Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/391

 Towns and their Defences. 369 every town had kept its fortress in good order. Behind its thick friendly walls the king could take refuge and place his treasures in safety. Of all these fortresses the best known, and in all likelihood the most ancient, was that of Susa. The Greeks ascribed its origin to the Homeric hero, Mnemon, son of Dawn. It was their mode of testifying to its remote antiquity. It formed the capital of the Elamite kings, and Assyrian texts record its existence. Upon 1 ; ii>Kr Fu;. 179. — Showing the fortress at Su^a, as seen on archers' dress. Actual size. Louvre. the bas-reliefs of Asur-nat-Sirpal (Fig. 176) appears a very rude view of it ; we should perhaps also identify it in the towers figured on the dress of the archers decorating the palace at Susa (Fig. 1 79, and Plate XII.). It was in the nature of things that the Assyrians, and after them the Chaldaians, should have maintained the place in a state of defence, with a strong garrison to keep in subjection a people that looked back with longing regret on the loss of their independence.' Ft is just possible that when Cyrus and his successors made Susa one of their capitals, they did no more than repair the breaches made in the ramparts and the battlements, for neither the tracing of these fortifications nor the dispositions which characterize ' In the same way Alexander appoints a Persian governor over Susiana, and takes care to have the fortress at Susa garrisoned by Macedonians, under the command of Mazaros, one of his iroLpoi (Arrian, III. xvi. 9). 2 B