This sure, this masterly carving upon metal, which only Time is permitted to shade, is a lost art. It proceeded from a mental equipment different from that with which the modern artist works. The old writers put down what they knew. The modern writers put down loosely, and sometimes eloquently, what they do not know. Always in the vague, weedy, word-garden of the present, I miss this unequivocating directness; clearness, firmness; this chiseled accuracy. No roads have been so clear in my mind as the road the warriors of Cyrus traveled on the expedition which Xenophon recounts. No cities have been so firmly situated beside the roads, alluringly, so glowingly. No expanse of plain, of meadow or mountain, so reliably bounded. After the Latin and Greek historians ceased writing, it seemed suddenly to me that there were no roads left leading to Great Asia. A part of the world had fallen into space. They did not say anything for effect. Space upon bronze was too precious to waste in filling in. There are no vague foolishnesses. There are no indefinite horizons. Words were serious, expressive things. They were treated like gold, like silver. They did not throw them away. They were majestic, these historians, like the Hebrew Prophets. They force respect. The vision I keep in my eye of them is something the same. They too were white robed, stately, brave, and eloquent. I like the picture of the Persian princes, _Darii et Parysatidis duo fuere filii_, the two royal sons, come from that fabulous, painted palace of Persepolis, upon the highlands of Persia, down, down, steep mountain passes to the plains. Just where, Xenophon is careful not to tell us. But we know it was not far from Babylon. These two sons were Artaxerxes and Cyrus. Their names filled the known world. I should like to look upon _urbes Ionicæ illæ_, about which he tells us, those seductive Ionian cities, which the youthful eyes of Cyrus saw. The cities of the past, spread out impressively upon the Syrian plain which lay between Europe and Asia, have held the charm of magic for me. I should like to have looked upon Cyrus, too, in his young manhood, moving upon Sardis. What a sight that must have been! _Cyrus autem cum iis copiis Sardibus movit_, Xenophon begins to relate. Ovid, I think it was among the Romans, remembered it and alluded to it. It teased his mind, too, with the perishing beauty of the past. He saw in fancy, probably, the crisp curls of black, the crisp, black, pointed, shining beard; the daring eyes whose gleam matched gold; the lithe, arrow-like erectness; and the barbaric gemming of Asia. Even in his sumptuous Rome, which still kept something of the vanishing greatness of vast ages that were perishing, it made him tremble. His artist’s eyes loved the retrospective splendor of the vision of black-eyed Asia moving in battle upon the proud, blond race of the south, and giving it its death blow.