The cylinders of the Sargonid epoch prove a progress parallel to that of Chaldæan glyptics; the traces left by the action of the saw and the drill have disappeared to make room for the modelling of the figures, which sometimes reach a degree of suppleness true to nature. We will cite as examples a cylinder of the De Clercq collection, representing two genii in adoration before the sacred tree (fig. 116), and a cylinder in the British Museum (fig. 117) on which the god Rammanu is seen, armed with a bow and arrows, standing upon a crouching lion and receiving the homage of a pontiff. The two cylinders are very fine: on the first, extreme exactness is to be noticed in the details of the costume, and great delicacy in the features of the two genii. On the second, on the contrary, the forms have a freer and easier pose, and the scene has more life; the palm is remarkable for truth; the ibexes, above all, are absolutely pure in design; the modelling of their thighs and flanks reminds us of the lions on the Chaldæan cylinder which we admired before (see fig. 35); it also reminds us of the famous lioness among the sculptures of Assurbanipal’s palace (fig. 81), which is probably contemporary with it. Assyrian glyptics has produced nothing more highly finished; like sculpture on a larger scale, it excels in the rendering of animal forms. [Illustration: Fig. 117.--Assyrian cylinder. De Clercq collection (after Menant).] [Illustration: Fig. 118.--Assyrian cylinder. De Clercq collection (after Menant).] CHAPTER V. _PERSIAN ART._ [Illustration: Fig. 119.--Median cylinder (after Menant).] The most ancient[52] monuments of Persia date from no earlier period than the reign of Cyrus (B.C. 549-529). If any Persian art existed in the previous epoch, when the country was no more than a satrapy of the Median empire, its traces have not yet been found. Median art is scarcely known at all, except by a cylindrical seal at the British Museum, bearing a Medic inscription, upon which a rider is seen fighting with a lion: the rider’s high tiara is characteristic, but the lion is copied from a Ninevite cylinder (fig. 119). No doubt this monument would not be enough by itself to prove that Median art was tributary to Assyrian art; but the description given us by Herodotus of the fortress of Ecbatana confirms the hypothesis. On the other hand, it is natural to suppose that the Persians, who were the vassals and consequently the political and religious heirs of the Medes, should have borrowed from the latter certain artistic traditions, if Median art had any originality of its own. Now, while a threefold foreign influence--that of the Chaldæo-Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Ionic Greeks, is conspicuous in Persian works of art, there is nothing that can be referred to Media.