Thanks to such facilities as these the Ninevite sculptors have handed down to us more faithful reproductions of the lion than their more skilful successors of Greece or Rome. For the latter the lion was little more than a conventional type from which ornamental motives might be drawn. Sometimes no doubt they obtained very fine effects from it, but they always considered themselves free to modify and amplify, according to the requirements of the moment. Thus they were often led to give him full and rounded forms, which had a beauty of their own but were hardly true to nature. The Assyrian never committed that fault. He knew that the great flesh-eating beasts never grew fat, that they were all nerve and muscle, without any of those adipose tissues which reach so great a development in herbivorous animals, like the sheep or ox, or those that eat anything that comes, like the pig. Look at the bronze lion from Khorsabad figured in our Plate XI., and see how lean he is at the croup in spite of the power in his limbs, and how the bones of his shoulder and thigh stand out beneath the skin. This characteristic is less strongly marked in the bas-reliefs, which hardly enjoy the same facilities for emphasising structure as work in the round. On the other hand the other features of the leonine physiognomy are rendered with singular energy. Anything finer in its way than the head of the colossal lion from Nimroud figured in our Plate VIII. can hardly be imagined. [Illustration: FIG. 80.--Wounded lioness. Height of slab about 15 inches. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.] [Illustration: FIG. 81.--Niche decorated with two lions. Height 6½ inches. British Museum. Drawn by Saint-Elme Gautier.]