560 
SIXTH BAS-RELIEF. 
point, not bending any way; and that, on pain of death, no 
subject of the Great King durst wear a tiara, except the point 
were bent over his forehead; and the descendants of those 
princes who accompanied Darius Hystaspes in the assassination 
of Smerdis the magian, were alone permitted to have their 
tiaras with the top bent backwards.” Prideaux, whose re¬ 
searches into the ancient histories of these countries is profound 
and full of satisfaction to an attentive reader, reverses something 
of Mr. Selden’s account; and, but for the presence of the woman 
in the group, might cast a light on these seven personages 
behind the king in the bas-relief. Seven princes (of whom 
Darius Hystaspes was one) having entered into an agreement to 
destroy Smerdis the usurper, fixed upon a sign to distinguish 
each other during the anticipated confusion of the attack. Our 
learned Dean describes the affair thus: — “ And whereas the 
king only wore his turban directly upright, and all other persons, 
till then, with its top reversed, or turned backwards; these 
princes, when they went in to fall upon the magian, turned the 
back part of their turbans forward, that they might by that 
signal be easier known to each other in the scuffle. In memory 
of which, when the son of Hystaspes came to be king, they were 
ever after permitted, as an especial honour, to wear their turbans 
turned forward in that manner. And from that time, the 
Persian monarchs of the race of Darius Hystaspes, had always 
seven chief counsellors, by whose advice the great affairs of the 
empire were transacted/’ After this hint, were it not for the 
female apparition in the group on the right hand of the royal 
personage in this last bas-relief, we might be led to suppose it a 
council of the seven sages, listening to some one of the Sassanian 
kings of the line of Darius. But a comparison of its style and 
details, with other works of the kind I have yet to examine in 
