660 
REMARKS ON THE RUINS. 
behind, waving the usual fly-chaser over his head; and the 
aerial figure we have been discussing, in his winged car, hovers 
near him. These four portals(a a b b) open opposite to each other 
in the four sides of this quadrangular building ; in the centre of 
which I found the plinths of four columns, standing equidistant 
ten feet, and each in diameter four feet. From the form, and 
the immense materials of this place, the latter so much beyond 
any common proportion with its present apparent dimensions, 
it seems very likely to have been dedicated to religious uses ; 
and, probably, was the private oratory of the king, where he 
offered up his daily adorations to Mezdan (Ormuzd) : such 
solidity of structure being a reverence to the name to which it 
was inscribed. From the smoothness of these four large central 
stones, it does not appear that they had formerly been con¬ 
nected with any crowning material, neither a platform, nor 
statues ; and so far from there being any probability of images 
occupying this, or any other temple in Persia, from the reign of 
Cyrus, to that of the last Darius, we learn from historians, that 
Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, destroyed Apis, the idolatrous 
object of the Egyptians’ worship, in his indignation at likening 
the Supreme Power to a brute beast; and that Xerxes, the son 
of Darius Hystaspes, and the pupil of Zoroaster, broke in pieces 
the statues of the Greeks, from the same sense of what was due 
to Deity. Hence, I should suppose, that between these four 
pillars stood the altar that contained the sacred fire ; the only 
visible image of the Divinity, which his followers admitted into 
their temples. This edifice, like most of the others, rose on its 
own distinct little terrace; and though all its entrances seem to 
have been distinguished by the royal effigy, yet here we find no 
representations of guards to protect his sacred person; which 
seems to declare, that the place is sanctuary sufficient; and its 
