=Sculpture.=—­The sculpture of the Assyrian palaces is especially admirable.  Statues, truly, are rare and coarse; sculptors preferred to execute bas-reliefs similar to pictures on great slabs of alabaster.  They represented scenes which were often very complicated—­battles, chases, sieges of towns, ceremonies in which the king appeared with a great retinue.  Every detail is scrupulously done; one sees the files of servants in charge of the feast of the king, the troops of workmen who built his palace, the gardens, the fields, the ponds, the fish in the water, the birds perched over their nests or flitting from tree to tree.  Persons are exhibited in profile, doubtless because the artist could not depict the face; but they possess dignity and life.  Animals often appeared, especially in hunting scenes; they are ordinarily made with a startling fidelity.  The Assyrians observed nature and faithfully reproduced it; hence the merit of their art.

The Greeks themselves learned in this school, by imitating the Assyrian bas-reliefs.  They have excelled them, but no people, not even the Greeks, has better known how to represent animals.

FOOTNOTES: 

[15] A Persian song enumerates 300 different uses of the palm.

[16] Or perhaps from the east (Arabia).—­ED.

[17] Recent discoveries confirm the view of a very ancient civilization—­ED.

[18] Somewhat exaggerated.  See Perrot and Chipiez, “History of Art in Assyria and Chaldea,” ii., 60; and Maspero, “Passing of the Empires,” p. 468.—­ED.

[19] Lenormant, “Ancient History.”

[20] For example, hilka, hilka, bescha, bescha (begone! begone! bad! bad!)

[21] The temples were pyramidal, of stones or terraces similar to the tower of Borsippa.

CHAPTER V

THE ARYANS OF INDIA

THE ARYANS

=Aryan Languages.=—­The races which in our day inhabit Europe—­Greeks and Italians to the south, Slavs in Russia, Teutons in Germany, Celts in Ireland—­speak very different languages.  When, however, one studies these languages closely, it is perceived that all possess a stock of common words, or at least certain roots.  The same roots occur in Sanscrit, the ancient language of the Hindoos, and also in Zend, the ancient tongue of the Persians.  Thus,

Father—­pere (French), pitar (Sanscrit), pater (Greek and Latin).  It is the same word pronounced in various ways.  From this (and other such examples) it has been concluded that all—­Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Latins, Celts, Germans, Slavs—­once spoke the same language, and consequently were one people.