In respect to these ruins, it has been well observed, that magnificent columns, portals, and other architectural decorations, mark this spot as the site of a splendid “palace;” while the style of the sculptures and the inscriptions, many of them in the single-headed character, found only at this place, Nineveh, Babylon, Susa, and Ván, proves them to be of a very high antiquity. Mr. Kinneir, however, says they are generally admitted to be the remains of the “palace,” destroyed by Alexander; and the striking resemblance of the building, as it exists, to the account given of Persepolis by Diodorus, is, in his opinion, sufficient to remove any doubt, that may exist upon the subject. We confess that such is not our impression. Those who regard the ruins as being the remains of a Persian temple, insist that the sculptured subjects, as well as the style of architecture, resemble, in many particulars, those of Egypt: among which may be mentioned the figures, divided by trees, the sphinxes, the vases and chains, the domes and architraves, the subterranean passages in the tombs, the sarcophagi and urns, and the well, twenty-five feet deep and fifteen square. The sculpture at Persepolis was also painted mostly in blue, a favourite colour in Egypt; but sometimes in black and in yellow. For these remarks we are indebted to Mr. Buckingham. According to Arrian, it was the _castle_ of Persepolis which Alexander burned. In Mr. Buckingham’s opinion, however, the ruins now seen correspond neither with those of a palace, nor of a castle; they were, therefore, according to him, not those of the edifice burned by Alexander at all; for on all these remains, as we have before stated, no mark of fire is to be traced, which could not be the case if this had been the principal agent used in its destruction. The opinion, that these ruins are the remains of the palace, is not on the authority of all history, but on the assertion merely of Quintus, Curtius and Diodorus. The whole story as to the burning, is said to have been copied from a Greek writer, named Clitarchus[83]. Though there are no remains of a city now at Persepolis, nor in any part of the plain in which it is situated; certain it is, that the city was not destroyed by Alexander; for it was a very important place for many centuries after. Curtius, therefore, is guilty of an error in saying that the city was so far from being rebuilt, that unless the river Araxes ran near it, there are no signs to guess where it stood; for neither Arrian nor Strabo, nor even Diodorus, whom Curtius commonly copies, acquaint us with any thing but the burning of the palace.