Note 660 — Chapter X · THE SWORD IN BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA AND PERSIA, AND ANCIENT INDIA.

We find in Assyria the wild goat standing upon a capital, now the arms of Istria. The same appears at Palmyra (Prof. Socin’s Collection). The winged bulls probably suggested, like the Egyptian Cherubs, our angels’ wings. These motors should now be forbidden in statuary by Act of Parliament; or the artist should be compelled to supply the pinions with the muscles necessary for working them. I need hardly say that the required development would convert the human dorsum to the appearance of the two-humped camel. The late Gustave Doré’s admirable illustrations of Dante (Purgat. xix. 51) sin greatly in this way.