The physique of the nation is not indeed much altered.

Nearly the same countenance meets us in the sculptures of Artaxerxes, the son of Babek, of Sapor, and of their successors, with which we are familiar from the bas-reliefs of Darius Hystapis and Xerxes.

There is the same straight forehead, the same aquiline nose, the same well-shaped mouth, the same abundant hair.
The form is, however, coarser and clumsier; the expression is less refined; and the general effect produced is that the people have, even physically, deteriorated.

The mental and aesthetic standard seems still more to have sunk.

There is no evidence that the Persians of Sassanian times possessed the governmental and administrative ability of Darius Hystapis or Artaxerxes Ochus.