Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/315

 Characteristics of Chalixko-Assyrian Sculpture. 283 struggle against suffering and death! It is in the Assyrian monuments that these things are treated with the greatest success. A people of soldiers and hunters, whose truculent energy gave them the empire of all western Asia, they had neither the mild Fig. 161. — Assurbanipal attacked by lions. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier. humour nor the fine taste of the Egyptians, they were less easily moved, and we find ourselves wondering that they never hit upon the fights of gladiators as a national pastime. They were touched