ANTIQUITIES OF PERSEPOLIS. 
593 
sparkled like the colour of burnished brass. Their wings were 
joined one to another ; they turned not when they went; they 
went every one straight forward. As for the likeness of their 
faces, they four had the face of a man , and the face of a lion on 
the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left 
side : they four also had the face ot an eagle.” (Ezek. ch. i. 
ver. 7. 9, 10.) Daniel foretels the empire of the same prince, 
under a similar union of the human with the bestial form, de¬ 
scribing it as a lion with eagle's wings; and he adds, that he 
gazed on it till “ it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand 
upon the feet as a man, and a mans heart was given to it.” 
(Dan. ch. vii. v. 4.) Commentators have explained the human 
attributes, given in these symbolical imageries, as prophetic of 
the peculiar wisdom and clemency of Cyrus’s character. But 
whatever be the real intention, in the bull-man, which is here 
planted in the ancient seat of the earliest monarchs of the East, 
in the gate of his palace, his attributes fully answer the general 
idea of an emblematic reference to a just sovereignty. In the 
bull-form, we have the plenitude of power ; in the human head 
and regal ornaments, the sovereign and the sage; in the exalted 
horns, the force of action, and a lofty sense of the awe it inspires ; 
and the wings may either typify the celestial descent, or the 
kingly activity, or the parental protection, of the royal character. 
On turning to the right of the portal, an expanse of a hundred 
and sixty-two feet lies between it, and the magnificent terrace 
that supports the multitude of columns, from which it takes its 
name. One object alone, interrupts the attention in our progress 
towards them ; this is a fine and conspicuous cistern, hewn out of 
the solid rock, in dimensions eighteen feet by sixteen. It stands 
now only three feet above the level of the rock, or rather earth 
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