CHAPTER XX PERSEPOLIS AND ITS MONUMENTS 'Among the ruined temples there, Of more than man, where marble demons watch Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around.' – SHELLEY, Alastor, 116–120. THE scene now shifts from Pasargada to Persepolis, the royal seat of Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, and their successors, who bore in turn the title King of Kings,' having inherited the throne of Cyrus through a side line, as his son Cambyses had died childless.1 These monarchs located their capital some forty miles south of Cyrus's city, at the site now marked by the great platform of Takht-i Jamshid and the ruins of the city of Stakhra, as well as perpetuated by their tombs at Naksh-i Rustam. The new capital may have been called Pārsa-karta, City of the Persians,' like the older Pasargadæ, for the Greeks appear simply to be paraphrasing the name when they refer to the city as Perse-polis.2 It is not improbable, moreover, that the name Stakhra, 'Strong,' still preserved among the natives as Stakhr or Istakhr, and which we can 1 See pp. 26, 180, above. The date of Cambyses's death was B.C. 522. Herodotus (History, 3. 61-66) states that it occurred at the Syrian Ecbatana; Ctesias (Fragments, 43-44, ed. Gilmore, pp. 144-145) says that the event occurred at Babylon, and adds that the body was brought back to Persia. Yet to this day no man knows the place where Cambyses is buried. 2 The earliest occurrence of ПepoéTOMS in Greek appears to be in the fifth century B.C., after the Persian War, as we then find the word used by Eschylus, Persians, 65, apparently with a punning allusion to destroying (πέρσις) cities (πόλις). This I believe to be the best interpretation of the passage in question. FROM PASARGADE TO NAKSH-I RUSTAM 295 trace back for centuries, if not to Achæmenian times, may have designated the city in the plain north and west of the platform, that is, the abode of the people in distinction from the residence of the kings on the grand terrace.1 Be that as it may, the monuments in this vicinity are the most interesting and historic in all Persia; Susa alone can make any claim to comparison with them. To reach Persepolis, we strike southward toward the Plain of Mervdasht. The road runs at first through a mountain gorge, picturesque in wild scenery, but dangerous at night because of its rugged track and robbers. The river Polvar, the classic Medus, pushes its way with turbulent stream through the craggy defile. A part of the road above its rocky bed exhibits one of the most remarkable pieces of ancient engineering in the Orient. For a considerable distance, through the solid limestone rock, a narrow causeway was hewn ages ago to afford, as it still does, a passage for caravans on their route from the south to the north of Iran, and an ingress more than once for great armed forces. It is known as the Sang-Bur, Rock-Cutting,' or the Tang-i Bulaghi, 'Water-stream Pass,' and is thought by some to be identical with the mountain gorges of Vash-Shikuft, mentioned in the Bundahishn 6 1 On the problem of the names Persepolis and Istakhr, compare Curzon, Persia, 2. 132, n. 2, 133, 148, 187; also Nöldeke's article on Persepolis in Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., 18. 557-560. The Greeks and Latins naturally did not observe this distinction, and we can understand how the Tabula Peutingeriana should in late Parthian times speak of Persepolis, the emporium of Persia,' although this could only refer to the city itself, because the place had lost its prestige as a capital under the Arsacids. See Tomaschek, Zur historischen Topographie von Persien, pp. 166–175. 2 Bd. 12. 2, 21; so Justi, in Indogermanische Forschungen, Anzeiger, 17. 106. For a picture of the pass, see Stolze and Andreas, Persepolis, 2. pl. 127; and for descriptions, cf. Curzon, Persia, 2. 90; Browne, A Year Amongst the Persians, p. 243. In the opinion of Justi (IF. Anzeiger, 17. 106, cf. Grundr. iran. Philol. 2. 425) it was on a mountain in this vicinity that the Median pretender Gaumata, the False Smerdis, first asserted his claim to the sovereignty of Persia, only to be overthrown by Darius. From the ravine we emerge into a succession of valleys between hills and cliffs. At this point my cavalcade overtook a band of Cossacks in the employ of the Shah. These finely mounted horsemen had been sent down to clear up the road which was infested with highwaymen (rah-zan), and they were not long in finding an opportunity to exercise their functions. A shepherd came past with tears in his eyes, complaining that he had been robbed of a sheep by a peasant who was acting as a guard of the road.' The Cossacks pursued the offender to the hills, quickly caught him, pinioned his arms behind him, and marched him at the rifle's muzzle to the nearest village, where punishment, I presume of the cruellest kind, was inflicted upon the culprit. At Sivand, the station beyond, I found no occasion to wait for a longer time than to change horses, and then resumed the trail near the Polvar, though I regret that I missed seeing the famous Pahlavi inscription in the hills near the village of Hajiabad, some miles below Sivand. I have in my possession, however, a picture of the tablet taken by Mr. A. O. Wood, of the bank at Isfahan, and there is a large photograph of the inscription in Stolze's work on Persepolis, besides copies that have been made by others. The writing on the stone is in Chaldæo-Pahlavi and Sasanian Pahlavi, and it appears to record a remarkable shot with an arrow by King Shahpur, or Sapor I, of the House of Sasan.2 The afternoon was considerably advanced when I reached Naksh-i Rustam and the tombs of the Achæmenian kings. Here in the face of a long high bluff are hewn four sepulchres belonging to the elder kings of the second line, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II. These rock-cut vaults lie five or six miles to the north of the great platform where once stood 1 See Stolze and Andreas, Persepolis, 2. pl. 126; Ker Porter, Travels, 1. 513; Flandin and Coste, Voyage en Perse, Ancienne, 2. pl. 164; Westergaard, in the appendix to his Bunde hesh, pp. 83-84, Copenhagen, 1851; cf. also Curzon, Persia, 2. 116. 2 See West, Grundr. iran. Philol. 2. 77. (Hajiabad is not to be confused with the place mentioned on p. 252.) |