Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/362

 342 History of Art in Antiquity. built by-Darius. Of this he has informed us in a number of inscrip- tions engraved in three languages about window and door frames.^ But Darius was not spared long enough to finish his work, as we learn from a longer and more important inscription of Xerxes,, which appears on the substructures and the face of a side pillar.* where he says that he has completed the work commenced by his father. Finally, a hundred and fifty years later, Artaxerxes Ochus caused a third inscription to be incised in the front of the western landing-place, to record his having erected a double flight of steps here.' It is not difficult to hazard a guess as to his reason for having opened a new entrance on that face. The surface covered by the Palace of Darius, though not exceeding twelve hundred metres, had enough accommodation for the king in his public character and his immediate attendants, but it could not have housed his wives, children, and their numerous attendants. As in other residences, ancient and modem, of Oriental sovereigns, the harem formed doubtless a separate block. The writer of the Book of Esther again and again distinguishes the royal house" and the house of the women" at Susa. This "house of the women** we are tempted to seek, for Persepolis, at the south-west angle of the platform. Here remains of a terribly ruinous building are seen, consisting of fragments of columns, marks of foundation stones, and juts of walls, along with the lower extremities of figures that- formed the upper row on the face of the flight of stairs, exactly as in the other staircases (Fig. lo^ No. 4). Here, top, are remains of a landing-place turned towards that of Darius. For the two edifices faced each other ; each was a pendant to the other, a unit split into two halves. The isolated situation occupied by these ruins, at one end of the esplanade, favours the hypothesis that the harem stood here. The inscription on the stairs built by Ochus is repeated here word for word on the substructure, leading to the inference that the two edifices were erected simultaneously. Of course, Darius had a harem of his own, the remains of which lie, perhaps, under the hillock of earth and rubbish east of the palace bearing his name, and which has not yet been cleared. Ochus had a larger number of wives, involving a proportionate number of eunuchs Digitized by Google
 * Fa. Spieobl, Dk altparsUchm KdHnsd^/km, i88t, p. 51.
 * md., ppi 63, 64. • 69.