THE bronzes even more than the famous silver plates
display the heroic and grandiose character of Sa-
sanian art. The bronze flagons are of huge proportions
and powerful form. The suave elegance of classic shapes
could not suffice for the proud monarchs of the Sasanian
time, who felt that God himself had designated them
to rule Iran -- the greatest and noblest of all lands.
They were conscious of their high calling, which they
took with utmost seriousness, the earliest of them with
deep humility. They were conscious also of Iran's former
glories, and of their obligation to protect and enhance
a great tradition. Religious ardor reinforced their spe-
cial brand of patriotism. The natural powers of the
people combined with thorough and effective organiza-
tion of the national life brought them resounding victo-
ries. Once more Iran ruled most of western Asia and
gathered tribute from the Indus to the Nile and the
Aegean.

The awareness of high destiny, the sense not only
of worth but of heaven's special favor, which conferred
upon them absolute superiority, could not be served or
expressed in ordinary terms. "Ordinary" is just what
the Sasanian monarchs were not -- as their repeated
victories over Imperial Rome proved. Accordingly, the
official art sought out the grandest and most impressive
forms in the Iranian tradition. The architecture, like
that of Persepolis, was on a vast scale -- and richly
ornamented, by comparison it made the pseudo-classi-
cal style of the preceding era seem cold and meagre.
Divine investiture and secular victories were depicted in
colossal sculptures cut in the living rock along the main
highway, so that none could doubt where the power
and the glory lay. The vast throne room of the palace
at Ctesiphon was covered with a huge gold-threaded,
lavishly bejewelled carpet which required the investment
of several hundred million dollars -- a proclamation of
wealth and resource warning foreign powers and local
principalities that any form of hostility would be futile
and unprofitable.

One of the most majestic of these bronze flagons
(Pl. 39) in essence tells the story of them all. It recalls
the smooth-bodied pear-shaped vessels of later classicism
-- but how much more powerful, taller, and heavier.
Pouring from it throughout a long banquet, which the
Sasanians loved, would have taxed a stout servitor.

The ornamentation revives in an astonishing manner
some of the oldest and most potent of Iranian traditions.
The overlapping lobes are nothing but the reaffirmation
of the mountain forms on the Susa I cups ( Pl. 1 ), here
rounded out as becomes the basic ovoid form; and the
shaft which rises out of the hollows is the same reed from
the same source, now tending to merge with the sacred
tree which later replaced the reed. The inverted lotus-
petalled base repeats the Achaemenid column bases at
Persepolis and Susa, and the setting of the whole into
a lotus calyx is equally ancient.

The plain neck by contrast with the richly ornamented
body gives strength, as does the wide flat top which so
emphatically terminates the upward movement which
both shape and ornament define.

The notable feature is the handle, a lithe, exagger-
atedly long lion, stretching up to bite the rim. The
elongated attenuated upstanding feline appears in Azer-
baijan in the second millennium B.C. supporting a tri-
pod; is variously executed, especially in talismans, by
the Luristan smiths ( Pl. 6 ); and continues in smaller
scale as vessel-handles through the Seljuq period, when
the potters also utilize the idea. But this is the finest
example known, so living and convincing in spite of the
exaggeration that one can imagine the beast having just
reared itself up, and feel the effort it makes to reach
just a little farther.

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