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.