Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/425

 Themes and their Situations, 403 reliefs, as now at Teheran, these cliamberlains carry a staff as badge of their office, and hold the traveller by the hand as they lead him to the foot of the throne (I' ij^. 19.5)- The part they play in the pictures enables us to understand the meaning- of these, a meaning which closer inspection of the several groups renders very clear. Flu. 19J. — IVr^cpolis. U»heni introducing triliutc-ticatcni. Flandin and C'Oiii E, rerse amianttt Plate CIX. It is a plastic translation, as it werei of part of the inscription at Behistun.' In it King Darius exclaims, " There are the provinces which, by the help of Ahurd- Mazda, fell to my lot ; they were under my sway ; they brought me their tributes ; night and day were my behests carried on there." We may therefore assume that the subjects on this wall are delegates through whose inter- mediary the various nations of which the empire was composed Digitized by Gopgle
 * Gdunm L § 7.