نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [ظ‎‎٥‎٩‎٤] (١٨١٤/١٢٠٣)

188 PERSIA
that Diodorus may in reality have been describing another building
or group of buildings at Persepolis, the citadel, in fact, as distinguished
from the palaces (although he erroneously identified them), and that
such an enclosure may have existed in the neighbourhood of A T aksh-i-
Rustam. Now, it is true that on the platform there appears to be
inadequate provision for the treasure-house, the barracks of the body
guard, and the other concomitants of royal residence that we know, or
must believe, to have existed at Persepolis ; and to that extent may we
be prepared to believe that a citadel or fort existed in a detached
situation ; though even so, there would appear to have been no reason
for the erection on the plain of Mervdasht of such an imposing place-
of-arms as Diodorus has described ; nor does it seem likely that palace
and fort would have been placed three miles apart. But until some
positive traces of the whereabouts of this citadel have been brought to
light, I shall prefer myself to accept the rival hypothesis that Clitarchus
or Diodorus did not know or confused what they were writing about,
transferring to Persepolis the structural features which existed at
Ecbatana and in other contemporaneous and neighbouring capitals,
and seasoning a nucleus of fact with a magniloquent garniture of
fancy.
We have seen when and by whom the palaces on the platform were
set up. We have seen that the entire work appears to have been
History of sus P en( ^ ec ^ or > an y rate, that several of the edifices lacked
destruc- completion. I have given reasons for attributing the initial
tlon destruction of one palace at least to Alexander. The only
remaining historical question is at what period the sculptures and ruins
were reduced to their present mutilated condition. The fall of the
Persian monarchy, the neglect of the Seleucidm and Parthians, the
preference of the Sassanian sovereigns for other capitals, are all land
marks in the long history of decline. From the Arab invasion, in all
probability, dated the first deliberate and wholesale mutilation, the
defacement of the king’s features wherever they could be reached, and
the brutal employment of every available instrument of destruction.
And yet I think that the moderns, too, have borne their share in the
iconoclastic campaign. Centuries of Persians have carried off thousands
of tons of building-material from the ruins. We have the authority
of Chardin that Abbas the Great sent hither for marble [sic] for his
palaces and mosques ; that Imam Kuli Khan, the great viceroy of
Pars, did the same for his capital at Shiraz ; and that the Minister of
also have resulted from a mistaken reproduction of Clitarchus’ raupovs, a very
natural allusion to the colossal bulls, who might well strike terror, where a palisade
could not, and to whom the attribute brazen might easily have been shifted from
the gates. On the other hand, there is no trace of gates ever having existed in
the Porch of Xerxes.