OF THE BAS-RELIEFS. 
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gave oxen, and cups, that they might sacrifice, and feast. The 
method of this procession, then settled by Cyrus, continues to 
this day ; excepting only, that the victims make no part in it 
when the king does not sacrifice. Every nation thought they 
did themselves an injury if they did not send Cyrus the most 
valuable productions of their country, whether they were the 
fruits of the earth, or creatures bred there, or manufactures of 
their own: and every city did the same.” (Cyrop. b. viii.) We 
are told, that Cyrus received such presents in the way of tribute 
from the nations at large ; but from the Persians alone he took 
them as free gifts. In the preceding quotation, we may trace 
some affinity between its solemn procession, and bringing of 
presents, with the series of subjects just described in the bas- 
reliefs on the palace-walls. I do not mean to say that they were 
intended as a commemoration of this, or perhaps any other of 
Cyrus’s personal solemnities of the kind, but my reference 
shews the antiquity of the custom and its details. He was much 
less likely than his successors, to erect that sort of monument to 
the honour of his conquests and institutions; and nothing is 
more probable than that these magnificent registers of a great 
empire, were chiselled from the rock, by the command of his not 
unworthy successor, Darius Hystaspes. He mounted the throne 
of Persia hardly ten years after the death of Cyrus. Ctesias 
asserts, that the tomb which Darius ordered to be made for 
himself, was excavated in the mountain near Persepolis ; but 
whether he chose his last rest to be there, or in the sacred caves 
at Nakshi-Roustam, does not affect the probability of his having 
devoted some part of his long reign, and the labours of his 
numerous artists and artisans, to the embellishment of this 
ancient metropolis. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, had begun 
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