598 COMBAT OF A LION AND A BULL, AT THE 
the king had said. And afterwards, when the day of procession 
came, Cyrus appeared without the gates, in a vesture of purple 
mixed with white, (a union of colours which no one else is 
allowed to wear ;) yellow stockings, or buskins, were on his legs ; 
a robe, wholly of purple, on his shoulders, and a high turban on 
his head, bound with a diadem or wreath. His kinsmen wore 
the like mark of distinction, and they have it to this day. His 
hands he kept out of their coverings. When his chariot advanced, 
four thousand of the guards led the way, and the chiefs about 
his person, to the number of three hundred, finely clothed, and 
with javelins in their hands, followed after on horseback.” 
(Cyrop. b. viii.) Thus much of the description is sufficient for 
my present purpose. 
Two angular spaces on each side of the corresponding groups 
of spearmen, described on the surface of the staircase, are filled 
with duplicate representations of a fight between a lion and a 
bull, (Plate XXXV.) a most spirited and admirable performance. 
The bull is decorated with the same kind of curled hair over its 
chest, back, and tail, which ornaments his similitude at the gate 
of the first portal; but with this difference in the additional 
ornaments, the collar of the animal in the combat is perfectly 
plain, and there is no radiated form on his breast; here, the 
head is perfect, and we find a single horn projecting over his 
forehead. From the circumstance of a collar round the neck of 
the bull, it proves him to be no wild one, and that we are not 
to understand the combat as accidental. But whether it may 
be received as a proof, that such conflicts were brought forward 
before the Persian people, is another question. That wild 
animals of the untameable sort were not merely hunted by the 
bold spirits of these Eastern princes, but preserved near their 
