The military and political interaction between ancient Greece and Persia was accompanied by artistic exchanges that are only now being unraveled. In addition to the Greek architects and artisans recorded at Susa, Persepolis and Pasargadae, we now know that Greek, or Greek-trained, sculptors worked at Persepolis. They produced freestanding, life-sized statues of dogs, bulls, and goats that functioned as traditional Near Eastern guardian figures. The style of these works, however, is Greek rather than Persian, and their closest parallels are found in Greek works of the late sixth and early fifth centuries B.C. Certain stylistic details link the bull sculptures to Phocaean artists, one of whom, Telephanes, worked for the Persian king according to Pliny. The presence of large-scale sculptures in Greek style at Persepolis demonstrates the cosmopolitan, Hellenized taste of at least a part of the Achaemenid ruling elite. The preference for animal rather than human representations reveals the ultimately Persian basis of that taste. The nature of the relationship between the ancient rivals, Greece and Persia, has long intrigued scholars who have noted the numerous types of contact and interchange that continued between the two powers despite the military and political conflicts.1 Research in recent decades has produced much information regarding the Greek contribution to the arts of the Achaemenid era, and the activities of Greek workmen in the execution of Achaemenid royal commissions. Excavations at Susa have produced not only the foundation inscription of Darius (522-486 B.C.), which specifically mentions Ionian woodworkers and stone carvers,2 but actual Greek works including incised ivories and a signed plastic rhyton of the fifth-century potter Sotades.3 Susa was also the place where the abducted statues of the Tyrannicides were kept until their repatriation by Alexander the Great, Seleucus I, or Antiochus I, depending upon which ancient account one believes.4 Greek artisans also worked for the Achaemenids in central Ira , both at Pasargadae, the capital founded by Cyrus the Great (559-530 B.C.) between 545 and 530 B.C., and at Persepolis, begun by Darius between 513 and 505 B.C.5 At both sites the Greeks brought architectural forms and specific ways of working stone, including the use of the toothed chisel.6 Greek draftsmen also left their sketches on the undersides of relief slabs at Persepolis,7 where an imported statue of * A version of this paper was read at the annual meeting of the College Art Association, February 1982, in New York City. I am indebted to Brunilde S. Ridgway for encouraging me to produce a written version, to Evelyn Harrison for help with questions of Greek sculpture, and to Sally Dunham for sharing with me her forthcoming work on ancient Mesopotamian descriptions of works of art. The conclusions-and errors-in this study are my own. I For an account of Greeks, including artists, in Persian employ see G. Walser, Hellas und Iran (Beitrige der Forschung 209, Darmstadt 1984) 20-26. See also W.A.P. Childs, "Lycian Relations with Persians and Greeks in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries Re-Examined," AnatSt 31 (1981) 56-80. 2 A.T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago 1948) 168. See also A. Farkas, Achaemenid Sculpture (Istanbul 1974) 77-82. For the archaeological and political context of the inscription see M.C. Root, The King and Kingship in Achaemenid Art (Acta Iranica 19, Leiden 1979) 7-9. 3 P. Amiet, "Les ivoires achiminides de Suse," Syria 49 (1972) 324-29 and pl. 6; G. Jequier, "Travaux de l'hiver 1898-1899," Mimoires de la delegation archdologique en Perse 1 (1900) 116-17 and pl. 5; C. Clairmont, "Greek Pottery from the Near East," Berytus 11 (1954-1955) 93; Paralipomena (Oxford 1971) 416; and L. Kahil, "Une nouveau vase plastique du potier Sotades au Musie du Louvre," RA 1972, 271-84. 4 Arr. Anab. 3.16.7 and 7.19.2; and Pliny, HN 34.70 (Alexander); Val. Max. 2.10.1 (Seleucus); and Paus. 1.8.5 (Antiochus). 5 D. Stronach, Pasargadae (Oxford 1977) 22; A.B. Tilia, Studies and Restorations at Persepolis and Other Sites of Fars II (IsMEO Reports and Memoirs 18, Rome 1976) 3; M. Roaf, "Sculptures and Sculptors at Persepolis," Iran 21 (1983) 150. 6 C. Nylander, lonians in Pasargadae (Boreas, Uppsala Studies in Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Civilization 1, Uppsala 1970); Nylander, "Masons' Marks in Persepolis: A Progress Report," Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium on Archaeological Research in Iran, Tehran, 1973 (Tehran 1974) 21622; and Stronach (supra n. 5) 22. 7 E. Schmidt, Persepolis II: