76/92 The lion and bull have nothing about them that is very peculiar; but the monsters present most strange and unusual combinations. One of them has the griffin head, which we have already seen in use in the capitals of columns, a feathered crest and neck, a bird's wings, a scorpion's tail, and legs terminating in the claws of an eagle. The other has an eagle's head, ears like an ass, feathers on the neck, the breast, and the back, with the body, legs, and tail of a lion. 1.] Figures of equal grotesqueness, some of which possess certain resemblances to these, are common in the mythology of Assyria, and have been already represented in these volumes; but the Persian specimens are no servile imitations of these earlier forms. |