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Other finds included a foot-high statuet of ivory, first Greek copy ever found of the Apollo Lykeos; the bronze shield of Brasidas, captured at the Battle of Pylos in 425 B.C.; and a statue base bearing the epigram of Simonides, familiar to many a schoolboy: A marvelous great light shone for the Athenians when Harmodios and Aristogeiton slew Hipparchus.
Persia. The great palaces and spacious grounds at Persepolis were the Versailles of ancient civilization, from which more than 2,400 years ago Darius and his son Xerxes ruled the greatest empire their world had seen. Unearthing palace buildings on the quarter-mile-long artificial terrace, Dr. Erich F. Schmidt of Chicago's Oriental Institute came upon two magnificent pieces of wall sculpture, each 20 ft. long. They depicted the same scene, a royal audience, as viewed from right and left. Xerxes stands behind Darius, seated in an ornate chair. Their figures are seven feet tall, the others lifesize. A petitioner, slightly bowed, holds his hand to his mouth "in a gesture of respect and appeal." One of the court officials appears to be a Food Taster, as he holds a napkin. The monarch and his son grasp twin-budded lotus blossoms, symbols of royalty. Their shoes are like those of present-day Iranians.
Iraq. "Cyclops" means "Round-Eye." The Cyclops of Greek myth was a giant with a single monstrous eye centred in his forehead, who sank ships by throwing boulders at them. Heading another Oriental Institute expedition to Tell Osmar, Dr. Henri Frankfort found evidence that Cyclops was not a Greek invention. On a Babylonian site at least a millennium older than Homer, the diggers discovered a relief carving showing a god with bow & arrow stabbing a Cyclops in the belly with a broad-bladed knife. Rays emanating from Cyclops' head indicate that he was a demon of light or fire. Despite the fact that his hands are bound behind him and his assailant is stepping on his toe, the monster nonchalantly faces what in a newspicture would be the camera, the better to show his single eye. The flounced skirt which he wears was obsolete as ordinary apparel in Mesopotamia at the time of the carving (about 2,000 B.C.) and according to Dr. Frankfort the artist bungled its design.
"This is an instance," said the scientist, "of the Oriental origin of certain motives which the Greeks borrowed from the East. It reminds us . . . the Greeks were late arrivals in an ancient and highly developed civilized world."