Identifier: ninevehpersepoli00vaux (find matches)
Title: Nineveh and Persepolis: an historical sketch of ancient Assyria and Persia, with an account of the recent researches in those countries
Year: 1850 (1850s)
Authors: Vaux, W. S. W. (William Sandys Wright), 1818-1885
Subjects:
Publisher: London : A. Hall, Virtue & co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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between Shiraz andIsfahan, they have been visited and described by nearly everytraveller who has passed through Persia ; and though, even now,it is not possible to assign its own builder to every edifice, latediscoveiies have enabled us to identify Darius Hvstaspes, andXerxes as the chief builders of tbem. The obscure tradition inthe mouths of the modern inhabitants ascribes them to kingJemshid, and serves to show that, while the modern inhabitantsreally know but little of their real history, they arc willing toassign to them the most venerable antiquity. The approach to Persepolis, as the traveller crosses the vastplain of Merdusht, is described by eveiy one who has had thegood fortune to visit it, as magnificent in the extreme. Theclearest and most spirited, that we have met with, is that of theauthor of Piough Notes of a Rough Ride from the East. We were in our saddles, says he, at the first streak of day.
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. n m-1 CHAP. IX.) PERSEPOLIS. 287 and ere the suns rays had gilded the few surviving capitals ofChehel Minar, its tall white columns stood before us in nakedmajesty at the foot of the bare and dreary ridge of mountainswhich bounds the wide alluvial plain of Merdusht. Xo otherwork of man was visible, except a few tents of wandering Eelyauts—specks in the distant horizon. There stood, in stately solitude,the pride of ages, which appear almost fabulous from their dis-tance ; of empires nearer, by five centuries, to the time of Noah,than to ours, and of which no trace Iemains; but here are suffi-cient to verify the naiTations of their splendid existence, and toshow that, in some arts, and those among the noblest, ourvaunted march of intellect is but an idle boast; indeed, were itnot for the models we imitate—the more servilely the better—this march would most certainly be a countermarch. As it is,where is the modem city which will have such a glorious wreck astliis after its epheme

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