THE SEPULCHRE OF DARIUS

299

the low door opens, and opposite the entrance is a recess whose floor is higher than the level of the passageway. Into the stone flooring of this are hewn three deep troughs to serve as sarcophagi, probably for the king and whichever two persons he regarded as nearest to him, while in the extension of the passage to the left six more such loculi are chiselled. All the receptacles are entirely empty, and the sole tenants of this lofty catacomb are bats and birds.

Two interesting stories in connection with this sepulchre are told by Ctesias, who must have had them at first hand during his residence in Persia as Greek physician to Artaxerxes. In his brief notice regarding the tomb of Darius he says (and I translate fairly literally): Darius ordered a tomb to be made for himself in the Double Mountain, and the work was brought to completion; but when he wished to inspect it, he was dissuaded from so doing by the Chaldæans (the Magian soothsayers) and by his parents. His parents, however, were anxious to go up to see it. As they were being drawn up, the priests who had hold of the ropes saw some serpents and became so frightened that they let go the ropes, and the parents of the king fell and were killed. The grief of Darius was so great that he caused to be beheaded forty of those who had pulled on the ropes.'1 The other story that is told by Ctesias is to the effect that Bagapates, the favorite eunuch of Darius, lived by his dead master's tomb for seven years until death released him from his devoted charge.2

The other tombs apparently belonged to Xerxes, Artaxerxes I, and Darius II; but in the absence of inscriptions we can only surmise how they were occupied respectively. It is natural to suppose that the tomb of Xerxes was next to that

tomb, see Flandin and Coste, Voyage en Perse, Ancienne, 4. pl. 170; cf. also Perrot and Chipiez, op. cit. 5. 626.

1 Ctesias, Fragments, 46 (15), ed. Gilmore, p. 150.

2 Ibid. 59 (19), ed. Gilmore, p. 152. 8 See, for example, Nöldeke's article on Persepolis, Encyclop. Brit. 9th ed., 18. 558. A less likely assignment may be found in Dieulafoy, L'Art Antique, 3. 2, n. 1.

of his father, but its position, whether to the right or the left, would affect the assignment of the other two. If we assume, as I think we are entitled to assume, that the three sepulchres which are in the main face of the rock were cut one after the other in regular order,1 and that the one in the bend to the extreme right (the so-called 'first tomb') was cut last, and partly for that reason is better preserved, then the vault of Xerxes would be on the left of that of Darius, as we face the hill, the vault of Artaxerxes Longimanus at the end, and the vault of Darius II, latest of them all, in the angle at the extreme right. On the other hand, if the so-called 'first tomb' at the extreme right be assigned to Xerxes, then Artaxerxes would have occupied the third tomb' and Darius II the last.3

Owing to the peculiar conformation of the cliff that has been already referred to, the first tomb' faces almost to the west, whereas the other three face nearly to the south. The more protected position of this tomb, and its greater inaccessibility, for it is the most difficult of the four to reach, may account for its being better preserved, even if one is not prepared to grant that it is more recent than the others. Passing by the tomb of Darius, already described, I may remark that the façade of the 'third tomb,' the one on its left, is comparatively well preserved, much better in fact than that of Darius, and we must regret that we cannot be sure whether we are looking at the sepulchre of Xerxes or not. The fourth and last of the group is nearer the ground than the others and is the most damaged of them all. Like the others, moreover, it is empty.

Along the base of the rock below the tombs there is carved a series of seven panels which date from a later dynasty, as they

1 It is worth noting that the Sasanian bas-reliefs are sculptured only in the base of this main wall, and not below the tomb in the cliff at the bend. 2 So also Justi, Empire of the Persians, p. 203.

3 Such seems to be the view of Andreas, op. cit. p. 96.

4 For a good photograph of this and the other façades, see Dieulafoy, L'Art Antique, 3. pls. 1-3. A picture of the first tomb is also given below.