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 lOO History of Art in Antiquity. ing the sanctuary were as yet entirely gUt^ He does not indicate how they were made ; but the impression left by perusal of his narrative is to the effect that the templ^ in which the glitter of predous metals met the eye everywhere, was in the same style as the palace. Gold-leaf is not only more easily applied to wood than stone, but its adhesion will likewise be a great deal firmer. It has been argued' that the above curious passage does not relate to the palace of Cyaxares and Astya^;es, but that the " timber pavilions of Polybius were probably erected by the last Achsemenidae, or more likely still tlicir successors, the Arsacidae, in imitation of the aedicula raised by the sovereigns of Babylon ; that if the wood palaces at Ecbatana were the creations of Median kings, their age at the time of the expedition of Antio- chus would have been from six to eight hundred years, and would thus have outlived the Persian and Macedonian conquests. To have made this possible, we must suppose that for the space of nearly eight hundred years, Oriental princes of different stock and origin were content to reside in, or at least keep in repair, the old palaces, and that the soldiery of Cyrus and Alexander refrained from tearing off the gold and silver plating tiiat covered apparent woods and even tiles, neither of which hypotheses I can admit." The alter- native proposed, namely, to rejuvenate the buildings and ascribe them to the ArsacidLu, makes us suspect that the passage in ques- tion has been superficially read, since it is formally stated that most of the metal facing was removed when Ecbatana fell to Alexander, and that the pillage went on with Antigone and Seleucus. Conse- quently the accfjunt of Polybius refers to the state in which the Macedonian conquest found the palace three hundred and thirty years before our era. The interval between this date and the end of the reign and kingdom of Astyages in 560 B.C. is not by any means as great as has been adduced. If we suppose that the palace was erected, not by Astyages, but his father Cyaxares, the first rich and great king of Media, the edifice when the Greeks invaded the country would have been about three hundred years old. What, then, becomes of the six or eight hundred years that have been flourished about our faces ? In default of the Arsacida?, M. Dieulafoy falls back on the last Achiemenidce, but we submit that there is not the slightest foun- dation for the conjecture he advances. Wherever edifices were •**:Pc^Dm5j }y. xxvii. 12. » Djeulafoy, VArtaniiquef etc., torn, ii p. 88. uiyiu^LU by Google