THE PLATFORM OF PERSEPOLIS 311 Greek nearly two thousand years ago, by Diodorus Siculus (c. B.C. 50). Since the passage is important as a means of identification of the site, I translate the paragraph which relates to the construction of the terrace and the tombs of the kings, preserving in my rendering the interchange of tenses, present and past, that is found in the original Greek. 1 'The citadel (ǎkpa) is worthy of mention. It had a threefold wall surrounding it, the first (section) of which was constructed with stately bastions (ἀναλήμματι πολυδαπάνῳ) and adorned with battlements (éráλέeσi) and it had a height of sixteen cubits. The second has a similar arrangement to that of the preceding, but double its height. The third enclosure is rectangular in shape, and its wall is sixty cubits high and constructed of solid stone so perfectly set as to last forever. On each side it has brazen gates and, beside them, brazen bulls, twenty cubits high, the latter being intended to inspire awe in the beholder, and the former designed for security. On the side of the citadel toward the east, and four hundred feet distant, is the so-called Royal Mountain, in which were the tombs of the kings. The rock was hewn out and had in its bosom several sepulchres in which were the vaults of the dead. There were no specially prepared means of access, but the corpses were hoisted up by machines (opyávwv) devised for the purpose, and thus received burial. In the citadel itself there were many sumptuously equipped residences for the king and his officers, and likewise treasuries well adapted for the safe-guarding of wealth.'" The original plan and the main construction of this noble platform (which more than a thousand years ago was com pared with Baalbec and the architectural remains of Palmyra and Egypt,1 and fabled to be the work of Solomon's genii) was due to Darius. In one of his inscriptions he definitely states that he built this fortress on a place where no fortress had been built before,' and that he did so by the grace of 'Auramazda and the other gods.'2 Darius erected at least two of the noblest buildings, but the elaboration of the design was due to Xerxes and its completion to his successors. Though far grander in its magnificence than any ordinary fortress, it must have been easily guarded by armed patrols on the walls and by platoons of soldiers stationed at all points of access, and reasons have been advanced for believing that its strength was re-enforced by walled fortifications or turrets in front of it on the plain. The southerly position of the Palace of Darius and the fact that it faces southward has led, not unreasonably perhaps, to the assumption that there was originally an approach from the south or southeast, whereas the regular means of access, which must have been unchanged since the time of Xerxes, is by a great double staircase constructed in the wall near the northwest angle of the platform. This Grand Staircase (A) consists of a double ramping flight, each series numbering more than a hundred steps, with an angle of ascent so gentle and a width so broad, that a troop of horse 1 See the Mohammedan writer Istakhri (c. A.D. 950), ed. De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 1. 150 and 1. 123, cf. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter nach den Arabischen Geographen, 1. 1314, Leipzig, 1896; and Mokadassi, or Makdasi (A.D. 984), ed. De Goeje, Bibl. Geog. Arab. 3. 420, 435, 446, cf. Nöldeke, Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., 18. 558, notes 1 and 10. A still earlier description of Istakhr is given by Masudi (A.D. 944), Les Prairies d'Or, ed. Barbier de Meynard, 4. 76 seq. 2 This statement regarding the 'fort ress' (Elam. halvarras, the same word that is employed to render OP. didā in Bh. 2. 39) is found only in the Elamitic version of the inscription on the side of the rampart, mentioned below, p. 318. 3 See reference already given to Blundell, Persepolis, in Ninth Internat. Congress of Orientalists, 2. 547556. As explained above, I am inclined to explain the threefold wall of Diodorus (17. 71) as referring rather to the three main elevations, and to understand that the bull-flanked portals may actually have been gilded as implied in the 'brazen gates' and 'brazen bulls.' |