According to Herodotus, the king presented his favorites with Median garments, but the inferior servants (figs. II, 12) continued to wear the old attire—an evidence that the change proceeded but gradually, for not only had the shape of the garments to be altered, but the very materials had to be procured from abroad. With the extension of the kingdom, however, they copied with equal facility from other conquered provinces, not only as regards dress, but also as to the mode of life in general. They manifested a proneness to effeminacy not less marked than in Assyria and Babylonia. Thus, the people, at least in the cities, appear soon to have laid aside their inconvenient leather garments, and to have used woollen ones instead, though at first retaining the old shape.
The Medes, like the Persians, covered the entire body, wearing both upper and under garments that were wide and long, besides shoes and coverings for the head (figs. 15, 16). We sometimes find the robe-like under-garments gathered up at the sides by means of a girdle. An im provement in the dress, so far as we have traced it, was introduced in the fully-developed sleeves. The above-mentioned relief of Cyrus (fig. ro), whose symbolic head-dress we have not before referred to, wears the As syrian cloak-like wrap, hut later images of kings show a pronounced Median attire (figs. 15, 16). As the cut remained the same throughout, the distinctions of rank could be designated only by means of finer mate rials, different colors, etc. If silk was already known in Assyria, it must certainly have been known in Media and Persia, and the fine woollen materials heretofore mentioned also played an important part. Xenophon saw among the Persians garments dyed purple, brown, and dark red.
The king appeared in the costliest dye of the time, the purple; on his under-garment a broad white stripe extended from the neck to the feet. His trousers were of crimson red; and the kidaris, or conical head-dress, was adorned with a blue and white band, which perhaps was allowed also to his immediate relatives and to the highest officials of state. Heavy soles under his costly shoes increased the stature of the monarch. To the rich jewelry were added a golden staff-like sceptre, a diadem, etc. Besides the kidaris, the cylinder-shaped tiara also occurs as a head-covering, and this especially seems to have been decorated with ornaments of gold. Golden embroideries, particularly figures of the sacred birds, the fal con and the hawk, are of frequent occurrence on the royal garments. Fabulous statements are made by the ancients as to the value of the cos tume worn by the later Persian kings.
It is not essential that we should consider the attire of all the lower ranks; we shall only delineate that of the body-guards 15, Jigs. 17, 18), who received the special attention of the sovereign, but who, apart from their weapons, show no variation from the ordinary Persian and Median costumes as already described. Regarding the attire of the women, we must repeat what we have said in our account of Assyria: we are deprived of a fair knowledge of it by a lack of pictorial representation. But as Median attire had something feminine in its very cut, it may be presumed that there was little difference in the costumes of the sexes. We know that the royal ladies wore as marks of their rank gold-embroidered purple garments, and also the tiara and the diadem.
• Palaces. —The Medes and Persians had the advantage of superior mate rials for their buildings, inasmuch as they possessed wood and stone. But bricks are also found among the ruins. It is stated that Deioces, the founder of the Median dynasty, erected a castle for himself, and thereby laid the foundation of Ecbatana, the subsequent capital of the kingdom. Wishing to surpass the fortifications of other royal seats, which had proved to be insufficient, he surrounded his palace with seven stone walls, which in the end also proved an ineffective precaution. He furnished the interior magnificently, though probably without any improvement on the prevalent style. Favored by the site, the walls and palaces were so arranged that the interior structures always towered above the outer ones; and this arrangement, improved by the free use of colors, produced a sur prising and picturesque effect. The walls of the rooms were panelled with gold and silver plate and inlaid with ivory; even the roofs were made of silver.
The original seat of the Achmmenides—the line to which the Persian kings belonged—was Pasarg,radze, and Cyrus erected there a royal seat worthy of his newly-acquired power. Cambyses removed the capital to Susa, which was rebuilt in "Babylonian style," and each succeeding king added his own palace in this more favorably situated place. In the book of Esther we read of the splendor in which "Ahasuerus"—most probably Xerxes—there resided, and of the festivals at which he entertained the grandees and the people of his kingdom. Darius laid the foundation of the palace-structures at Persepolis, the extent and magnificence of which were intended to express the magnitude and power of the kingdom; but, as we know from the history of Alexander the Great, this palace was destroyed when the empire itself fell.