The universal acceptance of this type is proved chiefly by the Assyrian sculpture. The fact is that among all the thousands of figures it produced there are but two heads, the one with, the other without, a beard. We have already encountered the first in all the scenes in which the king, his ministers, his officers or his soldiers appear. It is also used for the gods (Vol. I. Figs. 13 and 15) and the winged bulls, whose heads, perhaps, like the Egyptian sphinxes, were supposed to be reproductions of the royal features. The beardless variety seems, in the royal processions, to be confined to those eunuchs who have always played such an important part at Oriental courts (Vol. I. Figs. 23 and 24, and Vol. II. Plate X.); the fleshy heaviness of their cheeks and necks (Fig. 65) has been thought to confirm this idea. But we should be mistaken if we recognized these miserable beings in all the beardless figures. The latter are so numerous in some compositions that no such explanation is admissible. In many instances they seem to represent people of the lowest class, peasants, labourers, and slaves (see Vol. I. Figs. 45, 151, 152, and Vol. II. Figs. 44 and 48). As the oldest sculptures of Chaldæa suffice to prove, the habit of wearing the hair and beard long did not date from the earlier years of that country. In those sculptures we find heads completely shaved. It is possible that the ancient custom was changed when the formidable army to which Assyria owed its power and fortune was created. The beard may then have become, as the moustache used to be with us, a sign of the military caste. We never find soldiers or their officers without it;[159] but their hair and beards are shorter than those of the king and his ministers (Fig. 66); they do not fall upon the chest and shoulders in several rows of curls carefully arranged.[160] In the reliefs the amplitude and length of the beard are always a sign of the highest rank. [Illustration: WINGED BULL FROM KHORSABAD Louvre] [Illustration: FIG. 66.--Assyrian soldier; from the Louvre. Height of slab 2 feet.]