Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA. 1 I/
of his excavations at Susa, remarks that " nothing
could be more appropriate than this method at Susa
and Persepolis, the spring residences of the Persian
monarchs. It must be considered that these columnar
halls were the equivalents of the modern throne-rooms ;
here all public business was despatched, and here the
king might sit and scape V
enjoy the beauties of the land-
Such must serve for some account of the far-famed
Persepolis. In concluding this portion of my book, I
will only say a few words on the remaining palaces
known to have belonged to the Persian kings of the
Achaemenian dynasty, and shall then briefly notice
some of their tombs.
The other palaces are the ruins found at Murghab,
at Istakhr, on the edge of the
near the tomb of Cyrus ;
valley leading thence to Persepolis ; and at Susa.
Those at Ecbatana and in the town of Persepolis have
scarcely left even ruins. One of these structures at
Murghab, as bearing the well-known inscription, "I am
Cyrus the king, the Achaemenian," has been reasonably
supposed to have been occupied, if not built by him.
This building appears to be in form an oblong, of
147 feet by 116. Within it stands a single shaft,
36 feet high, and on the paved area around, are the
remains of the bases of seven similar columns. If
Messrs. Flandin and Coste are right, there were three
rows, each containing four pillars originally ; and this
number of rows corresponds, as Professor Rawlinson
has remarked, to the number in Solomon's " House of
the Forest of Lebanon V The smaller building, which
1
Loftus, Chaldaea and Susiana. p. 375.
*
i vii. Kings 8.