CURIOUS GROUP AT RHEY. 
363 
to the confines of Teheran; and the information might not be 
so perfectly incorrect, as I supposed when viewing the place 
only from a distance, which states that the new capital was 
built out of the ruins of the old. 
In ascending the promontory on which the chief citadel, or 
castle, must have stood, Captain Willock led me to a spot of 
particular interest; the side of the rock covered with a colossal 
bas-relief. The surface had been smoothed to about sixteen feet 
in height, and twelve in breadth. The execution of the sculp¬ 
ture is rude ; and perhaps appears more so, from its having been 
left uncompleted. It represents a horseman in full charge, 
couching his spear. Long drapery flows from his thigh ; and on 
his head, which is very unfinished, there is something like a tiara 
surmounted with a balloon-shaped mass ; the same that is seen on 
the medals and coins of the Sassanian sovereigns. On his left 
shoulder another globular object rests; while a similar one lies 
on the neck of the horse, a little behind his ears. The latter 
members of the animal, are but slightly traced in the stone ; 
as are also the fore-legs, which are hewn out only to the knees ; 
the hinder legs being but chiselled to the hocks. 
There is also the head of another horse, by its position evidently 
intended to have borne the antagonist of the royal hero; but no 
further outline is seen. What has been traced of -this group, on 
the plane of sixteen feet just described, occupies an elevation 
of a little more than half that height. A sketch, I should sup¬ 
pose, to have been begun by order of some of the Sassanian 
monarchs; and by none, more probably, than the hero who 
founded that dynasty, on the subversion of the race of the Ar- 
sacides ; and who might wish thus to engrave a trophy of his 
great achievement, on the very rock which had upheld the 
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