AT AMASSIA. 
711 
One of the rocky promontories, yet higher upon the same side 
of the river with the fortress, contains two more tombs, but 
dug lower in the altitude of the mountain than those we last 
examined in the fortress rock. One is considerably nearer the 
plain, and on the sides of its entrance evident traces of archi¬ 
tectural decorations remain. Two more appear low in the 
mountain slope just above the city, on the opposite side of the 
river to that of the fortress-hill, from the commanding brow of 
which I was enabled to make these more distant observations. 
Nine completed the number that I saw, near and from afar; the 
time of their construction can only be guessed at, by the com¬ 
parison of facts ; but their whole plan proves their origin far 
before the era of Christianity, when so many of its persecuted 
disciples were forced to seek refuge in natural caves, or subter¬ 
raneous asylums of very different forms. I would rather derive 
them from a similar taste for the like mode of entombment 
which prevailed in the earliest ages of Persia. 
Amassia was one of the oldest and most opulent cities of 
Pontus or Cappadocia. This country formed a part of the 
third satrapy of Darius Hystaspes ; and so remained in that kind 
of provincial state, till, about three centuries prior to the Chris¬ 
tian era, it became a kingdom. It is not therefore very un¬ 
likely that during its early government under the princely 
satraps from Persia, who, in fact, would reign there with all 
the state of independent sovereigns, they should affect the sepul¬ 
chral royalties of Nakshi-Roustam, or Talmissus, and likewise 
build their tombs in the rocks of Amassia. These funeral ex¬ 
cavations being found by the subsequent kings of the country, 
might either be turned to their own use, or imitated by similar 
caverns of yet more laborious workmanship. In this view, I 
