OF THE BAS-RELIEFS. 
623 
princes of Nineveh and Babylon, under the derivative appellation 
of Zohawk, made conquest of the land, and maintained possession 
of it for several centuries. Regular history informs us of the 
revolt of the Medes and Babylonians from the Assyrians of 
Nineveh, about seven hundred and fifty years before the 
Christian era; at which time Persia also recovered its liberty, 
and the restoration of its princes. Hence, if we may assume 
with Sir William Malcolm, that the name of Jemsheed was the 
title of a race ; and, as Sacred Writ plants the immediate offspring 
of Shem, or Jem, in this very tract, it seems not unreasonable to 
think, that the city we call Persepolis, may, from the earliest 
ages, have borne a similar appellation to that which we find it 
now holds in Persia, namely, Tackt-i-Jemsheed, the throne of 
Jemsheed; and this consideration alone seems a fair argument 
for the great antiquity of the capital, and the venerable date of 
its usages. In carefully comparing the native Persian accounts, 
mutilated and confused as they are, with the notices of their 
country contained in the Greek and Jewish writers, the descent 
of Cambyses king of Persia, the father of Cyrus, can be 
sufficiently traced to the line assumed to be that of Jemsheed ; 
and we may suppose that a capital so ancient, as to be called his 
throne, must have derived great extent and consequence under 
so many successive monarc'hs. Though if we are to judge of their 
taste in architecture, from the garb and manners of their people 
at the time Cambyses espoused the daughter of Astyages, the 
whole must have worn the simplest appearance; and we may 
conclude that this marriage with a' princess from the compara¬ 
tively refined court of Media, was the first introduction here, of 
those splendours in architecture which mark a rich and polished 
nation. Xenophon mentions, that the royal parents of Cyrus 
