continued to a certain extent; but the greater part of the space was occupied by representations of guards and officers of the court, the guards being placed towards the centre, and, as it were, keeping the main stairs, while the officers were at a greater distance. The three rows of figures were separated from one another by narrow bands, thickly set with rosettes. [Illustration: PLATE XLIII.] The builder of this magnificent work was not content to leave it to history or tradition to connect his name with his construction, but determined to make the work itself the means of perpetuating his memory. In three conspicuous parts of the staircase, slabs were left clear of sculpture, undoubtedly to receive inscriptions commemorative of the founder. The places selected were the front of the middle staircase, the exact centre of the whole work, and the space adjoining the spandrels to the extreme right and the extreme left. In one instance alone, however, was this part of the work completed. On the right hand, or western extremity of the staircase, an inscription of thirty lines in the old Persian language informs us that the constructor was “Xerxes, the Great King, the King of Kings, the son of King Darius, the Achaemenian.” The central and left-hand tablets, intended probably for Babylonian and Scythic translations of the Persian legend, were never inscribed, and remain blank to the present day. The remaining staircases will not require very lengthy or elaborate descriptions. They are six in number, and consist, in most instances, of a double flight of steps, similar to the central portion of the staircase which has been just described. Two of them (e and f) belonged to the building marked as the “Palace of Darius” on the plan, and gave entrance to it from the central platform above which it is elevated about fourteen or fifteen feet. Two others (c and d) belonged to the “Palace of Xerxes.” These led up to a broad paved space in front of that building, which formed a terrace, elevated about ten feet above the general level of the central platform. Their position was at the two ends of the terrace, opposite to one another; but in other respects they cannot be said to have matched. The eastern, which consisted of two double flights, was similar in general arrangement to the staircase by which the platform was mounted from the plain, excepting that it was not recessed, but projected its full breadth beyond the line of the terrace. It was decidedly the more elegant of the two, and evidently formed the main approach. It was adorned with the usual bull and lion combats, with figures of guardsmen, and with attendants carrying articles needed for the table or the toilet. The inscriptions upon it declare it to be the work of Xerxes. [PLATE XLIV.] The western staircase was composed merely of two single flights, facing one another, with a narrow landing-place between them. It was ornamented like the eastern, but somewhat less elaborately.