And in what class of literature should that book be placed? It has been called an epic illustrated by sculptors--a description that seems hardly just. For in every epic worthy of the name the marvellous occupies an important place, while in these reliefs it scarcely has a place at all. With few exceptions the belief in a superior and divine world makes itself felt in Assyrian art only in those effigies of gods and demons we have already described. And such images have their places rigidly fixed by tradition; they stand at the palace gates, but are scarcely ever found within its saloons, and are entirely absent from the marches, battles, and sieges. Here and there among such pictures, but at long intervals, we find some feature that reminds us of the aid that Assur and the other national gods afforded their worshippers; now it is an eagle floating over the king’s chariot;[118] now the god himself, surrounded by a winged circle, draws his bow and launches his formidable shafts against the enemies of his people.[119] He is thus represented mounted on a galloping bull in the ring by which the standards of the Assyrian legions were surmounted. [Illustration: FIG. 46.--Assyrian standard; from Layard.] All these details were small in scale and unobtrusive. The _rôle_ played by the architect was similar to that of the draughtsmen and photographers who sometimes accompany princes and generals on a modern campaign. The programme placed before him was as narrow as it could well be; he was required to be faithful and precise, not to give proof of inventive power. The sculptor was, in a way, the editor of the military bulletins; his work was the newspaper of the day, explaining the political events of his time to those who could understand no other writing. There is complete coherence between his figures and the inscribed texts they accompany. Look, for instance, at the series of slabs from the Palace of Sennacherib, in which his Jewish campaign is retraced.[120] The final scene is thus described in words within a cartouche above the heads of the figures: “Sennacherib, king of Assyria, seated upon his throne of state, causes the prisoners taken in the town of Lachish to pass before him,”[121] In order to show the details of the magnificent chair upon which the king is seated we have reproduced only the two principal actors, in the sovereign and his grand vizier (Fig. 47). If we had been able to place the whole composition before our readers they would have seen how thoroughly the inscription describes it. Behind the general who is presenting the vanquished to the king, appear the prisoners, some prostrate, others kneeling or standing upright, but all turned towards their conqueror with gestures of supplication.