Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

184 HISTORY OF PERSIA.
the belly of the horse of the principal one. A
third relief in a more perfect state, consists of four
figures, the chief one of which can hardly be any one
but Shahpur I. Before him is another figure, in the
usual dress of a Roman soldier, with his arms extended
as though seeking mercy, and his left knee bent. There
is no reason to doubt that we have here the well-known
story of the humbling of the Roman emperor Valerian
by Shahpur I, and it is the more interesting as the work
is clearly that of a Persian artist. It has long since been
suggested that the third figure to whom Shahpur is
giving his hand is Cyriades, the wretched nobody
he is said to have placed on the throne 1
.
The
scale of this stone picture is colossal, the whole of the
face of the rock having been excavated, and a tablet
formed thirty-seven feet long, the horse alone occupy-
ing fourteen.
On a fourth sculpture is a repetition of the combat
between Varahran V (Gaur) and a figure whom Sir R.
Porter calls a Tdtrfr prince. Though mutilated, it is
in some respects better preserved than the former, and
has some interest from the fact that over the whole
of one of the figures are indications of a once perfect
coat of small plate mail, the special dress, according
to Heliodorus, of the cataphracti or heavy cavalry. The
long pike, as noticed by the same writer, resembling
those on the Achaemenian sculptures at Persepolis.
The fifth sculpture has peculiar excellence ; and
1 This portion of the story is represented elsewhere with slight
differences. At Dnrabjerd, Shahpur is placing his left hand on the
bead of Cyriades (Flandin, PI. 31-33): at Shahpur a single figure
kneels before the conqueror's horse. (Flandin, PI. 48.)