Ouseley in 1811. 2 Their
l)olls existence must have been overlooked by those who have
written that there is no trace on the Achsemenian platform either of
Seleucid, Parthian, or Sassanian rule.
From the Sassanian monuments in the valley of the Polvar I now
retrace my footsteps, and reascend the stream of time to discuss the
far more complex and absorbing topic of the relics that exist in the
same neighbourhood, belonging to the greatest epoch of Persian history,
and revealing to us in stupendous, albeit ruined, guise the indestructible
1 E. Thomas {Early Sassanian Inscriptions) erroneously says, in ‘an inner
chamber of the Hall of Columns.’
2 Travels, vol. ii. p. 238, pi. 42. For a photograph, vide Stolze, vol. i. pi. 49.
VOL. II. K