Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/423

 Themes and their Situations. less confident The notion that the artist intended to represent civil and military orders may safely be dismissed, inasmuch as such a distinction did not exist in antiquity. The more likely conjec- ture is the following: — The subjects are representatives of the sister nations, who shared among themselves all the high offices of the state ; the Medes, on the one hand, recognizable from their ample flowing garments, which the successors of Cyrus borrowed from them,* and on the other hand the Persians, in tight-fitting gaberdines and leather breeches, ottaxyHdes^ as said the Greeks, the genuine habit of those hardy mountaineers, displayed perhaps by their descendants out of national pride in public ceremonials, though it had long been out of fashion.* What tends to confirm the hypothesis is the strong family likeness between the figures of this robed and tunicked train. Their height and cast of features are so very similar as to preclude difference of race. All are armed with a short dagger, stuck in the belt in front or fastened to a leather string and falling on the right thigh (Fig. 192).* Several of them have a cased bow hang^ing on the left hip, but the figures so armed belong to either series indifferently. This applies to those— and their number is not small — holding a flower in their right hand. The custom is widely diffused in modern Persia, where it is considered good form to carry in the hand a flower, rose, jessamine, tulip, hyacinth, etc., and offer it to the first acquaintance one may chance to meet on the way. All have earrings and bracelets to their wrists, and all wear massive collars as badges of their official rank. Finally, all have their hair and beard dressed with the utmost care and profusely curled, with a bushy fulness and termination of curls on the neck, or lengthening out into a point under the chin, without, however, attaining the length of Assyrian beards. The upper classes could alone find leisure for the elaborate trimming, curling, and crisping witnessed here.* The beard and hair of the guards, though shorter, are ' Herodotus, i. 71 ; v. 49; vii. 61 ; Strabo, XV. iii. 19, A sheepskin jacket, the wool turned inside, is the winter habiliment of the peasantry of Persia at the ptesent hour. with that figured on the monuments. Herodotus calls. kfjfjA^lhuiv {yvi. (ii)^ Joscphus iit^iiivav {^Ant.JuJ., XX. viiL 10). the use of wigs which Xenopbon ascribes to Medcsof high degree {Cyrop,t I. iii. t), s D Digitized by Google
 * Xknophon, Cyrop., I. iii. 2 ; VIII. i. 40.
 * The terms used by Gretk historians to describe the Persian sword coincide
 * Thelnxuriaoceof the hair in the personages in qnestion is not sudi as to imply