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STORY OF PERSIA
LIEUT .—COL. P. M . SYKE S
C . I .E.
INDIAN ARM YGOLD M EDALLIST OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPH ICAL SOCIETYAUTHOR OF
‘TEN THOUSAND M ILES IN PERSIA
AND‘THE GLORY or THE smA WORLD
ACHAEMEN IAN GOLD PATERA.
(From Br. Museum.)
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. I
1IIMACM ILLAN AND co .
,LIMITED
ST . MARTIN’S STREET ,
LONDON
COPYRIGHT
PART OF A PERS IAN HUNTING SCENE .
(From a S ilver Vase in the Hermi tage Museum.)
PR EFAC E
JUST a century has elapsed since the publicat ion of SirJohn Malcolm ’s History of Persia . In this long periodthe mystery of the cuneifo rm inscriptions has beenso lved , Susa has yielded up its secrets, and in many otherdirect ions a notable advance has been efi
’
ected . Eachimportant discovery has been embodied in some work of
special value , but no book has been written dealing withPersia as a whole and embodying the rich fruits of thismodern research .
After much hesitat ion I have attempted to fill what isundoubtedlya serious gap ; forPersia has exercised considerable influence , extending over many centuries
,on Greece
,
on the Roman Emp ire , and consequently on Europe .
My primary aim has been to furn ish fellow—officialsserving in Persia and adjo ining countries , and students ,Whether European or Persian
,with a work which is
,as far as
possible,self- contained and complete . With this object
I have focused what is known of the ancient empires intheir relat ions with Elam
,Media, and Persia ; and -I have
dealt somewhat more fully than would otherwise have beennecessary with such subjects as the rise ofM acedonia.
Having enjoyed the great advantage of twenty-one
viii HISTORY OF PERSIA
years’ residence and travel in Persia,I am able to present
certain facts more vividly than would have been possiblewithout the special knowledge thus gained . I also claimto have acquired to some extent the Persian po int of view .
My thanks are due to the Government of India and
to the India Office for much help,including a recently
published map of Persia. Dr . F . W. Thomas placedthe resources of the l ibrary of the India Ofii ce at my disposal even in Persia, and but for this I could not havecarried out my plan Mr . A . G . Ellis has also constantlygiven me valuable advice . Messrs . E . Edwards
,L . W .
King, H . B . Walters,and J . Allan
, of the Brit ish Museum ,
have helped me in the periods and subjects on which theyare authorities while Mr . J . B . Capper has assisted me in
seei ng the book through the press . The chapters dealingwith Nadir Shah have been read by Sir Mortimer Durand ,w ho has made a special study of this period . I am in
debted to many friends for illustrations,which Mr . Emery
Walker has taken great pains to reproduce .
In my tw o former books I have described the unex
plored parts of Persia,and have portrayed the customs
and manners of the friendly race among whom I havespent the best years of my life . In the present work ]realize an ambition of many years ’ standing
,and I hope
that the result may be considered to be useful by the
Government I serve , as well as by my fellow- countrymenw ho create public op inion
,which can have no safe and
enduring basis in the absence of historical knowledge . Ifit i s also used occasionally by students of Greek and
Roman history, w ho may desire to learn something or
the Persian po int of V iew and if,finally , it helps Persians
to real ize more fully the splendour of the ir ow n history,my efforts
,involving many years of study, will no t have
been in vain.
P . M . S .
A SPH INX.
(Gold Medallion from Bri t ish Museum.)
CONTENTS
CHAPT ER I
CONFIGURATION AND CL IMATE
The Situation of Persia— Boundaries and Prov inces— M ean
ing of Iran and of Persia— The Formation of the Iranian Plateau— The Resemblance of Persia to S ain— The Aridi ty of CentralA sia — The C limate of Persia he Rainfal l — Cold and H eat—Wind— The C limate of Ancient Persia— Population— The
M ountains of the Iranian Plateau— The Northern Ranges— TheSouthern Ranges .
CHAPT ER II
DESERTS, R IVERS, FLORA, FAUNA, AND M INERALS
The Lut, the Desert of Persia— R ivers— The Oxus— LakesThe Persian Gulf— The Casp ian Sea — Communications— F loraFauna —M inerals .
CHAPT E R I II
THE GEOG RAPHY OF ELAM AND BABYLON IAEarly C ivi lization— E lam ,
the H om e of the Earliest C ivi lization of Persia— Physical Changes in Elam and Babylonia sincethe Dawn of H istory— The Rivers of Babylonia and ElamThe Euphrates- The Tigris— The K erkha— The Ab- i —D izThe Karun — The Exped i ti on of Sennacherib— The Voyage ofNearclIus —The R ivers of Babylonia and E lam at the PresentDay
— The Boundaries of E lam— I ts Ci ties, A ncient and M odern
—The Natural Ferti li ty of E lam— The Boundaries of Babylonia— M ean ing of Sum er and Akkad— Chaldea and Babylon ia— De
s cription of Babylonia— Climate, Flora, and Fauna .
HISTORY OF PERSIA
C HAPT E R IV
ELAM AND SUSA, THE CAP ITALRecent Study of Origins— The M eaning of Elam— Negrito
Aborigines— The Legend of M emnon— The Various Tribes of
Elam— Anzan or Anshan— The Ancient Language— The Rel igion
— Susa,the Ancient Capi tal— Excavations by Loftus— The Dieu
lafoy and de M organ M issions— The Four Quarters of Susa
The Preh istoric Period — The Archaic Period — Elam in the
Legend of Gi lgames .
C HAPT E R V
ELAM,SUMER
,AND AKKAD AT THE DAWN OF H I STORY .
Sumerians and Sem i tes— The Legend of Cannes— Language
Religion— The Earl iest Sumerian Settlements— Eannatum,King
of Lagash , 2900 B .C .— Victories of Eannatum
i
'
t‘
wer the Elam ites— The earl iest -known Letter and Elam— Elam and the K ishDynasty, 2 750— 2650 B .C .
— The Empire ofAkkad,2 650 B .C .
— The
Campaign of Sargon against Elam— The Stele of Naram-Sin
The Kingdom of Guti -Gudea Patesi of Lagash , 2 4 50 B .C .
The Conquest of Elam by the Dynasty of Ur— The Adm inistrat ion of Elam by Dungi
— The Overthrow of the Dynasty of Ur
by Elam— The Sack of Erech by Kudur-Nankhundi , 2 280 B .C .
The Dynasty of Isin, 2 300— 2075B .C .— The Influence of Sumerian
C ivil izat ion .
C HAPT E R VI
ELAM AND BABYLONA Retrospect— The Difli culty of connecting Early Elam ite
Dynasties w i th those of Sumer— The one certain Synchronismbetween Elam and Babylonia— The Elamite Conquest and its
Results— Chedorlaomer, K ing of E lam— The Decay of the Elami teEm ire— The F irst Dynasty of Babylon, circa 24 00
-2 10 1 B . C .
he Laws of H ammurabi— The Second Dynasty of Baby lon,
circa 2 100- 1 7 3 2 B .C.— Contemporary Elami te Dynasties— The
Kassite Dynasty of Baby lon, circa 1 700-1 1 30 B . C .—The Position
of Elam Shutruk-Nakhunta, King of Elam, circa 1 190 B.C .
The Pashe Dynasty of Babylon, circa 1 1 30—1000 B .C .
— The Sea
land and Bazi Dynasties, circa 1000—960 B.C .— The Chaldeans, circa
9 60-
7 3 3 B.C .
C HAPT ER VI I
THE ASSYR IAN EM PI RE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ELAMThe R ise of Assyria— The Old Emp ire— The A ramaean
Imm igration— The M iddle K ingdom, 9 70—74 5 B .C .
— The New
CONTENTS
Kingdom , 74 5— 606 B .C .
— Sargon I I . , 72 2— 705 B.C .— The F irst
Battle between A ssyria and E lam — Sennacherib, 704 — 68 1 B .C .
— H is Campa igns against Elam — The Capture and Sack of
Babylon, 6 8 9 B. C .— Esarhaddon, 680— 669 B .C .
,and his Relations
w i th Elam— The Conquest of Egypt— A ssurbanipal, 66 8— 626 B .C .
-The F irst Campaign against Elam— The Battle ofTulliz— The
Revo lut ion at Susa— The Triumph of A ssyria— The Rebellion of
Babylon— The Second Campaign against Elam ,651 B .C .
— The
Capture of Babylon,64 8 B.C .
— The Th ird Campaign against ElamThe Capture and Sack of Susa, 64 5 B .C .
— The Statue of Nana
restored to Erech— The Disappearance of Elam .
PAGE
CHAPT E R VIII
THE ARYANS OF PERSIA— THEI R OR IG IN AND TRADITIONS
The Contrast between the Plains and the Uplands of Pers iaThe Uplands dom inated by the A ryans— The Aryan Quest idnThe Crad le-land of the A ryans— The Tradi tion of the A ryans ofPersia— The Arrival of the Aryans in Persia— The Dates of the
M igration — The M edes and the Ancient Inhabitants — A ryanM yths .
C HA PT ER IX
THE REL IG I ON OF THE M EDES AND PERSIANSThe Common Religion of the Aryans of Persia and of Ind ia
— Indo - Iranian Legends, Y ama or Jam sh id -Zoroaster,the
Prop het of Iran— Gustasp , the F irst Roya l Convert -The Date
of Zoroaster’
s B irth and Death — The Avesta — Ormuzd, the
Suprem e God— A hriman, the Spiri t of Ev i l — The Three Princip les of Zoroastriani sm— Turan ian Influences on ZoroastrianismThe M agi — The Doctrine of the Resurrection— The Iran ianParad ise —The Influence ofZoroastrian ism on Judaism— Summary .
CHAPTER X
THE RI SE OF M EDIA AND THE FALL OF ASSYRIA
A Descri tion of M edia — The Nisaean H orses— The Expedition of Tigiztth—
p ileser I ., circa 1 100 B .C .
— The Exped it ions of
Shalmaneser, 8 4 4 B .C .— The Invasion of Ramman-Nirari I I I .
,
8 10 B .C .— The Campaigns of T iglath
-
p ileser IV . , 74 4 B .C .— Israel
carried Captive into M edia by Sargon I I . , 72 2 B .C .— Esarhaddon
’
s
Exped it ions, circa_
674 B .C .— The Trad i tIon of the M edes
DeIoces, the Founder of the Royal Dynasty— Ecbatana, the Cap ital-The Language of the M edes— Sennacherib and the M edes
The E xpansion of M ed ia— The Conquest of the Persians by theM edes— The Later Y ears of Assurban ipal— The FirEt A ttack byV O L . I a
HISTORY OF PERSIAPAGE
the M edes— The A ccession of Cyaxares— The F irst Siege of
Nineveh -The Scy thian Invasion— The Second Siege of NinevehThe Fall of Nineveh , circa 607 B .C .
— The Verd ict of H istoryon Assyria .
C HAPT ER X I
MEDIA , BABYLONIA, AND LYDIA
The State of the Ancient World after the Fall of NinevehThe Position of M edia-m The New K ingdom of Babylonia— TheCampaign of Necho I l
a— The Victory of Nebuchadnezzar over
Necho I I .— The “ Hanging G ardens of Babylon— The Cam
paigns of Cyaxares-The Empire of Lyd ia -The M ermnadae
Dynasty— The Invention of Co i nage — The War between M ed ia
and Lydia- The Battle of the Eclipse, 585 B .C .— The Death of
Cyaxares, 584. B .C .— Astyages, the Last K ing of M edia— The
Luxur')r of the M edian Court — The Dfifeat of Astyages by
Cyrus the Great — The Later Kings of the New BabylonianK ingdom .
CHAPT ER XII
THE HEROIc AGE OF PERSIAThe Legendary Nature of Early Persian H istory— The
Pishdad ian Dynasty— Jamsh id and Zohak— Feridun and Kawa— The Three Sons of Feridun— Sam ,
Zal,and Rudabah- Rustam
the Champion —The Keian ian Dynasty— Kei Kaus ident ifiedw ith CyaxareS— Sohrab and Rustam— Siaw ush and Kei Khusru— Kei Khusru not Cyrus the Great— Lohrasp and GustaspIsfand iar — Bahman or Ardesh ir D irazdast — The End of the
H eroic Period .
CHAPTER X I II
THE R I SE OF PERSIAThe Early Organizat ion of the Persians— The R ise of
Cyrus the Great accord ing to H erodo tus— The Tragedy of
Harpagus— Fresh Light on Persian H istory— Achaem enes, the
Founder of the Royal Family— The Double Line of A chaemen ian
M onarchs- The Defeat of A styages by Cyrus— Cyrus, K ing of
A nshan,becomes King of Persia — Croesus of Lyd ia— The Perso
Lydian Campaign— The Capture of Sardes,
‘
54 6 B .C .-The F ate of
Croesus— The Geograph ical Position of Hellas— Recent Progressin Know ledge of Greek H istory — The Aryan Invasion of
Greece— The Greek Co lon ies in A sia M inor— Their Conquestby the Persians — The Eastern Campaigns of Cyrus — The
Surrender of Babylon, 53 8 B .C .— The Trad i tional Account
The Latter Y ears of Cyrus— The Repatriation of the Jews— TheDeath of Cyrus, 529 B .C .
— H is Character.
V U LV L L LY 1. O X I I I
C HAPT E R XIVPAG E
E PERSIAN EM PI RE AT ITS ZENITH 166
The Accession of Cambyses, 529 B.C .— The Death of Bardiya,
26 B .C .— The Egyptian Campaign— The Bat tle of Pelusium
,
25 B.C .— The Suicide of Cambyses, 52 1 B .C .
— Gaumata, the
Pseudo—Smerd is of the Greeks— The Death of Gaumata, 52 1 B .C .
— The A ccession of Darius, B . C .— The Eigh t Rebellions
Dar ius the Administrator— The Satrapies -The Royal RoadThe Expansion of the Emp ire -The Object of the Scyth ianCampaign— The Course of the Campaign, 514 B .C .
— The Annexation of Thrace and the Subm ission of M acedonia— The Ind ianCampaign, 512 B .C .
— Summary.
CHAPT E R XV
HE ANCI ENT PERSIANs — THEI R CUSTOM S,LANGUAGE
,AND
ARCHITECTU RE
£51?
The Viri lity of the Persians— Customs— Laws— The Posi tionof Women— The K ing and his Court— The Language of the
Ancient Persians— The Tri lingual Inscriptions at Beh i stun— The
Ru ins Of Pasargadae— The Palaces of Persepo li s— The RockTombs— Enamelled Brick-work, etc.
-The Bronze Implements ofKh inaman— Summary .
CHAPT ER XVI
PERSIA AND HELLAS DURING THE REIGN OF DAR IUS
The Issues at Stake— The Greek Subjects of Persia— TheIntercourse between H ellas and A sia M inor— The Posi tion in
Greece— The Ionic Revo lt, 4 99— 4 9 4 B .C .— The Battle of Lade
and the Fal l ofM iletus, 4 9 4 B .C .— The Campaign ofM ardonius in
Thrace, 4 9 3 B .C .— The Punit ive Exped ition against A thens and
Eretria, 4 90 B .C .
— The Destruction of Eretria— The Battle of
M arathon , 4 90 B .C .— The Rebell ion in Egypt, 4 8 6 B .C .
— The
Death of Darius, 4 85 B .C .
—H is Character .
C HAPTER XVI I
THE REPULSE OF PERSIA BY HELLAS
The A ccession of Xerxes, 4 85B .C .— The Rebellion in Egypt
crushed, 4 8 4 B .C .— The Revo lt of Babylon , 4 8 3 B .C .
— The Com
JW“ posi tion and Numbers of the Great E xpedition— The M i li tary1 Position in G reece— The M arch of the Great Army— Thel. Defence of Thermopylae, 4 80 B.C .
— The Naval Engagements Ofl'
HISTORY OF PERSIA
Artemisium— The Advance of the Persian Army and the Captureof A thens— The Battle of Salamis
, 4 80 B .C .— The Retreat of
Xerxes — The Carthagin ian Invasion of Sici ly, 4 80 B .C .
- The
Campaign of M ardonius— The Battle of Plataea, 4 79 B .C .— The
Battle of Mycale, 4 79 B .C .— The Capture of Sestos, 4 78 B .C .
The F inal Results .
CHAPT ER XVIII
THE PERSIAN EM P I RE AFTER THE REPULSE FROM HELLAS
Xerxes after the Retreat from Hellas— The Greek Raids on
A sia M inor and the Batt le of the Eurymedon, 4 66 B .C .— The
Assassination of Xerxes, 4 66 B .C .— H is Character— The Acces
sion of A rtaxerxes I . , 4 66 B .C .— The Rebellion of Hystaspes,
4 62 B.C .— The Revolt of Egypt , 4 60— 4 54 B .C .
— The Peace of
Callias, circa 4 4 9 B .C .— Spain and England compared w i th Persia
and A thens— The Rebell ion ofM egabyzus— A Period ofAnarchy
,
4 25 B .C .— The R eign of Darius No thus, 4 24 —
4 04 B .C .— Tissa
phernes and the A lliance w ith Sparta, 4 12 B .C .— The Story of
Teri tuchmes .
C HAPT ER X IX
lTHE DECL INE OF THE PERSIAN EMPI RECyrus the Y ounger
— H is Relati ons w i th Sparta— The Acces
sion of A rtaxerx es M nemon, 4 04 B .C .— The M arch of Cyrus on
Babylon— The Battle of Cunaxa, 4 0 1 B.C .
— The Retreat of the
Ten Thousand— Persia and H ellas after Cunaxa— The Peace of
Antalcidas, 3 8 7 B .C .
— The Egypti an Campaigns— The Exped i tionagainst the CadusianS
— The Latter Days of A rtaxerxes M nemon— The Accession of A rtaxerxes I I I .
, 358 B .C .— The Capture of
Sidon and the Reconquest of Egypt, 34 2 B .C .— The M urder of
A rtaxerxes I I I . , 3 3 6 B .C .— The A ccession of Darius Codomannus,
3 3 6 B .C .
CHAPTER XX
THE RI SE OF M ACEDONIA UNDER PHI LI P AND ALEXANDER
The Geography of Macedon ia— The People — The EarlyH istory— Ph i lip the Organizer, 359
—3 3 6 B .C .
— The Battle of
Chaeronea, 3 3 8 B .C .— The Election of Ph i lip as Captain-General
of Hellas, 3 3 7 B .C .— Olympias— The Assassination of Ph i lip,
3 3 6 B .C .— The Ex traordinary Fame of A lexander the Great— The
A lexander Romances— His Y outh and Accession— H is Recogni
t ion by Hellas— The Destruction of Thebes, 3 35B .C .
PAGE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXI
THE BATTLES OF THE GRANICUS AND OF I SSUS
The Situation before the Great Expedition— The Start of theExpedi tion, 3 34 B .C .
— The Battle of the G ranicus, 3 34 B .C .— The
Surrender of Sardes, 3 3 4 B.C .
— The Campaign in Caria,Lycia,
Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Phrygia— The Death of M emnon, 3 3 3B .C .
— The Battle of Issus, 3 3 3 B .C .— The Siege of Tyre and i ts
Cap ture, 3 3 2 B.C .— The Annexation of Egyp t, 3 3 2- 3 3 1 B.C .
CHAPT ER XXII
THE CAREER or ALEXANDER THE GREAT To THE DEATH OF
DARIUS CODOMANNUS
The Battle of Arbela, 3 3 1 B .C .— The Capture of Babylon and
Susa— The Occupation of Persepo lis and Pasargadae— The Captureof Ecbatana
, 3 30 B.C .— The Pursuit and Death of Darius Codo
mannus, 3 30 B.C .
CHAPT ER XXII I
THE L IM IT OF CONQUEST
The Conquest of Hyrcania, Parth ia, and A reia— The A n
nexation of Sistan and the M arch up the H elmand— The Crossing5; of the H indu Kush and the Annexation of Bactria, 3 28 B .C .
The Capture of Bessus— The Advance to the Jaxartes or Sir
Daria— The F irst M acedon ian D isaster— The Capture of the
Soghdian Rock— The Invasion of Ind ia, 3 2 7 B . C .— Nysa, a Co lony
founded by Bacchus— The Passage of the Indus— The Battle w i thPorus, 3 26 B .C .
— The Limi t of Conquest .
CHAPT ER XX IV
THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE G REAT— H IS ACHIEyEMENTs AND
CHARACTER
The Voyage to the Indian Ocean — The M arch from the
Indus to Susa, 3 25 B.C .— The Voyage to Babylon— The Death
of A lexander the Great, 3 2 3 B .C .
— An Analysis of Hellem sm— A Comparison between the Hellenized and the Bri tish Empire— The Fru its of H ellenism — The Ach ievements and Characterof Alexander the Great .
XV
PAGE
HISTORY OF PERSIA
CHAPTER. XXV
THE WARS OF THE“ SUCCESSORS
The Problem of the Succession— The Death of Perdiccas,
3 2 1 B .C .— The Rise ofSeleucus— The F ight for Power— Antigonus
and Eumenes— The Supremacy of Antigonus on the Death of
Eumenes, 3 16 B .C .— The Destruction of the Fam i ly of A lexander
the Great— The Battle of Gaza, 3 12 B .C .
— The Reoccupation of
Babylon by Seleucus, 3 12 B .C .— The Raid of Demetrius on
Babylon, 3 1 1 B .C .— The M aking of the Empire of Seleucus,
3 1 1— 302 B .C .— Antigonus and Pto lemy— The Battle of Ipsus,
301 B .C .— The Career of Demetrius Poliorcetes aft er Ipsus — H is
Accession to the Throne of M acedonia— H is Captivi ty and DeathThe Defeat and Death of Lysimachus, 2 8 1 B.C .
—The A ssassina
tion of Seleucus Nicator, 2 8 1 B .C .
CHAPTER. XXVI
THE SELEUC ID EMPI RE To THE RI SE OF PARTHIAThe A ccession of Antiochus Soter, 2 8 1 B .C .
— The Invasion of
the Gauls and the Death of Pto lemy Keraunus,2 80 B .C .
— The
Defeat of the G auls by Antiochus I .— The D iv isions of the
Emp ire of A lexander after the Invasion of the Gau ls— The Deathof Ant iochus Soter, 2 62 B .C .
— Antiochus Theus, 262— 24 6 B .C .
The Revo lt of Bactria, 256 B .C . , and of Parth ia, 250 B.C .— The
Th ird Syrian War and the Invasion of Syria and Persia,24 5B .C .
a
t“
— The Battle of Ancyra, circa 2 35 B .C .— The Campaign of
Seleucus I I . against Parth ia— A ttalus of Pergamus and AntiochusH ierax — Seleucus I I I ., 2 26— 2 2 3 B .C .
— The Close of a Great Period— Iran under M acedonian Ru le— The Greek Ci ties in the PersianEmpire .
CHAPTER .XXVH
E R ISE OF PARTHIA AND THE APPEARANCE OF ROME IN ASIA
Parth ia Proper— The Au thori ties for Parth ian H istory— The
A rsacid Dynasty— The B irth-Y ear of the A rsacid Dynasty, 24 924 8 B . C .
— The Career of A rsaces I . , 24 9— 24 7 B .C .
— Hecatompylus,the Capital— The Conquest of Hyrcania under Arsaces I I .
,2 4 7
2 14 B .C .— A rsaces I I . and Seleucus I I . —Dara, the New Capi tal of
Parth ia— The Early Career of Antiochus the Great, 2 2 3— 2 1 3 B .C .
-Arsaces I I I . and Antiochus the Great, 209 B .C .— The M arch
of Antiochus through Bactria, the Panjab, and Kerman,208
204 B .C .— Ear ly Relations between H ellas and Rome— The F irst
M acedonian War, 2 15— 205 B.C .
— The Spoliation of Egypt byPh i lip V . and Antiochus the Great— The Second M acedonian
War, 200— 1 97 B.C .— Antiochus the Great and Rom e, 200— 19 1
PAGI
CONTENTS xvi iPAGE
B .C .— The Battle of M agnesia, 190 B .C .
— The Peace of Apamea,1 8 8 B .C .
— Parth ia unt il the Reign of M i thradates I . , 209-I 70
B .C .— Bactria, 205— 170 B .C .
— Summary .
CHAPTER XXVIII
E EXPANSION OF PARTHIA AND THE DOWNFALL OF THE HOUSEOF SELEUCUSThe H ouse of Seleucus
,1 8 8— 175 B .C .
— The Success ion of
Antiochus Ep iphanes, 175 B .C .— The Battle of Pydna, 1 6 8 B .C .
The Evacuation of Egyp t by Antiochus, 16 8 B.C .— The Eastern
Campaigns ofAntiochus and his Death
,165
— 164 B .C .— A ntiochus
E ip anes and the Jews— Demetrius the Saviour, 162— 150 B .C .
T e Conquests of M i thradates I . of Parth ia,1 70
— 1 3 8 B .C .— The
H ouse of Seleucus, 150- 14 0 B.C .
— M ithradates I . and Demetrius
I I . —The Death of M i thradates I .,1 3 8 B .C .
— Antiochus Sidetes,1 3 8
— 1 29 B .C .— Antiochus Sidetes and Phraates I I . , 1 30
— 1 29 B.C .
-The Downfall of the House of Seleucus— I ts Place in H istory .
CHAPT ER XX IX
SPARTH IA, ROME, AND PONTUSThe Nomadic Peri l— The Victories of the Nomads over the
Parth ians— M ithradates I I . of Parth ia, 1 24- 8 8 B.C .
— Parth ia and
Armenia— The E xpansion of Rome, 1 90— 129 B .C .
— The M akingof the Empire of M ithridates VI . of Pontus, 120— 90 B .C .
— The
F irs t Intercourse between Parth ia and Rome, 9 2 B .C .— The
Earliest Intercourse of Ch ina w i th Parth ia, 120— 8 8 B .C .— An
Obscure Period of Parth ian H istory, 8 8— 66 B . C .— M i thridates VI .
and Rom e, 8 9— 66 B.C .— The Career of Pompey in the East, 67
63 B.C .— Pompey and Phraates I I I . of Parth ia— The Suicide of
M i thridates VI . , 6 3 B .C .— The R esu lts of Pompey’s Campaigns .
CHAPT ER XXX
PARTHIA AND ROM E— THE FI RST TR IAL OF STRENGTHThe Internal A ffairs of Parth ia, 66— 55 B .C .
— The Appointment of Crassus to Syria, 55B .C .
— The Invasion of Parth ia, 53 B .C .
— The Plan of Campaign ofOrodes— Parth ian and Roman Troopscompared— The Battle of Carrhae, 53 B .C .
— The Parth ian Invasion of Syria, 51— 50 B .C .
C HAPT ER XXXI
ROME AND PARTHIA— THE SECOND TR IAL OF STRENGTHThe C ivi l War between Caesar and Pompey, 4 9— 4 8 B .C .
Caesar and the Near East, 4 7 B .C .— T1Ie Early Career of M ark
‘
Antony -The Parthian Invasion under Pacorus and Labienus,
xviii HISTORY OF PERSIAPAGE
4 0—3 9 B.C .
— The Peace of Brundusium, 3 9 B.C .— The Victories of
Ven tidius, 3 9 B .C .
— The Defeat and Death of Pacorus, 3 8 B.C .
The Death of Orodes, circa 3 7 B .C .— The E xped i tion of Antony
against Parth ia, 3 6 B .C .— His Campaigns in A rmenia
, 3 4—3 3 B .C .
-Phraates IV . and Tiridates, 3 3
—30 B .C .
— The Restoration of
the Roman Standards,20 B .C .
— The End of the Second Trialof Strength .
CHAPT ER XXX I I
THE ORGANIZATION,RELIG ION
,AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE
PARTHIANSThe Organizati on of the Parth ians —The Posi tion of the
M onarch- The Army— The Court— The Posit ion of WomenThe Life of the Parth ians— Their Dress— Laws and Custom s
Religionm —Li terature— Arch itecture and Art— Co inage .
CHAPTER XXXI I I
STRUGGLE FOR ARMENIA
The A rmenian Question— The M urder of Phraates IV .
,2 B .C .
,
and the Treaty w i th Rome, A .D . I — Phraataces, Vonones, and
A rtabanus I I I .— Rom e, Parth ia, and Armenia, A .D . 1 8— 35— The
Vi cissitudes of A rtabanus I I I . , A .D. 3 6— 3 7— The Peace w ith
Rome, A.D . 3 7— Vardanes and Gotarzes, A .D . 4 0
—51
— The Strugglefor Armenia— Volagases and Nero
,A .D . 55
— 63— The Investi ture
of Tiridates by Nero, A.D. 66— An Obscure Period of ParthianH istory, A .D . 66— 108 .
CHAPT ER XXX IV
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF PARTHIAThe Roman Empire at i ts Zeni th— Trajan and Armen ia, A .D .
1 14— 1 15
— The Conquest of M esopotam ia and of Babylon, A .D.
1 15— 1 1 6 — The Retreat of Trajan
,A .D . 1 16 — The Evacuation of
Armenia and M esopotamia by Hadrian, A D. 1 17— The Inroad of
the A lan i,A.D. 1 3 3
— The Invasion of Syria by Volagases I I I . ,A .D . 16 1— The Campaigns of Avidins Cassius, A .D . 163
— 165— The
Eastern Campaigns of Severus, A .D . 194— 19 7
— Artabanus and
Volagases, the last Kings of Parth ia, A.D . 209— 2 2 6— The
Treachery of Caracallus, A .D . 2 16 — The last Battle betweenRome and Parth ia
,A .D . 2 17
— The Downfall of Parthia, A .D . 2 26
— The Intercourse of Ch ina w ith Persia, A .D . 25— 220— The Cult
ofM i thras in Europe— Summary .
XX HISTORY OF PERSIA
Christians— The Curious Legend of his Death— The ContestedSuccession of Bahram Gur, A.D . 4 20
—His Campaign againstRome, A .D . 4 20—4 2 1
— The Peace w i th Rome, A .O . 4 22— The
Declaration of the Independence of the Eastern Church,A.D . 4 24
Persian Armenia reduced to a Satrapy,A.D . 4 2 8
— The Coming of
the Wh ite Huns— The Campaigns of Bahram Gur against the
Wh ite Huns— Bahram G ur, the M ighty H unter— His Ach ievements and Character— Yezdigird I I . , his Campaigns against Rome
and the Wh ite Huns -His Persecut ions in Armenia and M esopotam ia— The Usurpation of H orm isdas
,A .D . 4 57 , and his Overthrow
by Firuz , A.D . 4 59— The F irst Campaigns of F iruz against the
Whi te Huns— The R evo lt of A rmenia, A .D. 4 8 1-4 8 3
— The Defeat
of Firuz by the Wh i te H uns and hi s Death, A .D . 4 8 3— Pers ia
tributary to the Wh i te Huns,A .D . 4 8 3
—4 85
— The Agreementw i th A rmenia— Controversies on Doctrine among the Christiansin Persia .
THE CRUSHING OF THE WHITE HUNSThe Accession of Kobad
,A .D . 4 8 7
— His Campaigns against
the Khazars— The R ise of M azdak— The Deposition of Kobadand 1118 I mprisonment, A .D . 4 9 8
—50 1
— H is Second Reign, A .D . 50 1
53 1— His F irst War w i th Rome, A .D . 503—505
— The F inalCampaign against the Wh i te H uns, A .D . 503
—
51 3— The M assacre
of the M azdaki tes, A .D . 52 3— The Rebell ion in Iberia— The
Second War w i th Rome, A .D . 524—53 1
— The Importance of the
Reign of Kobad— The Connex ion between ‘Ch ina and Persiaunder the Sasanian Dynasty .
CHAPTER XL
NOSHIRWAN THE JUSTThe D isputed Succession of Noshirw an, A .D . 53 1
— The Execu
t ion of M azdak and the M assacre of his Follow ers— Peace con
cluded w ith Rome, A .D. 53 3— Roman Successes in Africa and
I taly, A .D . 53 3—53 9
— The Capture and Sack of Antioch byNoshirw an
,A .D . 54 0
— The Campaigns in Lazica, A .D . 54 0—557
The Second Peace w ith Rome, A .D . 562— The Coming of the
Turks— The Subjugation of the Wh i te HunS— The Campaignagainst the Khazars— The Arabian Campaign, circa A .D . 576
The Campaign w i th the Turks— The Third War w i th Rome,A .D . 572
—579
— The Christian Communi ty under Noshirw an
The Character and Achievem ents of Noshirw an— Buzurgmihr.
CHAPT E R XLI .
ORGANIZATION,LANGUAGE
,AND ARCH ITECTURE UNDER THE
SASANIAN DYNASTYThe Adm inistration of the Sasanian Empire— The Land Tax
-Improvem ents in Irrigation and Communications— The Army— The Pah lavi Language— Pah lavi Rock Inscriptions— Pah lav i
PAGE
CONTENTS
Literature— The M onarch and his Court— The M odels of the
Sasanian A rch i tects— The M ain Features of Sasan ian Archi tecture— The Firuzabad Palace— The Tak-i-Kisra— The Palace ofKhusruat Kasr-i-Sh irin— The Palace at M ash ita -The Bas -Reliefs at
Naksfi- i-Rustam— The Hunti ng Scenes of Khusru Parv iz— TheStatue of Sha ur I .
— A h Impression of Sasanian A rch i tecture and
Art— A llege Byzantine Influences .
PAGE
“
C HAPT ER XLI I
KHUSRU PARVIz AND HERACLIUSThe Continuation of the Roman War by Horm isdas IV .
The Invasion and Defeat of the Turks, circa A .D . 58 8— The
Campaign in Lazica, A .D . 58 9— The Revolt of Bahram Chubin
and the A ssassination of H orm isdas —The Accession of KhusruParviz, A .D . 590
-H is Defeat and Fl igh t to M eso o tam ia— His
Restoration by a Roman Army, A .D. 59 1— The Ou t reak ofWar
w i th Rome, A .D . 603— The Battle of Zu-Kar, circa A .D. 6 10
The A ccession of H eraclius,A .D . 6 10— The Sack of A ntioch and
the Capture ofA lexandria by the Persians -The F all of Chalced on,A .D . 6 17
— The Desperate Cond i tion of the Roman Emp ire —The
Famous Campaigns of H eraclius, A .D . 62 2— 63 7— The Victory over
Shahr-Baraz, A .D . 622— The F light of the Great K ing, A .D. 62 3The Surprise of the Army of Shahr-Baraz, A .D . 624
— The Defeat
of Shahr-Baraz on the Saras, A .D . 625-The Siege of Constantinople
and the Defeat of Shah in, A .D . 62 6— The Sack of Dastagird and
the F ligh t of Khusru Parviz, A .D . 62 7— The Deposi ti on and Death
of Khusru Parviz, A .D . 62 8 — H is Character— The Progress of
Christi ani ty under the later Sasan ian M onarchs .
CHAPTER XLI I I
THE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIAN EMPI RE BY THE ARAESThe Accession of Kobad I I . and the Peace w i th Rome , A .D .
628 — The M assacre of his Bro thers and his Death,A .D . 629
The Usurpation of Shahr-Baraz and his Death, A.D . 62 9— A Period
of Anarchy,A .D. 629
— 6 3 4— The Accession of Y ezdigird I I I . , A .D .
6 3 4— The Campaign of Khalid against the Western Provinces
of the Persian Empire, A .H . 12— 1 3 (6 3 3— 6 34 ) —The Campaigns
ofM o thanna, A .H . 1 3— 14 (63 4 — 6 35) -The Organ izat ion of a Great
A rmy for the Persian War, A .H . 1 4 (6 35)— The Embassy to
Y ezdigird, A .H . 14 (635) —The Battle of Cadesia, A .H . 14 (6 3 6)The Capture of Madain
,A.H . 1 6 (6 3 7)— The Battle of Jalola, A .H .
1 6 (6 3 7) —The Annexat ion of M esopotamia and the Capture of
Gbolla,A .H . I 6 (63 7) —The Foundation of Basra and of Kufa,
A .H . 1 7 (63 8)— The Failure of the E xped it ion from BahreinThe Conquest of Khuzistan and the Capture of Shuster
,A .H . 19
(64 0) — The Battle of Nahavand , A .H . 2 1 (64 2 ) — The Annexat ionof the Provinces of Persia— The Death of Y ezd igird I I I . , A .H .
3 1 (652)
THE SELEUCID ELEPHANT .
ILLU STRAT IONS
BaS-Re l ief of Cyrus the Great
Great and Li t t le AraratA Forest in Mazanderan
Kuh-i-TaftanA Bridge over the Kizi l U zun RiverThe Pass of the Old Woman
Ovis Vignei Arcal, 3 8 inch esCervus E lep has M aralThe Karun River n ear its Source in the Zard Kuh
The F leet of Sennac h eribE lami te ( i) God and PrisonersThe Frieze of the Arc hersPreh i storic Vase found by Aut horBaS-Re l ief of a Sp inner. Supposed E lami te PeriodThe Ste le of Naram-Sin
Head-dress of G lazed Po ttery studded w i th Bronze Nai ls .
E lami te PeriodThe Upper Part of the Code of Hammurab iBoundary Stone, Unfinish ed
,of the Kassi te Period
I tuni breaks hi s BOWThe Last Arrow of Teumman
The Banq uet of Assurban ipal and his QueenStatues of the Gods of E lam b eing carried aw ay to NinevehA Rock Tomb in the Heart of the Zagros
The Fire-Al tars at Naksh-i-Rustam
Kuh-i-Demavand
The Ruins of Nineveh as seen from M osulLid of the Clazomenae Sarcop hagus Greeks figh t ing
Cimmerians
The Heart of the E lburzxxi i i
Xxiv HISTORY OF PERSIAFACE PAGE
The Sleep ing RustamGo ld Mode l of Achaemen ian ChariotThe Acropo l is of Sardes from the North
The Tomb of Cyrus the GreatAchaemenian Gold Armi l laDarius and the Reb el LeadersM ount B ehistunAchaemenian Bronze Sepulchre at Susa
Achaemen ian BaS-Re l i ef and In scrip t ionThe Frieze Of the LionsB ronze Vesse l s from Kh inaman
Bronze Axe-heads, e tc . , from Kh inaman
The Darius VaseThe Palace of Darius
Fal l en Persian Standard-bearerSi lver UmboA M ountain Track in Armen ia
Kohobuland Dagh in the Kurdis tan Moun tains
Ac haemenian Go ld JugRu in s of the Temp le Of Anah i ta at Kangavar
A l exander c harging Darius Codomannus at the Batt le of I ssus
The Casp ian GatesRamian, a Typ ical Vi l lage in the Astrabad Prov inceA l exander in Bat tleA Reservo ir in the Lu t
Alexander Hun t ing
The River KarunSpring in the E lburzKala M aran
A H igh-Road in South-east PersiaA Homestead in the Astrabad Prov ince— the Anc ien t HyrcaniaThe Ci tade l of Van
C h ief Palace at Hatra . Fron t of North Liw an
Chief Palace at Hatra. Southern Wal l of South Liw an
The Gorge of the Zab
The Bul l-slaying M ithrasA Raft on the Upper Eup h ratesShapur the Great and ValerianThe Ruins of the Forum of N isib isKhushab Kala, a Ruined Roman Fort in KurdistanThe Wal ls o f D iarbekrThe C h ashma SabzSi lver D ish of Bahram Gur
ILLUSTRATIONS XXV
FACE PAGESasanian Si lver D ish of the Fourth Cen turyThe Ruined Si te of Dara
Silver Sasan ian Bow l of about A.D . 4 00
Noshirw an and Buzurgmihr
The Sasan ian Palace at FiruzabadOrnamentation of Palace at M ash i taShapur rece iving the Cydarir from OrmuzdThe Tak-i—Bartaiz
,or
“ Arch of the Garden,Kermanshah
The Stag Hun t
The Boar Hunt
The Arch of Chosroes,C tesip h on
The Cast le of Nahavand
U ‘
To i l lustrate Persian Invasions of He l las .
i i . , by Reginald Wa l ter Macan,D .Li tt .)
The Emp ire of A l exander the Great .
NASIR-U-D IN SHAH .
M A P S
VOL. I
Greece,by Professor J. B . Bury)
Eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria, and Western Persia.
mission Of the Royal Geographical Soc iety)
VOL. I I
To i l lustrate the Rise of I slamThe Provinces of the Abbasid Cal iphate . (From Land:
Earterfl Ca/ipéate, by G . Le Strange)Central AsiaPersia . (By kind p ermission of the Governmen t of India)
(From A Hirtary of
FACE PAGE(From Herodatar, vol.
(By per
62
8 4
I 71 pocket
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
cit ies,Isfahan exceeds 5000 feet , and Yezd 4 000. These
figures are of interest,for they bring out the contrast
between the inhabited part of the plateau and the greatdesert which o ccupies the heart of the country and l iesconsiderably lower
,al though rising almost everywhere
above 2000 feet .
Bounda ri es and Prov inces — In describing the boundariesof Persia I propose also to refer to its chief provinceswhich almost all lie away from the centre and within reachof the front iers .
The eastern province of Kho rasan i s bounded on the
north by a series of ranges which rise in stern beauty abovethe steppes of Turkestan . Some years ago I visited the
extraordinary natural fortress of Kalat - i Nadiri 1 and
cl imbed its northern wall , which is one of the mountains inthis range . From the crest I looked acro ss the yellowplain
,stretching northwards in level mono tony
,and w as
struck by its immensity for I realized that it extended asfar as the tundra and the distant Arct i c Ocean
,wi th no
intervening mountains . This range does no t form the
Persian boundary throughout , but , under the names of
Kopet Dagh and Little Balkans , runs off in a north-westerlydirection to the Caspian Sea. A little farther west
,just
within the l imits of Iran,lie the rich valleys of the Atrek
and Gurgan . In its lower reaches the Atrek forms theRusso—Persian boundary unt il it discharges into the Casp ianSea.
The district of Kuchan, which l ies on bo th banks of theupper Atrek
,i s the richest in Khorasan and , l ike Bujnurd
lower down the valley , is inhabited by Kurdish tribes whichwere t ransplanted from the Turkish frontier by Shah Abbasto act as Wardens of the Marches .” The valley of theGurgan is also naturally rich , with an abundant rainfalland fert ile lands ; but at present most of the country isinhabited by only a few thousand families of nomadicor semi-nomadic Turkoman belong ing to the Yamut and
Goklan tribes .The Gurgan district w as the classical Hyrcania, and the
Vehrkano of the Avesta, and w as famous for its ferti l ity .
1 Vida yournal December, 1906.
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE
Strabo wrote “ It i s said that in Hyrcania each vine produces seven gallons of wine and each fig- tree n inety bushelsof fruit . That the grains o f w heat which fall from the
husk on to the earth , spring up the fo llowing year thatbee-hives are in the trees , and the leaves flow wi thhoney .
”1In the central sec tion of the northern frontier the rich
marit ime provinces of M az anderan and Gilan lie betweenthe great Elburz range and the Caspian Sea
,and present a
complete contrast to upland Persia by reason of the ir heavyrainfall and mild climate and the dense fo rests these produce .
To the west of Gilan,Persia again marches with Russia
,
the boundary,since the treaty of Turkomanchai
,
2 runn ingfrom the front ier port of Astara almost due north unt i l itstrikes the River Aras , which in its upper reaches dividesthe tw o countries . At the north—west corner is the superbmountain mass of Ararat , where the three emp ires of
Russia,Turkey
,and Persia meet .
The no rth-west province of Iran is Az erba an,with its
chief centre, Tabriz , the largest city in Persia, si tuated ata po int where roads from the distant Bo sphorus and fromTrebizond meet o thers from the Caucasus and the valleyof the Tigris . Here the great trunk route into Persia andCentral Asia is entered . The rainfall is more abundantthan in the districts ly ing to the east , and the province isvery fertile . AS these pages will Show,
it has alwaysplayed an important part in Persian history .
On the west Persia i s bounded by the valleys of theTigris and Euphrates . On this flank parallel
,serrated
moun tains , in range after range , known to the ancients asthe Zagros , divide the Iranian plateau from the plains .These rise gently
,and not Sheer to their full height
,as do
the mountains of the Armenian plateau when approachedfrom the south . The classical empires o f Media and of
Persia came into existence in these bracing uplands,which
are comparat ively well—watered and fert ile so far as the hillcountry is concerned though the interior districts ofKum
,
Kashan,and Isfahan are arid and almost rainless .
1 Strabo,I I . I . I 4 (trans lation by Hami lton and Falconer).
2 Vide Chapter LXXV I .
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
To the west of the southern section of this barrier isthe rich valley of the Karun, now the province ofArabistan
,
which,under the name of Elam
, w as the first portion of
Persia to be civil ized , centuries before the Aryans appearedon the scene . To the south the plateau containing the
provinces of Fars and Kerman looks down upon a narrow,
low - lying strip of country bordering the Persian Gulf and
here again intercourse has been made excep tionally difli cultby nature
,with the result that Persians
,w ho are no
engineers,have ever been averse from the sea.
1
The province of Fars is much drier , and consequentlyless fert ile in the east than in the west
,and the interio r
d istrict of Yezd is more or less a sandy desert . The
province of Kerman, too , i s saved only by the height ofi ts ranges from hopeless aridity . In Kerman
,and st i ll
more in Persian Baluchistan , which marches with Brit ishBaluchistan , there are large semi-desert areas apart fromthe barren Lut .
In Persian Baluchistan, where the ranges , which Ih
variably run parallel to the coast,trend more east and
west,communi cat ion with the sea is equally difli cult ;
and north of this outlying province is Sistan, the delta of
the Helmand . Farther north,again
,a desert divides
Persia from Afghanistan unt i l the Hari Rud is struck at
the po int where it makes i ts great bend from west to dueno rth . Known in its lower reaches as the T ejen
,this
r iver divides the tw o countries unt i l,at Zulfikar Pass
,the
kingdom of the Amir ends and tw o boundary pillarswhich I saw
,from the Persian side o f the river
,Shining
in the sun— mark the spot where , some thirty years ago ,
the Russo Afghan Boundary Commission began its
labours . The Tejen cont inues to form the boundary ofPersia as far as Sarakhs , which is situated at the northeast corner of Iran,
and only a few miles from grimKalat- i-Nadiri , where our survey started .
To summarize , upland Persia i s strongly protected byt itani c natural ramparts along her northern front ier, except
1 To g ive a s ingle examp le,Abdur Razzak, mentioned in ChapterLX., wrote As soon
as I caught the sme l l of the ve ssel, and all the terrors of the sea presen ted themselves tom e
,I fell into so deep a swoon that for three days respirat ion alone ind icated that l ife
remained within me.
”—Indza in tfze Fifteenth Century (Hak luyt Soc iety).
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE 5
where the Tej en breaks through into the sands of Turkestan . Along the western frontier the ramparts are st il lmore serrated
,and the only natural route— a difli cult one
passes through Kasr-i-Shirin,Kermanshah , and Hamadan .
Farther sou th , the modern province of Arabis tan,lying in
the rich valley of the Karun ,has never been fully and
permanently absorbed by Persia,owing to the d iflicult
ranges which cut it off from the province of Fars . The
coast districts along the Persian Gulf,too , have always
been separated from the uplands and , l ike Arabistan ,
inhabited by a non-Aryan people : and even to-day few
Persians can keep their health if forced to reside at the
ports on the Persian Gulf. Persian Baluchistan i s a
distant province of torrid deserts , where the autho rity of
the Shah is weak . On the east, in the southern section ,
the deserts of Brit ish Baluchistan are as hopelessly aridand as great an obstacle to intercourse as can be imagined .
But where the boundary marches with North -WestAfghanistan
,the routes are wide and easy . This accounts
for the fact that unt i l comparatively recently Afghan istanw as a Persian province . The last campaign in which a
Persian sovereign took part in person w as the at tempt torecover Herat in I 8 3 8 . To-day, however , althoughPersia welcomes Afghans
, w ho are the chief owners of
camel transport,no Persian or other foreigner can enter
the kingdom of the Amir without runn ing risk, and
Afghanistan can now claim the doubtful t itle of beingthe last Hermit Kingdom in Asia.
M eaning of I ran and of Persia — Persians call the ircountry Iran and themselves Irani , a w ord which is theAiriya of the Avesta and signifies the “ land of the
Aryans .” Thus the modern meaning of Iran is re
stricted when used in a po l it i cal sense to apply to modernPersia only and the geographical use of the term Iranianplateau to include part of Baluchistan and also Afghanistanis
,strictly speaking , more correct . The term Persia,
”
employed,by Europeans and most other foreigners, i s
der ived from the classical Persis . This latter wordsignified the province of Parsa
,now Fars , which gave
birth to the ruling dynasty of the Achaemenians , and
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
in consequence had its meaning extended so as to includethe entire country and also its people . Even to—day‘
the province of Fars is held to be the most typicallyPersian province in the empire . The word fars i isemployed by the Persians to describe the ir ow n language
,
although when applied to an individual,it i s restricted
to an inhabi tant o f the province of Fars . It should beadded t hat the Parsis of India are so called from be ingfo llowers of the old Persian religion . Parsi is the Persianword , and Farsi its Arabic form which has been generallyadopted
,there being no p in the Arabic language . The
term Farsistan,which some European wri ters affect , is
Incorrect .T/ze Formation of tbe I ranian Plateau.
-The quest ionof the format ion of the Iranian plateau is one whichcanno t be decided with full certainty unt il its geo logyis studied with far greater thoroughness than it has beenhitherto .
1 At the same t ime,geologists are able to give
in outl ine an account of its orig in, and this would appearto be sufli cient for our purpose . During the Eoceneperiod what i s now the Iranian plateau w as under water .Probably it rose towards the end of the Pliocene periodand , by w ay of compensat ion
,tw o depressions were
formed on its borders ; to the north the Aral-Caspiandepression, and to the south the Persian Gulf which thenran inland as far north as the mountains of Kurdistan ,
so that the Tigris discharged at a po int a little belowMosul .This w as the conformation of Persia when the Pliocene
period w as succeeded by”the P leis tocene: At this t imethe country w as covered with forests and meadows
,
supported by a humid climate , probably much resemblingthat of the Caspian prov i nces t .o-day Then
_ came the
in common w itLCg rtral Asia,and
,
remained uninhabi table forbe
'
reckoned In millennia. Afterthe deluge
,destroy ing everything
reach . After these cataclysms
1 Vida de M organ ’
s La Pre'
nistoire et I’Hi stoire
,chap. VI I . I would take this
opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to this erudite work.
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE 7
what!
as left In Persia ? Vast lakes of salt water occup ying what 18 now thg gmat d esert ; lofty,b are ranges coveredby ng glaciers ; the sea penetrating in to the contine
"’t,n . “ H-w
I
and fi vol’
canoes such . as Ararat , Demavand,Sahand
,and
a land of death .
ally formedE -,
land which w as not only inhabitable , but w as
dest ined in the course of the ages— owing part ly,at any
rate,to its natural advantages— to be the home of what
w as perhaps the earliest civil izat ion the world ever saw .
The Resemblance of P ersia to Sp a in— In many ways
Persia resembles Spain to a remarkable degree . The
traveller from the north no sooner quits France thanhe rises through the Pyrenees on to a plateau of an averageheigh t of between tw o and three thousand feet , where thejagged ranges are aptly termed Sierras or
“ Saws,
”and
where the country is generally bare and treeless . Traversing this great plateau for some four hundred miles
,he
cro sses the “ ho t country”of Andalusia,which co rre
sponds to the low- lying coast district of Persia
,before the
sea i s reached . Again to the north , as if to completethe analogy
,the provinces bordering on the Biscayan Sea
differ as much from the Spain of the plateau as the Casp ianprovinces do from the rest of Persia. Moreover
,although
Persians are termed the French of the East,it would be
more ap t to compare them with the Span iards,whose
customs and whole manner of life are akin to the Persian .
This is partly due to similarity in the physical condit ionsof the tw o countries . But there is some actual blood connection too for the Span iards are in part descended fromPersians w ho accompan ied the Arab conquerors of the
Iberian . peninsula. These founded a Shiraz in distantSpain
,and there made the wine which , as the familiar
Sherry,still preserves the Persian name .
The Aria’ity of Central Asia .— Central Asia
,of which
— 4
Persia forms a part,is mainlyfigmposed of deserts and
1 The Spanish word is Xeres . I t is an interest ing fact that the best Shiraz wineresembles a nutty Sherry.
8 HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
although the variat ions in elevation are stupendous ,ranging from the Caspian Sea and the basin of Turfan
,
which lie below sea- level,to the Pamirs and Tibet
,where
the t raveller is seldom below feet, yet everywhere
,
except in the actual ranges,aridity is the marked feature
common to all countries alike,whether Turkestan
,Pers ia
,
Afghanistan, Tibet , or Baluchistan . m afit ichis due/ to f the scantyr ainfall results in rivers of such weakvo lume thaL they failthe Whole enormous area
,stretching for some three
thousand miles from east to west,i s composed of basins
,
none of which have any outlets . ain,, w wmgmg to the
SM rainfallw there , areas, andthe whole region may b e described as consisting
“ partlyof desert pure and Simple
, and partly Of desert tempe red
capable of susta ining populat ion
put it ano ther w ay, i f the deserttracts could be removed , the cult ivable districts wouldtogether make up a very sinall country . I lay considerablestress on this fact ; for dwellers in Europe, where almo stthe who le of the land is valuable owing mainly to abundantrainfall
,can with difficulty real ize the utterly difl’erent con
ditions which prevai l in Central Asia .
1
The Climate of Persia .— The marked feature therefore
of Persia and of Central Asia generally is aridity .
l e R a infall. —The amount of rainfall on the p lateauis now observed
,mainly at the ofli ces of the Indo
European Telegraph Department, and , thanks to the
courtesy of Mr . Gilbert Walker,Director General of
Observatories in India, I am able to give the following table ,which is based on observat ions taken for a period o f ten
years
inches annual rainfall.1 1207
4 7 4
9-30
9 -37
1 This quest ion has been dea lt w ith in a remarkable book termed Tli e Pulse qf As ia,written by Elsw orthy Hunt ington.
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE 9
In -Yi ew of the latitude and'
the power of the sun , the
w it 5 inch‘
Cs’ “
6f
or the inches of theDelhi"
District.
i "
Persia,in bo th itsg itg ai ion and its physicl conformat ion ,
is. or tunat? so far as rain‘
fa H FOHCeTffiéranges int ercept the.
greater port ion of the mo isturez-ladenclouds
,w hich discharge very freely in the Caspian provinces ,n fi ’“
M “
.buLI arélyr c SS the Elburz . t hing is more strikingthan to s tand on this gigantic r amparmw ith luxuriant forestclad n slg pes h
on its northern face and an absolutely nakedprospect to thC
m
SOuth when once"the"c
’
rest is reached .
Fo rtunately such is ( snow in terms ofwater being inclITdCd
i
iiiT-
he table given above) falls mainlyduring , the winter and spring , when the treasures of thesnow reserved against t he t imew o f-trouble 1
can be
stO'
I’E
’
d i n the mountains to replen i sh springs,on which the
the
I‘
O
them pg pulation d epend .o n~ the, -he ight and w idth,
of the1 u w
fl “.
raggem from which thg fl wgtggzsupplym In a hugecountry like Persia it is
g
obyious c that -the a mo unt -ofl rain
‘fiallmusty aryf””
Cé iITi'-
5l,South—Eastern, and Eastern PersiaarQI
‘
less‘ favoured tha n other parts . In Khorasan
,for
example , in a good year 65per cent of the grain crops area’
a ini a or rain-fed , w hereas a in South—East Persia all cropshave to be'g p t u
aliyeb yi rrigation, and the re . are pract icallyno
_ _
rain-fed crv
ops at all.
Rh i
hi i
a
i
s
fl
alf' eady been po inted out that in the Caspianprovinces the condit ions are ent irely unlike those whichprevail elsewhere . Instead of a treeless , arid country, thereis j ungle too dense to t raverse . The rainfall exceeds 50inches
,and mo isture i s everywhere so abundant that the
cl imate is generally fatal to Persians of the plateau . Thesein turn
,entirely fail to appreciate the natural wealth of the
three Caspian provinces o f Astrabad , Mazanderan ,and
Gilan .
Cold and Heat — Persia i s a land of extremes in climate1Job xxxvi ii. 2 3 .
I O HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
yet the atmosphere i s one of the mo st invigorating and
delightful imaginable . Inw inter the thermometer occasionally Sinks below zero in the plains and frequently In the
Inp untains,but
,i f the weather be fine
,the cold 13 seldom
trying, and It i s delightful to spend whole days In the openthroughout the winter . Yet the waves of cold can be In
tense,and every. winter men and animals are frozen to
death when
as a who le,the Persian
w m ter IS as near perfection as can be imagined , and if thetraveller sometimes has to walk the ent ire stage because iti s too co ld to ride , he experiences in return such a senseof vigour and vital i ty as i s rarely felt In less drv and lessbracing climates .
Let us now take the opposite extreme and seek an
example of a torrid cl imate . In this respect Arabistanbears the palm with its cap ital Shuster , perhaps the hottestplace on earth . I shall never forget my experience therein the month of June , I 896 , with the thermometer registering the shade temperature with monotonous regularity at
and the wi thering heat -waves reflected ofl'
the low
rocks,which also kept off any coo ling breeze from the
north . The Persian Gulf, too , is perhaps the hottest bodyof sea in the world , and I recollect feeling the Red Sea
comparatively cool after experiencing the heat of “ The
Gulf. On the plateau the condit ions are quite different ;for
,as a rule
,the heat during the day 13 no t try i ng and the
n ights are invariably cool . In fact at Meshed the highestrecorded
’n ight temperature during the last few years i s 74
°
in 19 12 ,and the highest day temperature 102
°
,in the same
year . Outside , however, in the open country the heat , andst ill more the glare , are very try i ng, and caravans usuallytravel by night . The proximity of mountains makes i teasy almost everywhere to seek a hill retreat during the
hottest months and at Teheran,at M eshed
,at Kerman ,
and indeed at most places on the plateau there are coo lreso rts within a few hours ’ ride , and these amenit ies makethe summer months delightful .
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE 1 1
”f ind — The winds of Persia blow _ w ith remarkable“ w e
M Ol '
uniformity e itherm
fr'
om The north-west ‘
or from the southeast . The reason for this i s the situat ion of the At lant icm
“ .
Ocean and Mediterranean and Black Seas in the one
direct ion , and of the Indian Ocean 1 in the other . The
bearing of the axes of the mountain ranges , too ,l ies mainly
in the same direction . As the powerful sun beats on the
treeless p lains it produces a stratum o heated air,End this:
DIM I M -fl w ~—m -¢u Q o“ b
“
as'
if gisesr draw sjfl gnrrenp a
o i OIdcr a ir fl ma inly from the
Horths w est . The prevalent wind in the autumn and
winter is north-westerly,and in the spring and summer
south-easterly . The high ranges
151
q n
with low -dying tragts fl and . the absence Gf-‘
treeSi
all make for],
1'
There are, indeed , various unfo rtunate districtswhere there blows an almost perpe tual gale . In the caseof a valley in the province of Kerman which runs downsomewhat abruptly from 8000 feet to 3000 feet , thischaracter istic is recorded in the fo llowing lines
They asked the W ind, Where is thy home
I t rep l ied,My poor home is in Tahrud but occasional ly I tour
round Abarik and Sarvistan .
”
But it is in Sistan that the wind displays its fulleststrength . There blows the famous “ Wind of one
hundred and twenty days , with a maximum velo city ofseventy- tw o miles an hour . This summer gale is knownin the Herat valley as the Wind of Herat ,
”and prob
ably o riginates in the Pamirs . It then fo llows down the
Perso-Afghan frontier,and its power ceases a few stages
south of Sistan . Its maximum velocity is at tained at
Lash-Juwein in Afghan Sistan,and one can only feel
sorry for the unfortunate inhabitants . To give some ideaof what gales are in Sistan,
Sir Henry M cMahon reportedone in M arch
, 1905, which blew at the rate of one
hundred and twenty miles an hour .2 I t i s po ssible thatthis wind suggested the invent ion of windmills , whichwere known in Persia before the Arab conquest , and long
1 I have to thank M r. G i l bertWalker for the fo llowing valuable note: From Octoberto Apri l the southernmost storms from the At lant ic trave l over Italy, the eastern Mediter
ranean,and Syria -and a large proportion— I be l ieve at least 60 per cent— pass on into
Mesopotam ia, Pers ia, Afghan istan, or Baluchistan and the p lains of ~ India.
2yournal R .G .S. for October, 1906.
12 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
before they were invented in Europe . This fact isbrought out clearly in Masudi
,
1 where it is narrated thatthe Persian slave w ho assassinated Omar knew how to
construct windmills . To—day in Persia these windmillsare found only in the districts where this wind blows .
l e Climate of Ancient P ersia .-The importance of
climate in its effect alike upon the configurat ion of a landand upon its people
,its government , and its history is so
great that it i s of cons iderable interest to know whetherthere has been any change in historical times .Hunt ington 2 has devoted a chapter to this very
quest ion,in which in addit ion to no ting the changes
towards aridity in the basins of Lop , Turfan ,and Sistan,
all of which he carefully examined , he has quo ted myviews to the effect that Persian Baluchistan and Kermanmust have been more fert ile when Alexander the Greattraversed them some 2200 years ago than they are
to—day.
3 Take,for instance
,one sect ion of the Mighty
Greek’s j ourney,from Bampur in Baluchistan to the
distri ct of Rudbar in the Kerman province .
‘1 Throughou tthe distance of one hundred and fifty miles I did no t find
a single village or hamlet, and the who le country is now
only fit for o ccupation by nomads . I t is impossible to
believe that the Greek army could have traversed the desertas it i s to-day without great d iflflculty ; whereas Arrianshows that when once the Bampur Valley had been reachedthe army found enough supplies to feed it for tw o months .After this the refreshed heroes marched in comfort acrossSouthern Persia
,by the route which our party w as enabled
to traverse only by means of fo rage and all o ther supplieslaid out in advance at every stage . Hunt ington alsogives o ther examples drawn from various sources , all of
which tend to Show that the aridity of Persia i s increasing .
It is o f course d ifli cult to d ist inguish between deforestat ion caused by man and continued by his flocks and the
defo restation which is due entirely to change of climate .
In any case it i s of interest to no te that in the centralportion of Kho rasan
,termed Kuhistan in ancient t imes
1 Vzde Chapter XLV I . 2 Tbc Pulse ofA sia,chap . xvi .
3 Ten Tnousand M i les, etc., chap . xiv .
4 Vide op . cit. p. 14 4 .
I 4. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
the question. Nor had this populat ion disappearedbefore the dawn of histo ry . On the contrary
, the po tterywhich littered the sites of the ir towns w as of about fromthe tenth to the thirteenth century of our era . At the
t ime I attributed the disappearance of all population froma tract measuring tw o hundred miles from west to east todeforestat ion and w ar
,and I did no t realize that this Was
but one i llustrat ion of a larger question which includedthe whole of Central Asia . Similar deserted tracts havealso been no ted in Kharan ,
now a hopelessly arid district ,and they perhaps supply the strongest of all proofs thataridity has increased in Central Asia.
Population— The present populat ion of Iran is est imated
to be about ten mill ions ,1 and there may be perhaps tw omillion Persians l iving in the Russian ,
Turkish,and Indian
empires . Before the era of sea transport there i s no
doubt that the cities of Persia were generally larger and
more prosperous than at present , as the greater caravantrafli c must have provided a living for thousands of
families along the main routes apart from the benefitsconferred on the agricultural class . Moreover
, as alreadyexplained , i t is at least possible that the rainfall w as
heavier and the agricultural capabil i ties of the countrywere greater at earlier periods than to - day. Again
,
certain districts such as Astrabad are sufl’
ering from beingoverrun by nomads . But after making these allowancesit i s difficult to bel ieve that the plateau has ever beenmore than sparsely peopled , and in my opin ion i t is an
error to suppose that in respect of populat ion i t everresembled modern Europe . I t i s impo ssible to make an
accurate estimate ; but , i f w e consider the much largervo lume of trafli c which passed across “
the Highway of
the Nat ions before the era of sea transport and the factthat Persia w as generally the seat of a great empire , evenalthough the capital w as rarely on the plateau
,I am ih
clined to suggest that fifteen millions may have l ived in thecountry which now supports but tw o—thirds of that number .
1 Divided into n ine m i l lion Shias, nine hundred thousand Sunn is, eighty thousandChristians (Armen ians, Nestorians , Greek Orthodox, Roman Catho lics
, Protestants),th irty-six thousand Jews, and ten thousand Z oroastrians. Vide artic le on Persia in
1l th edition of the Encyclop a’dia Bri tannica .
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE 15
The M ounta ins of the I ranian Plateau .— Persia is not ,
as i s sometimes stated , merely a vast plain surrounded byexterio r mountain chains . On the contrary
,practi cally
in every part there are detached parallel ranges withvalleys averaging twenty miles in width
, this format ionbeing repeated with a mono tony which is exasperatingto the traveller whose j ourney lies at right angles to the irtrend . Limestone i s the prevailing rock material fromthe Elburz in the north to the Baluchistan ranges inthe south : but gypsum , sal iferous beds, conglomeratesand and alluvial shingle are frequent ly found . The
central masses of the hills are occasionally fo rmed of red
sandstone and arenaceous Shales : limestone i s , however,much more frequent . As the gypsum and sal iferousdepo sits are soluble , and are thus afl
’
ected by the meltingsnows , these substances have been carried down into the
plains and have thereby produced the dreary areas coveredwith salt crystals
,of which there i s a good example near
Nishapur .In Persia the gigant ic gravel slopes are a striking
feature . That which extends from the Elburz is enormous,
having a width of some s ixteen miles . Its depth,too , is
great . When experiments were made at Teheran,which
is built on the Slope , with a view to obtain ing water bymeans of artesian wells
,the boring at 500 feet w as still
on the gravel,and so the attempt w as abandoned . As
Teheran is some ten miles from the range , what mustbe the depth of the
.gravel at the base ?
The Northern Ranges .— Of the great front ier ranges ,
those to the north start from the Pamirs,the most
elevated valleys in Asia,which in Persian phraseo logy are
well termed Bam- i—Dunia ,or
“ The Roof of the World .
”
Thence,under the names
,Hindu Kush
,Kuh- i—Baba
,and
under o ther terms,they run south of west
,fo rming a great
natural rampart acro ss the ent ire length of Afghan istanuntil , north of Herat , they subside into roll ing downs .It i s of interest to note that the Greeks realized the
magnitude of this range ; for Arrian writes : “ Thisrange of mountains stretches out so
‘
far that they sayeven that Mount Taurus
,which forms the boundary of
16 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Cilicia and Pamphylia, springs from it , as do o ther greatranges .”1
To resume,on the western s ide of the Tejen, the ranges
recover the ir original height and under the general nomenclature of Elburz (although there are lo cal names for eachrange) run in a westerly direct ion for some hundreds ofmiles . South of the Caspian Sea the stupendous vo lcanicpeak of Demav and is thrown up . This
,rising to an
alt itude exceeding feet , is the loft iest mountain of
the cont inent of Asia west of the Himalayas , the height o fhistorical Ararat no t exceeding feet . The trendof the range in this section changes from west to northwest as it passes to the south of the Caspian Sea and , afterbeing pierced by the Kizil Uzun
,the longest river in
Persia,it terminates in the superb ranges which culminate
in the crown of histo rical Ararat . In the elevated basinof the Lake ofVan the mountains of the Armenian plateau ,wi th the i r approximate west to east trend , of which the
Elburz is a cont inuat ion,meet the Persian orographic
system with its parallel chains running from north—westto south - east ; It i s to be no ted that
,although this
northern range is the mo st important from the po int of
V iew of altitude, it is narrow and does not const i tute a
belt of mountainous country in the same sense as the
parallel ranges of the Zagros . Consequently on the
southern Slopes,in the eastern section at any rate , the
water- supply barely suffices to support a few scatteredoases , and the desert sometimes actually touches the skirtof the mountains .
The Southern Ranges.— Starting again from the Pamirs
,
the main southern range, under various names , runs southwest through Afghan istan and Baluchis tan towards theArabian Sea . Here it diminishes in height and runswestward , parallel to the coast , for some hundreds of miles ,unt il, to the south-east of Kerman the regular no rth
1 Vide Chinnock’
s firr ian,Book I I I . chap. XXVI I I . p . 197 . Art ian terms the
range the Caucasus, whereas the Indian Caucasus w as a more usual term ; butParapam isus or Parapan isus is the more correct name for the range, and Caucasus w as
vague ly app lied to it as be ing at the end of the known world. Strabo,Book X I .
chap . v i ii. states that the “ heights and northern parts”of the Parapam isus wereca l led Emoda . This name is akin to the modern H imalaya and i s a Sanscrit word fromwhich the Latin hiems (winter) is derived.
CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE 17
westerly trend parallel to the Persian Gulf begins . Highpeaks exceeding feet , such as Kuh- i-Hezar and
Kuh- i-Lalazar, are thrown up in this section where the
system const itutes the central range of Persia . The
western front ier of Persia also maintains a generallyhigh altitude in its regular parallel ranges , unt il at the
Ararat range , after having formed the segment of a circle ,these great parallel ranges unite with the northern system .
Although the interio r ranges cannot v ie in importancewith those which hold up the great plateau
, yet they are
often of considerable altitude . One of the most interesting is that of Kuh-i-Taftan,
1 which is a volcano in the
so lfatara stage and rises to a he ight of feet closeto the Perso-Baluch frontier . Farther west in the middleof the desert is situated Kuh-i—Bazman, an ext inct vo lcanoconsist ing of a singularly beautiful peak with an alt itudeof feet . On the western Side of Persia
,Mount
Alvand,the classical Orontes , an offshoo t of the Zagros
which towers above Hamadan, is much better known thanany of the ranges in Eastern Persia ; not , I think , thatAlvand can compare with e ither Taftan or Bazman inbeauty or in alt itude
,but because it i s the most striking
range on the historical route from Babylonia to Rhages .
Elsewhere there are ranges which rise to considerableal titudes and provide numerous streams of water on whichthe crops depend . Indeed
,in almo st the whole of Persia
there are a succession of ranges which generally decreasein height the farther they are from the outer walls : and
even in the Lut the traveller cro sses range after range of
hills,most of which are parallel to the higher surrounding
mountain chains .One po int I have not touched on . There are no
glaciers in Persia,however high the mountains may be,
although traces of them have been found on the moreimportant ranges . None of the many mountains I haveclimbed retains snow throughout the summer exceptwhere steep valleys with a northern aspect protect it ”fromthe powerful rays of the sun. Thus in the Kuh- i—Lalazar
,
which rises to nearly feet to the south of Kerman,
1 Ten Thousand M iles , etc., pp. 132, 14 0.
VOL . I
1 8 H ISTORY OF PERSIA cum».
I have t ravelled on a snow bridge up the valley in Julybut higher up there were only large patches of snow and
the summit w as quite bare . Demavand has its craterfilled with snow for the same reason. In Khorasan at an
altitude of 9000 feet large patches of snow last o ccasionallythrough the summer, but to the best of my knowledgeeternal snow
,in the sense of a permanent snow-line
,is
be found anywhere in Persia.
20 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
for the desert , while it i s also used to express dry desertin opposition to salt desert .
The wo rd which is comparatively modern— the Arabgeographers using the term M afaz eh or wildernesso riginated from the circumstance that in more than one
local ity stories are told of ancient cit ies , or Cities of Lot ,”
which were des troyed by The A lmighty with fire fromheaven in the same manner as the cities of the p lain wherenow roll the waters of the Dead Sea . The lat ter
,it i s to
be no ted , is locally termed The Sea of Lot,
”Lut be ing
the Koranic form of the word . The traveller w ho v is i tsthese “ Cities”will see that they are merely bluffs wo rnby the elements unt il they
Form’d turret, dome, or batt lement,
Or seemed fantast ical ly set
With cupo la or minaret .1
Taking into considerat ion the extent to which the
Koran influences nomenclature in Persia,I have very l ittle
doubt that this is the true derivat ion of the term Lut .
The e tymology of the word Kav ir is uncertain ,but it
signifies a sal ine desert, whether dry or w et . During thecourse of my travel s I have seen it under many forms .Somet imes the ground is white , level , and sol id as ice .
Again,it is hummocky
,pock-marked
,and almost impass
able ; to venture on i t would mean to be engulfed in a
hog of sl ime . These difl’erences depend mainly on the
quantity of water, and there i s no doubt that 'i f the watersupply ceases the Kav ir tends to become Lut. Almostevery river or stream in Persia has on its banks a whiteefli orescence , which is composed of chlo ride of sodiumwith traces of alkal i and i s akin to Kav ir .
The Lut i s the man i festat ion in an extreme and con
centrated form of the general aridity of Persia, itselfsurrounded by arid countries . It i s more arid than o therparts simply because of its posit ion
,which
,being more
central,is more unfavourable
,both for rainfall and for
rece iving water from the high mountain ranges whichencircle the comparat ively low -lying plateau and keep
1 Scott, The Lady qf the Lake.
DESERTS,RIVERS
,ETC. 2 1
off mo isture from it . I have ment ioned above how the
inadequate water supply dries up and disappears,being
unable to form trunk river systems powerful enough to
force the ir w ay to the sea. Fail ing signally to do this ,the scanty streams which , as a rule , are utterly undrinkable ,owing to thei r saltness
,are lo st In basins . Within these
are immense gravel slopes , occasional salt lakes , and squaremiles of sandhills backed by naked
,j agged ranges or
Persian Sierras,which complete a melancho ly and de
pressing p icture . Pierre Loti ’s descript ion in Le Desert
i s so true and so beautifully expressed that I cannotrefrain from quot ing it
C’est la désolat ion absolue
,le grand triomphe incontesté de la
mort on est 1a comme dans les mondes hu is,dépeuplés par
le feu, q u
’
aucune rosée ne fécondera plus .
To cross the Lut means at t he best bad water and thecarriage of all suppl ies
,including fo rage . At its worst it
means be ing caught in a storm which is equally to be
dreaded for its co ld in winter or for its parching effect insummer ; and the to ll of the desert , levied on man and
beast al ike, i s indeed a heavy one, whether the caravanSinks into the o chrous Slime of the Ka‘vir or is lost amidthe terrible moving sandhills . In e ither case there are
few survivors .Among the agencies which produce such dire results
are wind and the process of disintegrat ion . In a humidcountry vegetat ion and mo isture al ike pro tect the surfaceof the so il but in a land where no thing more than a few
stunted bushes can grow the force of moving air i spow erful to a degree that is only beginning to be realized .
Disintegration , too ,i s rapid . The extremes of tempera
ture co-operate powerfully with wind and rain in breakingup the misnamed “
eternal”hills .1This huge desert has left a deep mark on its in
habitants . Separat ing north from south and east fromwest more effectively than high ranges of snow - cladmountains or a gulf of equal size
,it has necessarily made
government very diffi cult ; for a distant chief could1 There are some remarkable i l lustrat ions of wind erosion in Ruins qf Desert Ca thay.
22 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHA P.
always rebel and take refuge in the desert if defeated .
Again, the dual ism of Zo roastrian ism w as undoubtedlyaffected by the desert , as will be shown later on,
and it has
influenced the habits , the outlook,and even the physique
of the Persian ; for it lies clo se to his cit ies,to Teheran
and Meshed on the north,to Kum and Kashan on the
west , to Yezd and Kerman on the south , and to Kain and
Birjand on the east . In short , the desert is the “ DeadHeart of Persia.
”
R iv ers — Owing to the scanty rainfall and the highranges surrounding the plateau
,there is no t a single river
of importance in the many hundreds o f miles of coastwhich lie between the mouths of the Indus and the
Shatt—ul-Arab .
One of the afli uents of this latter river is the Karun ,
which will be dealt with fully in connect ion with the
empire of Elam here it is enough to say that its modernimportance consists mainly in its being the only navigableriver in the whole of the huge Pers ian Empire . The
most important river in the western basin of Persia is theZenda Rud
,which
,rising close to the Karun in the
Bakht iari Mountains , irrigates the Isfahan district . It
discharges i ts surplus waters into a swamp known as the
Gaokhana or Hollow some forty m iles below Isfahan.
Farther north the Aras,which for part of its course , as
mentioned above, fo rms the Russo-Persian frontier,is an
important river : it i s the classical Araxes, and flowsdown past great Ararat . Proceeding eastward , w e crossthe longest river of Persia, the Kizil Uzun, the classicalAmardis . Rising near Lake U rumia, it breaks throughthe Elburz and , under the name of Safid Rud
,discharges
i ts turbid silt- laden waters into the Caspian Sea east of
Resht . It i s ident ified byWilliams Jackson as the Rivero f the Law .
”1 St ill farther eas t i s the Tej en, which hasbeen referred to in Chapter I . Its volume i s no t great
,
and its water is almost undrinkable, except in t ime of
flood . Its importance,therefore , is small so far as Persia
is concerned , although under the name of the Hari Rudit irrigates the fertile Herat valley and i s thus of value to
1 Zoroa ster, p. 21 1 .
I . DESERTS , RIVERS , ETC. 23
Afghanistan . In Eastern Persia there are no rivers untilthe historic Helmand Is reached and this can scarcely beclaimed as Persian,
for it rises in Afghanistan and remainsthere as far as Sistan
,where i t discharges it s waters into
the famous lake and i rrigates both Afghan and Persianlands . Except during the Spring , travellers can traversethe Iranian plateau from east to west and from north to
south , and nowhere meet wi th rivers . If they comeacross a brook and
‘
happen to taste it , the chances are
that its waters will prove so salt as to be useless ; and
nothing is more depressing than the constan t presence of
the white efli o rescence al ready described,which speaks
forcibly of an insuffi cient rainfall .The Oxus .
— The River Oxus now l ies far away fromthe borders of shrunken Iran
,but for many centuries i t
formed i ts eastern frontier, and consequently to completethis brief survey some ment ion o f this great river is calledfor. It rises in the Pamirs and , after making a bendencircling Badakshan, runs approximately north-west andnow discharges into the Sea of Aral . Writ ing in the fifthcentury B .c .
,Herodotus stated that bo th the Oxus and
the Jaxartes , or rather a branch of it , discharged into the
Caspian Sea. More than a century later Aristobulus isquo ted by Strabo as stat ing that the Oxus “ is navigablewith ease, and that large quant it ies of Indian merchandiseare conveyed by it into the Hyrcanian Sea , and are
transferred from thence into Albania by the Cyrus , andthrough the adjo in ing countries to the Euxine .
”1 WhenAlexander the Great conquered Western Asia the Oxusst ill flowed into the Caspian Sea ; but at some period at
present unknown to us it adopted in-the main the courseit fo llows to-day, and d ischarged into the Sea o f Aral .In A .D . 1220
,however
, the Mongo ls , after the capture of
Urganj,2the capital of the state now known as Khiva,
overwhelmed the city with the waters of the Oxus , andthe flood thus caused found its w ay back in t ime to the
ancient bed leading to the Caspian Sea . This once mo rebecame the main channel , and so remained for about
1 Strabo, x i. 7 . 3. Albania Is the val ley of the Cyrus, the modern Kur, on whichthe p icturesque city of Tifl is Is situated.
2 Vide Chapter LV .
24 H ISTORY OF PERSIA
three centuries,during which it w as lined with
What caused the Oxus to alter its course yet again i sunknown
,as i s also the exact date of the change : but
Anthony Jenkinson, to whom belongs the great honourof being the first Englishman to visit Khiva and Bokhara
,
travell ing In A . .D 1558 , mentions that the Oxus hadchanged -its course and falleth into the lake of Kithay,under which name he obviously refers to the Sea of Aral .1
The nomenclature of the‘
tw o rivers has changedgreat ly during the centuries . Oxus , the name used bythe Greeks
,i s still preserved in Wakhsh-ah
,the Wakhsh
River , which is now one of the upper affluents . At thisperiod the sister river w as termed the Jaxartes . The
medieval Arab conquerors called the tw o rivers Jayhunand Sayhun respectively , apparently adopt ing a corrupt ionof the Gihon and Pison of Genesis i i . 1 1
,13 . Here it
i s interesting to note that the tw o front ier rivers of Ciliciawere given the almost ident ical names of Jayhan and
Sayhan . In bo th cases the second name w as broughtinto a j ingling rhyme with the firs t , j ust as in YajujandMajuj, or Gog and Magog . About the t ime of the
Mongo l irrupt i on the Oxus received its present name ,Amu Daria
,and the Jaxartes became the Sir Daria.
2
The Oxus is the historical r iver of Central Asia, and Irecollect the thrill which I fel t when I first saw its yellowwaters , although where I cro ssed i t at Charj ui or AmuDaria it ran between low banks and the scenery w as byno means striking. Yet I felt that to see the Oxus w as
a great event in my life,and I thought of Matthew
Arno ld ’s noble lines
But the majest ic river floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land,Into the frosty starl ight, and there moved,Rejoicing, t hrough the hush
’d C horasmian w aste,
Under the sol i tarymoon .
Lahes .— Ih the preceding chapter it w as mentioned
Early Voyages and Tra v els to Russia and Persia (Hakluyt Society), i . 68 .
also Chap ter LX II .2 Vide Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, by Guy le Strange, p . 4 34 . This work ISone
which I shall allude to frequent ly, and no s ingle book i s of equal value in connect ion
with the medieval geography of the Caliphate.
26 HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
taken the ent ire discharge of the Helmand in bygonedays . In the spring of 19 1 1 the Shela w as 200 yardsW ide, 30 feet deep and running at about four miles an
hour , a truly formidable vo lume of water . Another of
these hamun is termed the Jaz Morian ,and is formed by
the united discharge of the Bampur and Halil r ivers .
The Persian Gulfi— The south-west and south coastsof Iran are washed by the Persian Gulf. This landlockedbody of water i s seven hundred miles in length
,with a
width varying between three hundred and one hundredand fifty miles . At the Straits of Hormuz , by which itis entered from the Arabian Sea , the width is only thirtyfive miles . It is a shallow depression , and is annuallyreceding . Even since the dawn of history the delta hasadvanced considerably .
1 The sea bo ttom is, for the mostpart , flat or gently undulating , and numerous islands dotthe surface . There are many shoals and reefs , especiallyaround the Bahrein islands . Among its earliest namesWere Nar-Marratum, or the Bitter River ,
”“ The Eastern
Sea”
and the Erythrean Sea. To-day Persians term it
the Gulf of Fars .If the traveller is fortunate , he will enter this land
lo cked sea by moonlight,past Musandam Cape , the black
cliffs of which rise in sombre majesty and bear a decidedlikeness to an anvil
,as the name implies . In the morn ing,
as he steams up the Persian coast , he everywhere beho ldssun-scorched
,serrated ranges
,running parallel to the t rend
of the Gulf and hindering access to the interior . The
shores of Arabia,too
,are sun-stricken and sco rched .
Whenever the steame r stops , the squalor of the roadsteads seems to intensify the ever-present heat : and the
traveller’s only wish is to start again and pass through theuninvit ing region without unnecessary delay .
Yet there is another side,and one that may well stlr
the blood of the most sluggish . No t only are there vagueindications that this torrid Gulf w as the home of a civil ization earlier than anything of which w e know,
but therei s the po ssibility that its w aters witnessed the first attemptsat navigation made by mankind .
1 Vide Chapter I I I .
11 DESERTS,RIVERS
,ETC. 27
Within historical t imes Sennacherib describes in detai lan expedit ion by sea across the head of the Gulf, and , later ,Nearchus keeps a log—book with such curiously modernaccuracy and illuminat ing comment that most of his mooring
—grounds have been ident ified . Farther on in the agesSindbad the Sailo r voyages from Balso ra or Basra
,meet ing
junks from distant China ; and again a new epo ch is bo rn ,
and European fleets appear on its waters . Finally , afterstubborn contests with Po rtugal and Ho lland
,Great
Britain acquires the supremacy and,by cont inuous effort
and at a heavy cost of blood and money , pacifles thispirate- swep t sea
,which Persia has at no period of her
history controlled . To-day the Bri t ish Resident , who sepost i s one of great importance
,is entrusted with the
preservat ion of peace and few people l iving comfortablyat home can real ize how diffi cult the task now is . Addedto the many problems of the past are new ones created bynew conditions . Many of these are of ext reme delicacy ,and they have to be handled in a climate where for at
least half the year l ife is a burden .
The Casp ian Seek— There are few more interestingbodies of water than the Casp ian Sea, which washes thenorthern marit ime provinces of Persia. Its length fromno rth to south is some six hundred miles , and its widththree hundred miles in the northern port ion but muchless in the southern . I t i s d ivided into three dist inctbas ins , that to the north being very shallow owing to the
discharge of the Volga. The middle basin i s deep , but a
submarine ridge runs across it from east to west at a depthof only thirty fathoms. The southern basin is the deepestof all. The harbours as a rule are bad and very shallow .
Few bodies o f water have been called by so manynames, but each of them recalls some interest ing historicalfact . According to Will iams Jackson 1 it may have beenthe Zrayah Vourukasha or
“ Sea of wide Bays”of the
t ime of Zoroaster . The Avesta refers to it as“ The
gathering of waters,
and again as Beyond all watersand undoubtedly it w as the largest body of water withinthe ken of these Aryans . To quit these dim ages of the
1 From Constantinople to tne Home ofOmar Klzayyam, p . 8 3 .
2 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
past , the name by which it is known in Europe i s derivedfrom the Casp i i, a tribe that dwelt on its western shores .But among Persians i t is known as the Bahr-al-Khazar
,
or Sea of the Khazar,from the kingdom o f the Khazars ,
which , in the earlier Middle Ages,existed to the no rth .
O ther names,such as the Sea of Hyrcania and the Sea of
Gilan,have also been used at various periods .
In the days before Herodotus it w as vaguely understood to be a bay of the great Stream of Ocean”surrounding the then known world ; but the
“ Father of
History stated definitely that it w as a sea by itself.”1Later writers
,however
,as the quotat ion from Strabo at
the head of this chapter indicates , bel ieved in an outletstretching away to the dim north
,and the fact that this
belief lasted until the Christian era shows how l ittle advancew as made in the exact knowledge of the wo rld duringthose four centuries .
But the most interest ing problem connected with theCaspian Sea is the fluctuat ion of its level in h istoricalt imes . At present it i s 85 feet below that of the BlackSea. We cannot connect abandoned strands observedby Hunt ington at 600 feet above present Caspian sea
level with any historical period ; but w e do know of a
surprising change in the condit ions prevailing at varioustimes . Hunt ington produces evidence to show,
what i sindeed probable on o ther grounds, that at the t ime of
Alexander the surface of this inland sea w as about 150
feet higher than at present . Asso ciated with this higherlevel w as a vastly larger area
,especially on the east
,where
the Central Asian l ine now runs across what w as oncethe sea-bed of the Caspian . The same observer saw tw o
strands at a po int one hundred miles east of Krasnovodsk ,situated respective ly 250 and 150 feet above the presentsea-level . Indeed
,i t is not certain that the Caspian did
no t at that period include the Sea of Aral .To cont inue our survey , the route up the Oxus w as
abandoned about the beginn ing of the Christ ian era,
almost certainly because o f its change of course , and the
great caravan route between India and the west w as
1 Herodotus, i . 203 .
n DESERTS,RIVERS , ETC. 29
diverted to Abaskun ,a port at the south-east corner of
the Caspian near the mouth of the Gurgan River . The
site of Abaskun is in the ne ighbourhood of Gumesh
Tappa,1 from which runs the great wall known as the
Kizil Alang or Red Wall , or,again ,
as the Barrier ofAlexander , which I have examined in tw o sections .2
O’
Donovan ,w ho visited Gumesh Tappa, states that the
foundat ions of this wall can be traced west unti l theydisappear into the sea
3a caravanserai which lies under
water is also spoken of. At Derbent,where the great
ranges which run acro ss the Caucasus terminate,there is
also a celebrated wall , and this too runs down into the
sea. Finally , one of the sights of Baku is a so lid building,
the towers of which show up above the sea,at some
distance from the present shore.
To summarize , there is no doubt that the waters ofthe Oxus have affected the level of the Caspian but the
evidence collected by Hunt ington tends to prove that thisby itself would no t have been sufficient to cause the greatchanges of which proofs have been given. The Americangeographer bel ieves that this basin has passed through a
double series of great cl imat i c changes during historicalt imes
,
”the climate be ing alternately damper and drier .
At present the tendency is towards dryness,and I have
read recent reports according to which the depth of
water in the Gulf of Krasnovodsk w as decreasing to a
marked extent ; and this decrease w as also noted at
Chikishliar, where ships have to lie three miles fartherout than they did five years ago ,
and in o ther parts . It
the pro cess , which is attributed to a decrease in the volumeof the Volga and o ther rivers , continues, the navigat ionof the Caspian Sea will become a serious problem .
Communications — The quest ion of communications isof such great importance that it is strange it should havebeen ignored by the historian unt il comparat ively recently .
The earl iest great route in Persia ran from Babylon iaup the defiles of the Zagros to Kermanshah and so to
1 This w as the port at wh ich the ex-Shah landed in 19 11 in his attempt to w in
back his throne.
2yournal R.G.S. for January, 19 1 1. Vide also Chapter XXXV I I I .
3 Th M erv Oasis,i . p . 205.
30 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Hamadan,the classical Ecbatana . Under the Achae
menians this royal route indeed ran from Sardes to
Ecbatana and thence to Rhages and so along'
the southernslopes of the Elburz to distant Bactria. It w as along thisroute that Darius retreated before Alexander
,and from
t ime immemorial it has been the chief highway in Asiabetween eas t and west . For farther south lies the greatdesert , and the route passing between the no rthern slopesof the Elburz and the Casp ian w as always very diflicult .
In medieval t imes the great trade thoroughfare fromEurope passed through Tabriz, the Tauris of Marco Po lo .
Then,however , India as well as High Asia w as the goal of
the journey , and so the Venet ians travelled mainly betweenparallel ranges past Yezd and Kerman to Ormuz
,t/ze
empo rium of the Gorgeous East .
As already stated , Pers ia i s exceedingly difli cult to
enter from the Persian Gulf on the south,the Bushirew
Shiraz route be ing one of the very worst in the world .
1
It 13 also difli cult of approach from the Caspian Sea on the
north , from Arabistan on the west , and from Baluchistanon the east . Indeed , few countries are by nature moreiso lated ; while , as if that were no t enough
,the Lut
serves to disintegrate the whole country into scattered,
loosely connected provinces . Perhaps the . eas ies t accessis from the north-west
,where , as already stated
,the great
trade routes from Trebizond and Tiflis un itel
at Tabriz .
The south-east route is also an open one, and as far as
Herat there are no natural difli culties a carriage c an be
easily driven the whole w ay acros s a country without a
mile of made road .
Persian communicat ions are st ill those of an un
developed land , where the mules are the only engineers,
”and , as
"Hogarth aptly po ints out,
2they have relat ively
deteriorated owing to the immense improvements effectedelsewhere . It is indeed discreditable to Persian energythat merchandise i s st ill carried on camels , mules, and
1 To show how the road from Bushire to Shiraz struck Pierre Lot i , I give the
fo l low ing extract from Vers Isfa/zan, p . 3 1Et i l est fou pour sfir mon taclza r 'vadar qui fait m ine de grimper la, qui pousse son
cheva l dans une espece d’
escalier pour chevres, en prétendant que c’
est le cheminOr c
’
est bien 1c chem in en effet,cet escalier inimag inable.
”2 Ti mNearer East
,p . 2 16.
3 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
In those part ies arr no w oodes nor yet trees, no not so muchas one
,except i t be fruite t rees
,w hich they plan te, w hereas they
may w ater them ,for o therw ise they wolde not take .
1
Persia 1s especially rich 1n fruit, which grows to considerable perfection in spi te of the lack of scientific cult ivat ion .
Pears, apples , quinces , aprico ts , black and yellow plums,
peaches , nectarines , cherries , and black and white mulberries are grown everywhere in great abundance . Figs
,
pomegranates , the famous almonds and pistachios growbest in the warmer districts ; and the date-palm
,o range
,
and lime are confined to the Garms ir or Hot Country .
”
The grapes and melons of Persia are famous .The main crops are wheat , barley (which i s the staple
horse food), millet, beans, co tton,op i um
,lucerne
,and .
tobacco . Sesame and other o il seeds grow everywhere, asdo onions , beetroo t , and turnips . Rice and maize are as
a rule grown extensively only ln the Ho t Country,or in
the Caspian provinces . Potatoes , cabbages , cauliflow ers,
art ichokes , tomatoes , cucumbers , sp inach , egg- plants
,
lettuces, and radishes are the chief vegetables but manyof them are no t regularly grown . For instance
,when I
first l ived in Kerman , po tatoes were hard to procure , andcauliflow ers and tomatoes were almost unknown : but,
thanks mainly to European co lon ies at various centres,
there has been some improvement in this respect o f lateyears .
The products of the Persian hills are not to be
desp ised . An edible thistle,rhubarb
,and large mush
rooms are all addit ions to the table ; manna,highly
esteemed by the Persian faculty, exudes from the Corone
aster nummalarz’
a ; and taranjaoin, a similar product , fromthe camel - thorn . Manna i s also collected from the
tamarisks which grow in the water- courses . The valuablecarraway seeds are found more especially in the Kermanprovince “
to take carraway seeds to Kerman”i s a
proverb . Finally,the odoriferous asafoetida is highly
valued in India by the Hindus , and it i s of interest to
note that Arriam,on the authority of Aristobulus ,
2
1 Josafa Barbaro (Hak luyt Society),.
p. 7 1.2 Chinnock
’
s Arrian,Bk. II . chap. xxv i i i . p . 198 .
11 DESERTS , RIVERS , ETC. 3 3
ment ions its existence on the Hindu Kush,and the fact
that sheep were very fond of it .
In the Caspian provinces the contrast in vegetation isextraordinary . There everything is luxuriant , and owingto the humidity elms , beeches , oaks , maples , ash, l imes , andother trees , including the valuable box , grow to perfect ion .
I shall never forget the wild vines festooning the trees,the
ferns, and above all the carpet ing of snowdrops
,which I
saw near Astrabad . Violets , too ,and primroses flourish
luxuriantly . The flora, it i s to be observed , i s no t a tropicalone rather it i s that of Southern Europe and of the
Caucasus . Its intensity is due to the pro tection from all
co ld and to the abundance of mo i sture . Along the shoresof the Persian Gulf the cl imate is very ho t and dry , and thedate palm is a pleasing
, though rare , feature of the landscape . At Minab , however, near Bandar Abbas , there are
extensive date plantat ions , and in Persian Baluchistan theseaffo rd relief to the eyes in a country which is almostentirely desert .
To conclude this brief no tice,lucerne
,M ea
’ieago saliv a
or Heroa M ediea,w as introduced into Europe from Persia,
as w e learn from Pliny .
1 Moreover, Sir G . Birdwoodconsiders that M azanderan w as the primeval habitat of thevine
,and the legend
,
of the discovery of wine given inChapter XII . supports this theory . The peach , the nectarine
, j asmine , l ilac , and myrtle were also of Persian origin,
and have retained the ir Persian names .2 Finally w e know1 Vida Pliny
, H.N . xv iii . 14 4 ,“ medica (herba) externa etiam Graeciae est, ut a
Medis advecta per bel la Persarum quae Darius intulit .”
2 I at tach a valuable note wh ich has been drawn up by Sir George Birdwood“ The fo l lowing l ist of the more notable fruit-trees, flowering p lants , and cu l inary
vegetab les , natives of M edia and Persia that have become widely naturalized in Europe,
I have restricted for the most part to those of them that have retained among us theirPers ian names
1. App le. I ts name is said to be taken from Ave llana in Campan ia [which indeedgave its Lat in name to F i lberts (Nux A v ellana”, and its Pers ian name certain ly is sib
but considering that nearly all the Central As ian and European names of th is tree beginwith ab, af;ap , and a fv
,it is Open to conj ecture that Avel la took its name from
,rather
than gave it to, the
‘Apple.
’
2 . Apricot, or Apricock . I ts name comes to us through the Lat in p raeeogaus andt
Greek flepixoxxov, a corrupt ion of the Arab ic a l-berkak and is u ltimately traceable to theOld Pers ian pat /1am,
we l l-cooked,’ well-ripe.
’
3 . Asparagus. I ts name goes back,through the Greek, to the Old Persian spa rega .
“4 and 5. Chestnut and Fig. Both these fruit-trees are nat ives of Media and Persia,
but there is no trace of Persian in their Eng lish names the Chestnut, she most magn ificent of natural ized European trees , taking its name from Castanum in Thessaly ; andthe Fig its name from the Lat infi cus, a word of untraceab le origin .
VOL. I
34. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
that Persians of all classes , from the monarch downwards,
took great pride 1n laying out gardens and m the cult ivation of fruit .
Fauna — The fauna of Persia 1 include the t iger in the
Caspian provinces , the Hyrcan tiger of Shakespe
and the almost ext inct l ion of the South—West provinof which I saw a dead specimen floating down the
In the north the bear is the arctos and in the so
syriacus ,but they are rare . Wo lves, leopards ,
lynxes , Wild cats , foxes , and jackals exist i n consnumbers . Magnificent stags and roebuck roam t
of the Caspian provinces , and the fallow deer isthe Zagros on the confines of Mesopo tamia.
usual quarry in the hills are the wild sheepwhich are found throughout Persia and at every elevation .
The wild boar,probably the most plent iful game
,i s
l i ttle shot,as according to Moslem law its meat cannot
be eaten . It swarms in the Casp ian fo rests , and m every
6. C itron . I ts specific botanical name,Citrus M edica
,
‘the M edian App le ’
of
Greeks and Roman s,refers direct ly to its narrowly localized native habitat , M edia.
7 . Gherkin . I ts name i s derived, through the Dutch agurkzji, a corrupt ion of the
Arab ic a l-Higar, from the Persian K/zyar a cucumber.
’ With us the gherkin is a youngcucumber.
8 . Jargonel le. I ts name is probably derived through French and Dutch from the
Pers ian z argun,‘g .
’
olden“
9 and 10 . Lemon and Orange . Although the orange and lemon are aboriginal lynat ives of the North-Western extension of the Indo-Caucas ian region , their names are
derived,through French and I tal ian ,
from the Persian na ringi and limun, respectively.In Europe the in it ial ‘n of naringi w as dropped ; and so instead of say ing a narangiw e say
‘an orange — just as w e say
‘a newt ’ for ‘an ew t .
’
1 1 . Lilac. I ts name is,through Span ish and Turkish, the Pers ian Illa.
12 . Myrt le. I ts name,through O ld French and Lat in and Greek, is the
Pers ian murd .
1 3 and 14 . Narcissus . I ts name is derived in dictionaries quite correct ly through Latinfrom the Greek yap/( w oos, unchanged ; but they fai l to add that the Greek name of
th is lovel iest of l il ies is derived from the Pers ian na r/eis,
narcot ic.
’
15. Nectarine . I ts name comes to us, through Latin and Greek, direct from the
Pers ian superlat ive form of nit,
‘good,
’
nitrar [our‘nectar
‘better,
’and niktarin
best ,’ and it is the best of fruits.16 . Orange. See 9 , Lemon.
17 . Peach. I ts name i s a corruption through the Lat in M alum Persicum of the
Greek,ufihov Hepamc
’
w, or‘Persian App le ’
; and s ign ifi es the ‘Pers ian’
fruit par
excellence.
18 . P istachio. I ts name, through the C reek, is the Persian p ista .
19 . Sp inach. I ts name,through French, Span ish, and Arabic, is the Persian
i spanaj, and has nothing to do w ith Sp ina ’or Spain .
’
“20 . Wa lnut . I ts name is simp le ‘Teutonic-Engl ish ’
and means ‘The Foreignnut .
’
Compare the word Welsh. ’1 The best book dealing with th is subject, and one of the most del ightful books on
sport ever written, is Lieut .-Co lonel R . L. Kennion’
s By M ountain,Lake, and Plan:
Sport in Eastern Persia .
F rom a p /zotog rafili by M ajor ]. I/V. Wa tson .
OVIS V IGNEI ARCAL , 3 8 INCHES .
(Sho t by the Author. )
I , DESERTS, RIVERS , ETC. 35
range or river bed where there is any cover avai lable .
The plains are the haunt of gazelles , and the wild ass
inhabits the vicinity of the salt marshes and 1s occasionallycaptured and ridden . Hares are generally scarce owingto lack of cover .
To turn to domest ic animals,Persia
,or rather Media,
w as the home of the Nisaean horse referred to in ChapterX . The cattle
,which are very small and underfed , are
the Bos tanrns . The humped cat tle, Bos inelieas, are met
with in the Caspian provinces and in Sistan. The buffalois common in the Casp ian provinces and in Arabis tan,
butis rarely seen on the plateau
,which is not suitable for it .
The fat- tailed sheep , Ov i s a r ies s teatopyga , i s the sheep of
Persia . The tail weighs up to 19 pounds in the latespring
,but shrinks away during the winter . There i s
but one species of goat— Capra lzireus , with its valuablekart or down from which the finest fabrics are woven .
The one-humped camels of Khorasan are famous for theirstrength
,and the dromedaries of Baluchis tan for their
speed . The tw o-humped Bactrian camel is occasionallyseen in caravans travelling in Northern Persia.
The game birds include bustard of three species, therare snow—cock, which is found only on the summits of
mountains above 9000 feet , and pheasants of more thanone species .1 The common birds of the plateau are
partridges of tw o species ; the Pera’ix p ondieeranns,
a thirdspecies
,i s confined to the south . The francolin i s some
what rare in the Caspian provinces , but abounds in the
Jiruft valley and elsewhere in the “ Hot Country of
Southern Persia wherever there i s scrub . Sand-grouse of
three species are to be found but the “ Imperial is themost common on the plateau . In the Gurgan valley Ihave seen thousands of p in
—tai led sand-grouse . Duck,
mainly mallard,teal
,and snipe appear in fai r quantities
in the winter and quail are snared ln the spring . Pigeonsare plentiful everywhere 1n the vicinity o f cult ivat ion .
1 The authorities of the Natural H istory Museum have named the pheasants of theGurgan Val ley persicus as opposed to the pr incipalis which is found on the Hari Rud.
They also consider the Talish pheasant to be a distinct species and have named i tta lzsclzenis. Specimens of the tw o former Species have been shot by me and presentedto the Natural H istory Museum .
36 HISTORY or PERSIA
Of non - game birds,
eagles,hawks
,and vultures
abound . The b ee-eater, the hoopoe , and the blue jay
make the spring and summer bright ; and the crow,
raven,chough
,magpie
,starling
,sparrow
,lark
,and w agtail
are common . Scarcely less so are the n ight ingale , thethrush
,and warblers of various species . Night ingales are
caught in large numbers and kept in cages . Finally , inthe Caspian provinces every water bird is to be found .
The same is true in a les ser degree of Sistan,where the
no ise of their wings resembles surf beating on a shore .
Near Meshed pelicans are common ,and I have o ccasionally
seen swans,which
,with geese
,abound in Sistan .
and , owing to-
the lack '
of r go od commun ications , no
e ffort has been made in modern times to
work the mines . In ancient ‘
days at w as o therwise .
1
De
Morgan po ints out that in the old wo rld there were tw o
centres of 1nventions in metallurgy the o ldest w as Elam,
whose mountains .were ri ch in copper , and the second w as
Central Asia.
1 It thus appears probable that the earl iestmetal age depended on these mines
,which were perhaps
the first ever worked by man and which,so far as I know
,
have not yet. been rediscovered . In this connexion it is
to be noted that the earliest metal age in Babylon ia w as
a copper and not a bronze age , there be1ng no t 1n m inesto w hich the pr1m1t1ve m1ners had access .
‘
To turn to the Assyrian inscriptions , the stone mostfreq uently connected with Media w as the highly—prizedlapis lazuli , which is
‘ ment ioned as be ing found in MountDemavand ; indeed , in the Assyrian inscriptions , MountBikni
,as ' it w as termed
,is described as a mountain of
U/enu or lap i s lazuli .2 But nothing is known as to the
locality of:
this mine , which must have been one of the
most ancient in the world .
Other metals of classical t imes were iron ,lead , go ld ,
1 litudes sur la pre’nistoire et l
’lzistoire
,p . 169 . The v iew that the copper age of
Sumer, Akkad, and Elam w as of greater ant iqu ity than that of Egypt is supported byProfessor Gowland in The M etals in Antiquity ,”yourn. Antlzrop . Instit. vol. x l i i . , 19 12.
2 Vide Tbc Passing of tile Emp ires, by Sir G . M aspero,p . 453 . De Morgan in his
M e'
moires sur la Delegat ion en Perse, vol. v i i i . p . 53, states that lap is lazul i w as originallyworked near Kashan
,wh ich is not so very far distant from Demavand . The s ite of
the m ine is unknown.
DESERTS,RIVERS
, ETC . 3 7
and silver . The topaz , emerald , sapphire , and co rnelianwere the precious stones . It has to be remembered inconsidering the wo rkings of the ancient mines that the
labour w as probably that . of prisoners or slaves w ho weregiven the scantiest fare and who se life w as of very lit tlevalue . Also it is improbable that the cost of even thisvery cheap labour w as carefully reckoned against the out
put of ore , w hich In all probability could no t be procuredelsewhere . Consequently depo sits were then workedwhich to - day, from a combination of economic reasons
,
are quite valueless .Shah Abbas tried to work the mines of Persia,
apparently with free labour,but found that the cost w as
greater than the profit . Tavern ier, w ho travelled in the
middle of the seventeenth century , ment ions that “the
silver mines of Kerven where they spend ten to get n inehad become a proverb . This has been the invariableexperience down to the English Mining Corporat ion ,
Which found minerals in plenty but failed to make them
pay, mainly owing to lack of good communicat ions andof fuel .Iron
,copper
,lead
,mercury
,coal
,Si lver
,go ld
,
manganese,borax
, asbestos , turquo ises , and petroleumexi st in various parts of the country . No attempt i s
now made,so far as I know
,to wo rk the iron ; bu t the
copper mines behind Sabzawar are worked,as also mines
which I visited on the eastern edge of the Lut . At KalaZarri
, as these mines are termed,I found deep cutt ings
and series of galleries connected by shafts some 50 feetdeep . No ment ion i s made of these mines by Moslemwriters . The fort which guards them does no t appear tobe of extreme ant iquity
,and i t 1 is interest ing to speculate
as to their origin .
1 Lead,mercury
,Si lver, go ld , manganese,
and bo rax are no t wo rked to - day so far as I am aware ;but coal is extracted regularly near Teheran and Meshed .
In the cas e of Meshed,although the mines are only a few
miles from the city, the pr i ce works out at about £ 4 per
ton . Yet the belt seems to be very extensive,and m a
1 Ten Thousand M iles, eta , p . 4 12 . I s it possible that these mines were worked inconnexion with the fi rst copper age ? The distance wou ld ap pear to make this theoryuntenable, but yet no m ines have been found In the up lands of Elam .
3 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP. 11
country where fuel can be grown only by means of
i rrigat ion an abundant supply of cheap coal would be of
enormous benefit to all classes .Finally there i s the q uestion .of petro leum . In 1907;
at a po int thirty miles east of Shuster,successful borings
were made and the industry is now be ing developed .
This o il- bearing zone is believed to run from the
Caucasus to the Persian Gulf, where there i s o il in the
island of Kishm,and borings were once made , without
success , at Daliki near Bushire . In the Gulf, wherecommunicat ions by water affect the situation favourably ,red ochre i s found in large quant ities
,and is worked in
Ho rmuz,Bu Musa, and Halul salt is mined in Kishm
and sulphur is worked intermittently to the east and
west of Lingah .
To conclude,i f Persia were opened up by railways ,
it is probable that mines which are now quite valuelesswould become remunerat ive and would contribute to the
prosperity of the country .
HEADP I ECE or GLAZED STONEWARE .
(From s ta tue of E lamite p eriod . De Morgan’
s Delega t ion , etc.)
CHAPTE R II I
THE GEOGRAPHY OF ELAM AND BABYLON IA
And i t came to pass, as they journeyed from the east , that they found a
plain ln the land of Sh inar and they dwelt there .— G enesis xi . 2 .
Early Civ iliza tion — It is generally accepted that civilization first came into existence in the val leys of the greatrivers of the world
,and thence spread gradually into the
mountains which bordered them . The dweller in such a
valley would usually be assured of his food supply so longas he t illed the land . H e would also enjoy the inestimable benefits of intercourse by river as well as by land ;and intercourse is certainly an important factor in the
foundation of civilizat ion .
Moreover , the valley w as , and IS,the permanent centre
of the life of a country for periodical droughts , such as
o ccur all over the world,would drive the pasto ral dwel lers
in the mountains down to the valleys , where the perennialrivers would
, at any rate , save them and their flocks fromdying by thirst . Even to-day the primit ive nomad of
Sarhad,on the eastern borders of Persia, migrates when
ever drought dries up the scanty springs in his barren hillsand I have seen families driving their flocks and herds toSistan just as the patriarchs under similar condit ions tookrefuge in Egypt . Indeed it is certain that from t imeimmemorial the influence of drought has been enormous
39
HISTORY OF PERSIA cu s p .
in determining m1grati9 ns and yet , unt i l quite recent ly ,this question has not been studied by the historian withthe at tent ion its importance merits .
In the eastern hemisphere there i s a broad belt of
desert , which runs from the Atlant i c Ocean across theno rth of Africa to Asia . There it is cont inued in the
deserts of Arabia, and farther eastw ards,with a northerly
trend , to the paralysing waste of the great desert of Persia .
Indeed deserts extend nearly acro ss Asia to the YellowSea. At the po int where the low —lying Arabian desertgives place to the high- lying plateau of Iran the waters ofthe Euphrates , the Tigris
,and the Karun
,at the t ime
when our survey commences,flowed into the Persian Gulf
by separate mouths . This region,with its great navigable
rivers runn ing approximately from north to south into thelandlocked Persian Gulf, IS one which IS of great naturalimportance , and to i t our at tent ion must now be turned .
Nowhere else throughout the ent ire world do greatrivers discharge into a landlo cked sea . Nowhere elsecould be found in equal degree those favourable condit ionswhich were required for the early beginn ings of civi lization . The great rivers of Babylon ia made cult ivationeasy , and provided faci lities of communication by riverand in the Gulf.
In these valleys then the civilizat ion of the world as Weknow it took shape . China and the Far East were remo teand made progress on the i r ow n distinct ive lines at a laterdate . Egypt , although it developed in a similar w ay and
i s bel ieved to have derived its marvellous civil izat ion inpart from Semit ic sources , w as shut in by natural obstacles .Moreover, the Nile discharged into an open sea and
,
consequently,its influence in those early days did no t pass
beyond its sandy deserts . Thus w e have Babylonia as the
centre , but afl’ecting an area which extended to the Mediterranean on the one hand and included Persia on the
o ther . The influence during the period o f its greatnessw as Semitic , although , as w ill be shown, Sumer and Akkadwere not by any means ent irely Semit i c . A second and
later fact of capital importance is the Aryan influence ,which included Central Asia and the Iranian plateau . The
GEOGRAPHY OF ELAM 8: BABYLONIA 4 1
effect upon the world of o ther countries is secondary andaccessory to that of these tw o centres .1
Elam,the Home of the Earliest Civ i lizati on of Persia .
For the reasons j ust stated w e do not seek for the earliestcivilizat ion of Persia on its plateau
,where there are no
importan t rivers . In the whole of the vast area o f Iranthere i s , as w e have seen
,but one navigable river, the
Karun,and it is in its valley that w e find the earliest
civilizat ion in what w as generally known as the kingdomof Elam . This w as a state bordering on ancient Sumerand Akkad like them situated , partly at any rate , on a
rich alluvial plain,faced with somewhat similar problems ,
leading a similar life,and
,i f not related in s imilarity of
origin or in language, ye t connected from the first by raids
and counter-raids,and later on by intercourse of every
descript ion . I propose,in the first place, to ascertain
what has been discovered about these ne ighbouring landsof hoary antiquity . Next I propose , so far as i s possible,to trace briefly the history of Elam
,no t only independ
ently but as forming one of these very ancient states .Later , w e shall come down to the period when the inhabitants of the Iran ian plateau conquered these developedcivilizat ions , which , in thei r turn ,
deeply affected the irconquero rs
,w ho adopted the arts and civil izat ion of
Babylon ia and of Elam,and made the ir chief capital at
Susa, the centre of the o ldest ' civil izat ion in what is st illthe Persian Empire .
Physical Changes in Elam and Babylonia since the Daw n
of History.—The formation of the great alluvial valleys
of the Euphrates,Tigri s
,and Karun has already been
referred to briefly 1n the first chapter . Here it i s important to consider what w as the ir physical condi t ion i n the
fourth millennium B.0. when historical civil izat ion w as
dawn ing In those regions,and again at later periods
,for
few countries have seen greater physical changes .The first po int to no te i s that the coast has advanced
enormously,and that it then lay about one hundred and
twenty miles farther north than to-day. The impo rtance
1 In dealing with these very early periods I am especial ly indebted to King ’s Sumerand Akkad
,and to de Morgan ’
s works.
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
of this . fact canno t be overestimated , and it must be bornein mind in considering every quest ion in these early days ;moreover
,i t c1rcumscribes the area in which these epoch
making events o ccurred . It must also be reco llected thatland
’
recently. formed by deltai c act ion is generally of l itt leagricultural
' or o ther value .
The R ivers of Babylonia and Elam — At the earl iesthisto rical period in Babylon ia and in Elam the riverswhich were the makers of the country were those whichexist to -day but the ir courses were somew hat differen t
,
and they all reached the Persian Gulf independently byone or more mouths .
The Eup hra tes .-Starting from the west , the Euphrates ,
st i ll termed the Frat,w hich rises in the Taurus no t very
far from the Tigris,followed a course in its lower reaches
to the east of the bed it now occupies,and thus diminished
the area of Babylonia as compared with to d ay for the
country to the west has always been in historical t imeshopelessly sterile . The Euphrates , which , unlike its sisterriver Tigris , rece ives no tributaries of any value , playeda greater part in the earl iest stages of civil izati ;on its
banks be ing lower, its stream less swift , and its waters
falling more slowly during the summer . I t is thus not
surprising to find that no t only Babylon but every city of
Sumer and Akkad,with the so le exception of Op is , .
w as
s ituated on the Euphrates or on one of its offshoo ts . Its
waters discharged by tw o main branches,on the southern
of w hich Ur of the Chaldees w as the great emporiumfor trade moving east and west ; but it does no t appearthat at this very early period there w as any commercewith India.
1
The Tigr is .—We next come to the Tigris ,2 which ,
rising near Diarbekr,rece ives constant accessions from the
rivers drain ing the Zagros, of which the Great and the
1 Kennedy demonstrates that the trade between Baby lon ia and India arose at the
commencement of the seventh century B .C . w ide his Ear ly Commerce of Baby lon w ithInd1a journal }? A s. Soc. 18 98 , art . xvi .
2 The earl ies t name for the river w as the Sumerian Idigna , sem it ized by theBabylon ians as Diglat, which occurs under the form of the form H iddekel In Gen . i i .
14 . The mean ing of the orig inal name is uncertain, but it w as assim i lated by thePers ians to the word Tighra, an arrow (the same word as tigh, the modern Pers ian for a
razor), from which the G reek form Tigris is derived. To-day it is termed the Dijla,the Arabic form of the Baby lonian Diglat .
GEOGRAPHY OF ELAM 8: BABYLONIA 4 3
Lesser Zab are among the most impo rtant . I t pursuedits rapid course parallel to the Euphrates for somehundreds of miles and discharged independently manymiles east of the s ister river . Owing to its high banksand rapid current
,none of the earliest settlements were
formed near i t ; moreover , dwellers on the Tigris wouldbe more exposed to attack than dwellers on the Euphrates .It carried
,and indeed st ill carries
,a larger volume of water
to the Persian Gulf than the Euphrates,which is no t
navigable for steamers .The Kortha — We now come to the river on the left
bank of which Susa, the capital of Elam , w as si tuated .
Known as the Uknu,and by the Greeks as the Choaspes , i t
springs from Mount Nahavand , where it flows near thero ck inscriptions of Bisitun under the name of Gamas iab .
Ever an impetuous r iver,it rushes through the dehles of
Luristan and does not appear as the Kerkha,so called from
a town of that name on its right bank , unti l the plain isreached . In early days it discharged into the PersianGulf, but its waters are now lo st in the swamps of
Hawizeh .
The Ah-i-D iz .—The Ididi
,known as the Koprates in
classical t imes and as the Ab- i-Diz to day, rises in the
mountains of Luristan near Buruj ird . After be ing jo inedby ano ther r iver called the Kazki , it flows past Dizfuland jo ins the Karun ,
of which it is the main affluent , atBand i—Kir .
The Karun.— The Ulai , termed Euloeus by the Greeks
and Pasitigris or the Lesser Tigris”by Nearchus,w as
named Dujayal by the Arabs .1 I t is now the Karun ,
and
at the fourth millennium before Christ flowed into the
Persian Gulf at a po int near the modern Ahwaz , wherewhat Is now a prom i nent ro cky ridge w as at a st ill moreremote period an island 1n the Persian Gulf.
In the heart of the Bakhtiari country there is a culminat ing mass o f ranges . From this , on one s ide ,springs the Zenda Rud
,which runs east to Isfahan
,while
on the sou thern slope the Karun takes its rise . From1 Lands of the Ea stern Calipha te, pp. 232 ff. Dujayal meaas
“ Lesser Dljla and isthus the equ ivalent of Pas it igris.
4 4 HISTORY OF PERSIA
its source the Karun dashes down at an incredible speed,
falling 9000 feet before it reaches Shuster . On its w ayit passes through some of the grandest scenery in the
world. The rugged mountain gorges are frequently inaccess ible and the river appears like a riband thousands offeet below . At one po int the gorge is so narrow that itcan be j umped by an o rdinarily act ive man. The riverflows in every direct ion by turn
,and often parallel t o its
o riginal course . Indeed the windings between its sourceand Shuster measure tw o hundred and fifty miles
,although
as the crow fl ies the distance is less than one- third of thisto tal .
The Karun— or rather i ts art ificial branch , the Ab- iGargar— i s navigable from a few miles below Shuster
,
Where the mountains end . At this po int the banks are
very high and the bed i s narrow . Unt i l the Ab- i-Dizj o ins it
,there is no appearance of a fine river . Through
out , the plain is abso lutely treeless and the inhabitants arenomads of a dist inc tly low type . The navigable portionof the river is bisected by the natural barrage at Ahwaz
,
where steamers are changed,and the lower reach is ex
tremely un in terest ing and tortuous unt il the date grovesaround its mouth are reached . At a po int some tw o milesabove Mohamera there i s an old channel known
,
as the
Bahmeshir which connects with the Persian Gulf directand has been navigated . The present channel , termedthe Haffar
,by which the Karun j o ins the Shatt—ul—Arab ,
is generally bel ieved to be artifi cial . To—day the Karun ,
which increases at its mouth to a width of nearly half amile
,discharges its waters into the maj esti c Shatt-ul—Arab
and adds sensibly to i ts width .
<5At the earliest historical period w e thus have the chief
rivers directly connected with the Persian Gulf, each forming a separate delta and bringing dow n millions of tons ofso i l . This fact and the shorter courses of the rivers madefor the quicker format ion of land than the condit ions ofthe present day. It is also probable that the rainfall inthe hills w as heavier
,and the quantity of mud—laden water
consequently greater .The Exp edi tion of Sennacherib.
— In the seventh century
THE FLEET OF SENNACHERIB .
(From 511“ A. H . Layard’
s .Monn inen ts of N ineveh . )
111 GEOGRAPHY OF ELAM 8c BABYLONIA 4 5
B .C . or, to be more exact , in 694 B .C . , there is a detailedaccount given by Sennacher ib of a campaign which hewaged against the Chaldeans , w ho had taken refuge inthe towns of the sea-coast of Elam . This is of the
utmost value from the geographical po int of view .
1 The
Great Assyrian describes how he sent for Hittites to
Nineveh to build great ships in the manner of the ircountry . This flo ti lla w as constructed part ly on the
Euphrates and partly on the Tigris . The ships built onthe Tigris were rowed down to Opis and thence draggedon ro llers to the Euphrates by thei r crews of Tyrians
,
Sidonians , and Greeks . The united fleet then moveddown the Euphrates to the port of Bab—salimeti , distanta few miles from its mouth , which has a truly modernArabic ring and means the Gate of (divine) Mercies .”
There the camp w as flooded by a high t ide,and for five
days the army w as cooped up in the ships . The fleetw as then go t ready, and when it w as about to startSennacherib sacrificed vict ims to Ea, God of the Abyss
,
on the shore of the “ Bi tter R iver,”into which he also
threw a go lden model Of a ship,a fish made of so l id gold
,
and a go lden ring .
The expedit ion proceeded acro ss the head of the
Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Karun River , a distanceof perhaps one hundred miles if there were no mudislands to be avo ided . The force w as landed on the firstfirm ground
,probably close to Ahwaz . The surprise
w as complete,various town were sacked , and the
Chaldean settlements were broken up , after which the
Assyrians loo ted the country towards the delta of the
Tigris, and finally returned in triumph to the presence of
the Great Monarch,w ho had prudent ly remained behind
at Bab—salimeti .
The Voyage of Nearchus .— Clo se on four centuries
after this memorable expedit ion,namely in 3 25 B.C . , w e
have a st ill more valuable description of the head of the
Persian Gulf from Nearchus , the intrepid admiral of
Alexander the Great,whose high place in the roll of
1 Maspero, The Passing of the Emp ires, p. 301 ; also de Morgan , M e’
moires,etc.
,
vol. i. p . 17.
4 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA
fame w as w on not only by the then unparalleled featof conducting a fleet of river - built ships from Karachiacross the Arabian Sea and up the Persian Gulf to Susa
,
but also by his accurate observat ions , which have fortunatelybeen preserved to us in the pages of Arrian .
The Greek admiral ment ions the fact that betweenthe mouths of the Euphrates and the Tigris there lay at
the period of his famous journey a lagoon into which theTigris then discharged . Of st ill greater interest withreference to Elam is his statement that one hundred and
fifty stadias”,or seventeen miles , from the mouth of the
Karun the bridge of boats leading from Persepo lis toSusa is reached .
1 He adds that this po int w as sixhundred stadia, o r sixty-eight miles
,from Susa . As this
is the exact distance from Susa to the modern Ahwaz,
which no t only lies on the direct Susa—Behbehan—Persepolisroute
,but is Situated at a po int where the famous natural
barrage facil itates a cro ssing,the identification of this
centre is of primary importance for, working down fromit
, w e can accurately fix the posit ion of the coast .
‘
To
day, if w e measure the distance of seventeen miles downstream from Ahwaz , w e come to Kut Omeirah
,which
thus in the fourth century B .C . lay at the mouth of the
River Karun . To cont inue our ident ificat ions,the
mouth of the Tigris lay six hundred stadia, or sixty-eightmiles
,from that of the Karun ,
and the mouth of the
Euphrates w as situated three thousand stadia, or threehundred and forty miles, be low Babylon itself, also a fixedpo int . This works out at some seven miles above Kurna .
Here or hereabouts w as the mouth of the Euphrates at
that period .
Taking then these observat ions of Nearchus,which ;
not only are those of an autho r on whom rel iance can be
placed,but are corroborated in o ther ways , w e have a
sufficiently accurate delineat ion of the coast — line at a
most important period . For,if w e take the earl iest
historical era of Babylonia to be the middle of the fourthmillenn ium ,
from that period to the present day i s about
1 I t is owing to this statement that it can be laid down that Ahwaz w as at or nearthe mouth Of the Karun at the t ime Of the earl ier expedit ion .
4 s HISTORY or PERSIA
the site of modern Kho rramabad,and of o ther large
walled cities scattered about in the fertile valleys to the
north of the plain .
At Ahwaz , as already ment ioned, is the natural barrage .
Indeed the site has been of great importance from veryancient t imes . The present name i s abbreviated fromSuk-al-Ahwaz
,sign ify ing the “ Market of the Huz or
Khuz . Modern Ahwaz is l ittle more than a V illagesi tuated on the left bank above the rap ids
,with Nasiri
,
developed by English enterprlse, below the rapids, opposite
to Aminia, the port on the right bank . But,if the
po tent ial wealth of Arabistan be developed,Ahwaz will
regain its former pro sper i ty .
Shuster , too ,with its picturesque castle
,is historically
of great interest , as in A .D . 260 the Emperor Valerian,
w ho fell into the hands of Shapur I . as narrated in
Chapter XXXVI . , w as employed,according to Persian
historians,to build the great weir across the river . This
wei r sti ll stands , though at the t ime of my visi t in 18 96 a
great gap in the centre had destroyed its usefulness . The
cl imate of Shuster , as ment ioned in the previous chap ter,
i s terribly ho t . Ahwaz I found comparatively coo l,with
a maximum temperature of In medieval t imes itw as o therwise, and the climate of Ahwaz
,owing to the
large amount of cul t ivated land , w as damp and , accordingto Mukaddasi , execrable for hot winds blew all day, and
by night the no ise of the rushing water, the mo squitoes ,and bugs which “ bite like wo lves”rendered sleepimpossible .
Some thirty miles north-west of Shuster , near the riverKerkha but actually on the left bank of the l i ttle riverShaur (a co rrupt ion of Shapur), lie the mounds of Sus
,
the site of Susa, which will be described in detail lateron . Farther no rth , on the main route leading to the
mountains , is Dizful , or the Bridge Fort ,”which derives
its name from a second splendid example of Sasanian workthat spans the Ab- i-Diz .
Some sixty miles to the south-east of Shuster is thesmall mountain plain of Malamir, which contains remark
1 Ten Thousand M iles, etc., p. 253 .
111 GEOGRAPHY OF ELAM s. BABYLONIA 4 9
able bas- reli efs . This district w as apparently that of the
Hapardip , and the large mound on the eastern part of
the plain w as probably the capi tal , Tarrisha. Most o f thefigures in the ro ck sculptures have no inscript ions ; butone of them forms a happy except ion
,and w e learn that
it w as chiselled in honour of a certain Prince Khanni,whose
effigy dominates the scene,the figures of a priest , of the
attendants , and of the sacrificial rams being dispropo rt ionately small . Above these t iny figures three mus iciansmarch in procession .
1 Ruins of the Sasan ian period havealso been discovered ; and to the north-west are the
remains of the famous bridge Khurrah Zéid,
2so named
after the mo ther of Ardeshir,the founder o f the Sasan ian
dynasty .
Ram Hormuz on the Ahwaz-Behbehan road w as alsoa site of antiquity
,its founder under its present name be ing
Hormuz,grandson of Ardeshir . It w as also celebrated
as the site of the last and dec isive battle which sealed thefortunes of the house of Sasan and ended the Parthiandynasty . It is probable that all these sites
,and others l ike
Band-i-Kir are extremely ancient , and that the Sasan ianand medieval remains cover Elamite foundations.x The Na tural Fertili ty of Elam— I n med ieval timesKhuzistan, as it w as then termed , w as perhaps the mostfert ile province of Persia, itS '
sugar-cane being especially
celebrated. But an influx . of nomads, fo llowing on ruthlessconques t , has destroyed a once teeming populat ion, whichdepended for its living on the splendid irrigation works .This system of canals every government unt i l comparatively recent t imes kept in order, ev en if it did not
enlarge it bu t now ancient Elam,like Babylon ia, awaits
the engineer w ho, given a free hand and a stable government
, cou ld in a few years, as in Egypt or on a st illlarger scale in the Panjab
,settle mill ions of prosperous
peasantry on land which now supports only a few thousandnomads and the ir flocks.
The Boundaries of Babylonia— Having given some
account of the province of Elam both in ancient and
1 The Passing of the Emp ires, p. 22 8 als o Etudes, p. 22 rfote 3 .2 The Lands of the Ea stern Caliphate, p. 245.
VOL . I
50 HISTORY OF PERSIA cw .
modern times, I now turn to Babylonia. As alreadyexplained
,owing to the much greater northern extension
o f the Pers ian Gulf and the more easterly course of the
Euphrates,Babylonia w as formerly of smaller extent than
the study of a modern map would lead the student to
suppose . On the no rth , the natural division w as one
between the dead level plain and the slightly undulat ingcountry, which would be represented by a l ine drawn fromnear Samarra on the Tigris to H it on the Euphrates .On the east the Tigris w as the boundary when Elamw as strong ; but when Elam w as weak Babylonia ocenpied fert ile districts to the east of the river . On the west ,the Euphrates w as a natural boundary and defence ; and
on the south lay the Persian Gulf. Canon Rawlinsoncalculates the area as be ing rather less than that of the
Netherlands .1
M eaning of Sumer and .dhhad.— Before proceeding
farther it would seem desirable to explain the var i ousterms used in connexion with this anc i ent country . Atthe very earliest period it w as referred to simply as The
Land .
”At a later but st ill early period the name Sumer
w as appl ied to the district at the head of the Persian Gulf,and Akkad w as the neighbouring district to the northeast . There w as no marked geographical or other d ivisionbetween the tw o countries : 2 but Erech , Ur , Larsa, and
Umma formed part of Sumer , which is referred w a s the
land of Shinar in the book of Genesis ,3 the verse running,“ And the beginning of his (se. Nimrod’s) kingdomBabel , and Erech , and Accad , and Calneh, in the land of
Shinar.” Akkad or Agade , on the o ther hand , had Sippar,Kish
,Babylon ,
and Borsippa within its boundaries .Chaldea and Babylonia .
— The term Chaldea w as
formerly used in referring to this ancient land ; butRawlinson po ints out, the w
the n inth century B .C .,and then in Assyrian
’
inscriptioConsequently , ow 1ng to the fame of Babylon and
comparat ive ant iquity, it appears to be most convenient‘1
zi ncient M onarchies, i . 6 .
2 Sumer and Akkad, p . 13 .
3 Genes is x. 10 . Calneh may perhaps be Nippur. See also the quotation at
head of this chapter.
GEOGRAPHY OF ELAM 8r BABYLONIA 51
employ Babylonia as the geographical term during all‘
periods of its histo ry .
Des crip t ion of Bahylonia .— And what sort of a country
w as it that saw the birth of a civilization which has
affected mankind so intensely Then,as to-day, it w as
so absolutely featureless and flat and on such a vast scalethat dwellers in Europe can hardly realize what the
description of it means . Everywhere the land touches thesky with only rare palm-groves to break up the landscape,and no mountains are visible . As in Egypt , civil izat ionhad i ts birth between the sea and the dry land , on alluvialso il interspersed with vast marshes and flooded annuallyby its rivers . These rivers
,indeed , as is shown above ,
formed it and , as also in the case of Egypt, kept it al ivealthough the marshes
,with the ir fevers, must have taken,
then as now , a heavy to ll from the wild populat ion . The
chief difference between Babylonia and Egypt lay in the
fact that the Nile flowed into the open Mediterranean Sea,which did not invite navigat ion ; w hereas the rivers of
this ancient land flowed into a Gulf that i s landlocked forhundreds of miles
,and thus tempted the river boatmen to
venture farther on its waters .Climate
,Flora , and Fauna — The climate of this rich
land is one in which snow is unknown and frost hardlyever severe
,although the nights are at t imes bitterly co ld .
In the early winter there are heavy rains , which were inall probability more abundant in those early days . The
winter upon the who le is brac1ng and healthy : but itis succeeded by six months of heat that i s trying to
Europeans, and affects the value of the man un it to
some extent . To—day the desert winds are much dreadedand this w as equally the case in early days . The so il w as
and i s fert ile, and it i s generally believed that , whilerice w as first cult ivated in India
,this historical land can
claim to have given wheat and barley as its main con
tributions to the sustenance of man . As residents inthe East know well , the wheat-fed man is almost invariably superior in energy and vigour to the man whosechief support i s rice . The date - palm supplied manyneeds , including food , drink , and building materials .
52 HISTORY OF PERS IA CRAP . 111
Next perhaps in general ut il ity to the date-palm werethe enormous reeds
,from which huts
,mat ting, and boats
were alike constructed . Fish,too ,formed a staple ar ticle
of food, especial ly the barbel and carp . There is also the
amphibious fish termed the goby,which is equally at home
in the water or out of it .
Of big game w e know that the elephant and the uruswere hunted by the early monarchs and the hippopo tamushad at this per iod but recently disappeared . The l ion
,the
leopa rd,the wild ass
,the wild boar
,the gazelle survive ,
and are s t ill plentiful,except the first named
,which is
gradual ly be coming extinct . Jackals are common,but
wo lves and hyenas are rare . Of small game,the common
franco l in and the quail inhabit the scrub in the vicini ty of
the crops, and the o strich and bustard may be found on
the borders of the desert , though the ostri ch is very rareto-day : but above Babylon it w as abundant and huntedby the so ldiers of Cyrus the Younger
,as may be read in
the pages of Xenophon .
1 The marshes during winter teemwith geese
,duck
,and
'
snipe . Cranes,herons
,and other
aquati c birds abound .
1 Anabasis, i . 5. 3 .
54 HISTORY or PERSIA
approximate date for its commencement in this part of
Asia ; but de Morgan considers that i t ended towards thes ixth millennium B.c . ,
both 1n Babylonia and m Egypt .
The M eaning of Elam — lt 1s desirable at this po i nt torefer to the var i ous names of the country with which w e
are dealing,as much assistance is frequently to be obtained
by such means . And first the name Elam,or Elamtu
,the
classical Elymais , requires explanation . Its s ignification i smountains .”The Assyrians came into contact with Elam
in its mountain section , and as in anc1ent t Imes Its plainswere far less extens ive than to -day and the mountains predominated
,this name needs no further comment .
The people of Susa termed their country AnzanSusunka, and distinguished the various tribes given below .
Strabo and the historians of Alexander similarly distinguish Susiana or Susis
,the p lain country , from the
mountains of Cossia,Paraetakine , Mardia
,Elymais
,and
Uxia. The book of Ezra,too
,distinguishes between the
Susanechians , or inhabitants of the plains round Susa, andthe Elamites , or hill people .
1 Under the Persians theprovince w as know n as Ouvaja. Finally
,in medieval
t imes it w as called Khuzistan or“ The Country of the
Huz or Khuz ,”and this name sti l l lingers on the map
although the prov ince is now termed Arabistan .
Negri to Aborigines.-D ieulafoy 2 and de M organ , w ho
both headed expeditions to Elam,and w ho studied the
quest ion most exhaustively on the spot,concur in the
Opinion that there w as a very ancient o ccupat ion of the
Susian plain by Negritos , and that,so far as is known
,
these were the original inhabitants . In support of thisV iew Herodo tus , w ho carefully dist inguishes the Ethiopiansof Asia from the Ethiopians of Africa
,writes For the
eastern Ethiop ians have straight hair, while they of Libyaare more woo lly-haired than any o ther people in the
world .
”3 Again,there i s the fact that in the mo st ancient
bas - reliefs , figures of Negritos appear wi th frequency .
More especially is this the case in the famous steleNaramsin
,referred to In the next chapter, where the
1 Ezra iv . 9 Susanchites, the Dehavites, and the Elam ites .
2 L'
Acropole de Suse byDieulafoy, with appendix by Houssay.Herodotus vi i . 70.
w ELAM AND SUSA ,THE CAPITAL 55
monarch , w ho i s of Semit i c type, i s portrayed as leadingNegritos to V ictory . Some years ago ,
during the courseof my travels, I w as puzzled by the extremely darkpopulat ions of Bashakird and Sarhad , very remote and
mountainous regions bordering on Persian Baluchistan .
‘
The so lution may be that”the whole country w as o riginally
peopled by Negrito s , w ho probably stretched along the
northern shores of the Persian Gulf to India, and that
their descendants have survived in those distant parts,
which are scarcely known even by Persians,and where ,
in some distri cts , I w as the first European t raveller .The Legend of M emnon — But Elam
,in addit ion to
the rich alluvial plain , also included the hill distri cts tothe north and east
,and here apparent ly there is no quest ion
of a Negrito race . Consequently there were in effect at
least tw o races inhabiting Elam— the Negritos of the plains,
w ho were very dark,and the white hill-men , w ho w ere f
probably of Turanian extrac tion . This would appear tohave been vaguely recognized by the Greeks .1 Theydescribe Memnon
,w ho came to the aid of Troy , as the
offspring of a white mountain woman Kissia and of blackTithon . H e leads an army of Susians and Ethiopians tothe assistance of Priam
,w ho is h is paternal uncle
,and is
Achilles . There are brief references to Memnoner, and he i s evidently regarded as an importante ; for w e read in the Odyssey, when Ulysses is
speaking to Agamemnon of his son
To Troy no hero came of nob ler l ine,Or if Of nob l er, M emnon i t w as t h ine .
another passage he i s given the epithet of swarthy .
2
i s of interest to note that there is no mention of BabylonNineveh in these early legends preserved by the Greek
writers,which
, although probably having no histo ricalfoundat ion
,are yet of some value from the ethnological
po int of V iew .
At a rather later period there w as a considerableSemit ic influx
,which in t ime
,as in Babylon ia, dominated
1 Vide Strabo xv. 3 . 2 : also Herodotus v . 54 , where Susa is termed “the city of
Memnon. Hesiod cal ls him the Ethiop ian king.2 Odyssey, xi. 522, and 1v. 18 8 .
56 H ISTORY OF PERSIA
and absorbed the earl ier inhabi tants of the country. Asfar as Babylonia is concerned
,this Semitic invasion w as
mainly peaceful and perhaps should be described ratheras a penetration : but in the case of Elam , probablyowing to the mounta in fastnesses , no permanent conquest w as effected until the establishment of the SumerianEmpire .
The Vari ous Trihes of Elam — Apart from the generalethnological divis ions given above , Elam w as composedof several t ribes among whom were the Hussi or Uxians ,and the Hapartip ; the Umliyash, w ho inhabited the
district between the Kerkha and the Tigris ; and the
people of Yamutbal and of Yatbur, whose distri cts laybetween the Tigris marshes and the mountains .The Huss i or Kussi are the Uxians of the Greeks
w ho demanded to ll from Alexander the Great for hispassage from Susa to Persepolis , and in return weresurprised and subdued , as ment ioned in Chapter XX .
Their name survives in Khuzistan. The H apart ip or
Hap irtip1appear on the rock sculptures of Mal Am ir
,
and are perhaps the Amardians or Mardians o f the
Greeks , whom Herodo tus mentions as nomadic Persiantribes ranged with the Dahae
, Drop ini , and Sagart ii underthe banners of Cyrus .
Anzan or d ushan.— Among the most ' important
districts w as Anzan or Anshan , the exact local ity of
which is unknown,but which w as probably part of the
plain to the south or south-west of Susa . It is certainthat the extent of country covered by the name variedmuch durIng different periods , but i ts later expans1on
started from a comparat ively small area on the westernboundary of Elam . It w as among the first districts inElam to be referred to in history , and i s especiallycelebrated as bein the principality of Cyrus the Great .
The Ancient anguage .
—A few words are necessaryconcerning the anc i ent language of Elam . Like Babylonia
,
Elam furnishes us with Sumerian inscriptions contain ingSemit i c wo rds
,and also With Semit i c inscr i pt i ons contain ing
Sumerian words . But in Elam there are found in‘
the'
1 The p”in the name i s merely the p lural terminat ion .
5s HISTORY OF PERSIA
forced to use the Semitic script during the manyof her existence as a vassal state
,forgo t her anc i c
and, when her independence w as recovered ,Semit i c signs in writ i ng her ow n language . Accordin
to de Morgan, Anzanite died out some three thousan
years before our era.
The R eligion.— Very l ittle 1s known about the religion
of Elam . As in the case of Sumer,there w as a wo rld
full of vague forms and spirits . The chief deity,who se
name w as sacred and secret and w ho w as referred to as
Shushinak or the “ Susian, dwelt in a forest sanctuarywhich w as sacred
,and to which only the priests and the
King were admitted . Asso ciated with Shushinak were s1x
o ther deities of the first rank , grouped in tw o triads .these , Amman
'Kasibar may possibly be the Memnon of
the Greeks . The names of a considerable number of
o ther deit ies . have been recovered from inscript ions,but
beyond the ir names little i s known of mo st o f them .
1
We have few data for determining the ir characters and
attribu tes . We read that on certain so lemn days_
or in
celebration of victories,the statues were brought out to
receive the devout homage of the people , and from variousfacts in the ir history w e know how strongly they cherishedthei r de i ties . As in Babylon ia, the priesthood w as bo thpowerful and
'
w ealthy, and , although w e have as yet but
little informat ion as to the details of Elamite cult and
ritual , it is clear that in many features they bo re a generalresemblance to the Babylonian rites . The vo t ive . and
dedicatory inscript ions that have been deciphered do not
suggest a completely independent system or organizat ion,
and the readiness of the Elamite priesthood to borrowfrom Babylon ia is ‘well illustrated by the bronze vo tiveplaque of Shilhak- in—Shushinak,
representing a ritepurification perfo rmed at sunrise , which , as its na
implies, w as directly taken over from the Semiti c
lonians . The disturbed condit ion of the moundshas prevented the recovery of trustworthy archaeologi
and architectural evidence on the religious side but t
defect may at any moment be remedied by the finding1 Gautier, Rec. de tra 'v . xxx i. pp . 4 1 ff.
60 HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
The French Go vernment despatched tw o expedit ions,
the first of which,under Dieulafoy, w ho w as accompanied
by his gifted wife , took up , in 1 8 8 4 ,the work of Loftus ,
and discovered that the palace o fDarius had been destroyedby fire and that
,more than a century later
,Artaxerxes
Mnemon had raised on its ruins a still more splendidedifice . Dieulafoy merely cont inued the excavations o fLoftus , and it w as reserved for ano ther Frenchman to
complete the achievements of his fellow- countrymen bydiscovering Elam and it s history in the lower strata of the
same mound .
The Four Quarters of Susa .-To the traveller cro ss ing
the level plains,the mounds of Susa appear to rise to a
great height , and it is no t d ifficult to imagine how imposingthey must have been crowned wi th splendid edifices andprobably set in palm-groves amid a sea of w aving co rn
,
the who le p icture being backed by range after range of
grim mountains ris ing in sombre majesty to snow-cappedpeaks .
To—day the city is represented by desolate moundscovering a considerable area on bo th banks of the Kerkha:This river flowed past the citadel
,and the space now
exist ing between the Shaur and the Kerkha w as coveredwith buildings
,which have been partly demol ished by the
wayward river .De Mo rgan divides the ruins into four chief quarters ,
corresponding with the mos t important mounds
( I ) The Citade l , which w as the fo rt in Achaemeniant1mes .
( 2) The Royal City w ith the palaces of the successorsof Darius .
( 3) The Commercial quarter .
(4 ) The quarter on the right bank o f the presentcourse of the River Kerkha. This formerly included thewho le of the area now existing betw een the Shaur and theKerkha.
The so -called Citade l is the smallest in area , but themost important owing to its alt itude. It rises 3 8 metresabove the plain and measures 4 50 metres by 2 It
dominates the plain more than i ts mere height would
PREH ISTORIC VASE FOUND BY AUTHOR .
(Natura l s ize .
(Through the courtesy of S ir C . Hercules Read . )
HISTORY OF PERSIA a r .
would be idle to press the argument further until moreample materials are forthcoming . Enough has been saidto show that the earl iest period discovered by de Morgandates back to a hoary ant iquity undreamed of a generat1on ago .
The Archa ic Period — Just above the prehistoric zonethe French Mission discovered a layer of earth some6 feet thick , in which no thing w as found and the theoryw as formed that the prehisto ric city had been destroyedby a higher race
,which covered up the ruins with earth
before commencing the construct ion of a new city . In
the next,or Archaic
,zone were found tablets of ‘
unbakedclay with archaic writ ing and also unguent Vases
,but very
litt le pottery . Almost all the art i cles made of alabastercw ere p itted wi th holes as the result of its having beenburnt . De Morgan bel ieved that this period should bedated about 4 000 B .C .
Elam in the Legend of Gilgames .— One of the greatest
,
and certainly one of the mo st interest ing,epics in the
history of mankind is that of Gilgames,containing a
legend of the Deluge,from which that in Ho ly Writ w as
inspired,Gilgames himself be ing the Nimrod of the book
of Genesis .1 In it the subj ect ion of Elam is dealt wi th,
and although the mists of .antiquity lie low over theepisodes
,there is no doubt that these legends possess an
historical basis,and are therefore of considerable value .
The first of these old-world stories is to the effectthat Khumbaba
,King of Elam
,had invaded Babylon ia,
had razed its temples and had substituted the worshipof Elamite gods for the local de it ies . In this crisis allhopes rested on Gilgames and his devoted monsterBabani . The heroes set out to meet the Elamite invader
,
and heard from a female magician that the foe w as con
cealed in a sacred grove . Undeterred by fear they pressedon
“and stopped in rapture for a moment befo re the
cedar trees ; they contemplated the height of them,they
contemplated the thickness of them,the place where
Khumbaba w as accustomed to walk up and down with
1 Daw n of Civ ilization, pp . 565ff. I am deep ly indebted to Maspero’
s works, moreespecial ly to The Passing of the Emp ires.
HAS-RELIEF OF A SP INNER. SUPPOSED ELAM ITE PERIOD .
(Nat . $128 , 10 centimetres high by(From J. de Morgan
'
s Zlde’
moi res de la De‘lega t ion en P erse, 1 900 , vol 1. p late x i
Ernest Leroux . Paris . )
HEROES TENDING CATTLE.
(Sea l of Sargon'
s scribe, from Mu ta n t.)
CHA PTE R V
ELAM,SUMER
,AND AKKAD AT THE DAWN OF H I STORY
And they sai d one to another, Go to , let us make brick, and burn themthrou gh ly . And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar .
Genesis xi . 3 .
Sumerians and Semitaa — I t w as po inted out inthe las tchapter that Elam w as closely connected with neighbouring Sumer and Akkad ; and in this chap ter I propose to
trace the growth of all three states and , by this means , togive a ske tch of the development of Elam and its relat ionswith Babylonia.
It i s now known that there were tw o races inhabiting Sumer and Akkad which were dist inct no t merely inrace and speech , but also in personal appearance . The
Sumerians shaved bo th the head and face , whereas theSemites grew their hair and wore a beard . The dressalso differed , that of the Sumerian consisting of a mantleworn over the left shoulder , whereas the Semite wore a
long , narrow plaid wrapped round the body , with the end
thrown over the left shoulder .There has been much discussion as to Whether the
Sumerians or the Semites were the earl ier inhabitants of
Babylonia : but, so far as the evidence goes,it would
appear that at the earl iest period of which there is anyrecord
,the Sumerians in the south and the Semites ' in the
north had bo th been long settled in the country .
The Legend of Gamma— Of considerable importance i n
64
CHAP . v ELAM , SUMER, AND AKKAD 65
connexion with this discussion is the legend of Oannes , asnarrated by Berossus , a Babylonian priest , w ho wro te a few
years after the death of Alexander the Great,and w ho
dil igently co llected ancient tradit ions . According to hischroni cle , of which unfortunately only fragments havebeen handed down ,
the ancient inhabitants of Babylonialived like beasts without any laws . During this era a
monster, half-fish, half-man,and endowed with reason
,
Oannes 1 by name , appeared out of the sea and taught theuse of letters , laws , arts , and sciences . He also instructedmankind to plough , to sow ,
and to reap . At night hedisappeared into the sea for he w as amphibious . Oannesand his successors , w e are told
,taught the people of
Babylonia during a period of years which preceded the great flood . Now this legend has generallybeen held to po int to the arrival of a higher race by sea
,
and,as the Semites ultimately predominated , it has been
argued that it w as they w ho entered Babylon ia from the
south . But King,to whose work I am specially indebted
in this chapter,looks upon this legend as merely implying
that the shores of the Persian Gulf were the earliest centreof the Sumerian civilization,
and believes that , as there are
but slight traces of Semit ic influence in Sumer during theearlier periods, the Semites came from the north-west and
not from the south .
Of the Sumerians themselves , and whence they came,
little w as known until the important discoveries made nearAskabad under the auspices of the Carnegie Institut ion .
The excavat ions in a tumulus at Anau brought to l ightpottery of the Neol ithic age which , as stated in the previouschapter , resembles similar pottery found by de Mo rgan at
Susa. It is therefore possible that the Sumerians migrated .
to Babylonia from Turkestan but further discoveries arenecessary before sat isfactory proofs can be obtained .
2
Language.—The language of the Sumerians , in which
the o ldest records w e possess are written,is agglutinat ive ,
and is thus ent irely unlike the Semiti c . King states thatthe tw o races of Elam and Sumer do not appear to be1 Oannes is be l ieved to be a corrupt ion of Ea
,the God of the Abyss .
2 Explora tions in Turkestan, by Raphae l Pumpelly. Carneg ie Inst itut ion,1905 also
King’s op . ci t. appendix No. I,which is referred to in Chapter IV .
66 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
related e ither in language or by physical characteristics .But he adds that “ unt il the phoneti c elements of the
language are finally established , all theories based uponl inguist ic comparisons are necessarily insecure . De
Morgan favours the V iew that , although the Elamite and
Sumerian languages are not related,the people probably
belonged to the same stock and there is much to be saidfor this theory .
R eligi on— No account of a pe0p1e
,however brief
,
is complete without some reference to religion . The
special characteristic of the Sumerian temples w as the“ ziggurat
,
”composed of immense cubes of sun-driedbrick piled up one on the o ther
,and dimin ishing in size
up to the small shrine set on the summi t . Apart fromthis striking feature , which impressed itself on mankindin the legend of the tower of Babel , their architecture w as
commonplace the temples were built of sun—dried bricksand, i f speedily constructed , speedily fell into decay .
They canno t be compared with the granite and l imestonetemples of Egypt , which took generat ions to complete .
And what w as the Sumerian idea of his gods ? A strikingfeature i s that , whereas most of the greater gods werebeneficent
,there w as a host of sp irits and demons host ile
to mankind and requiring constant appeasement . In
Egypt the gods were, upon the who le,beneficent but in
Babylon ia, to some extent,the opposite view prevailed , and
constant terro r and unhappiness must have resulted fromthe odious and detestable ideas associated with many of
the higher powers . Most cruel of all the lesser host of
heaven w as the demon of the south-west wind,which
struck down man and beast and destroyed trees,harvests
,
and pasturage in his rage against l ife . To combat theseterrors a multitude of benefi cent genn
,
and benign aspect, were imagined , andfigures of these which were set to pro tect the entrancepalaces and fo rm such typical and striking examplesBabylonian art . The Cherubim described more particularlyby Ezekiel 1 are the lineal descendants of these colossi .The gods of Babylonia were men, with their v io lence ,
3 Ezekiel i . 4 ff.
68 HISTORY OF PERSIA can .
abundant water for i rrigat ion ,it w as his constant terror
in t ime of flood . An interesting light has lately beencast upon this remo te period by the discovery of the
oldest version of the Deluge sto ry, which reflects the con
ditions of a primit ive Sumerian se ttlement . The text iscomposed in the Old Sumerian language , and althoughthe tablet on which it i s written dates only from about2000 B. C .
, the legend itself goes back to the dawn of
histo ry . The hero o f the tale is a certain Ziugiddu ,a
priest-king or head-man of a Sumer i an village,whose
p iety w as such that his god Enki warned him of the
com i ng flood . 80 he builds a boat and,having loaded it
with his l ive- stock , surv ives the rain-sto rm which rages forseven days and seven nights . The boat i s carried awayon the flood , but finally the storm ceases
,the sun comes
out , and when i ts l ight shines into the boat , the priest ofEnki sacrifices an ox and a sheep . At the end of the
text w e find the old priest worshipping Enl i l, the chief
god of his country , whose anger against men has now
abated . So Enl il grants the priest immo rtality and an
eternal soul like that of a god .
1 Ziugiddu , the priest , isthe pro to type of the Babylon ian U t-nap ishtim and of the‘Hebrew Noah . H e 1s here revealed as the original Delugehero
,an old priest-king w ho ruled one of the earliest
Sumerian settlements in Babylonia.
Apparently from the earliest t imes the centre of eachof these lowly hamlets w as the shrine of the lo cal god .
In the course of t ime the hamlets developed into highlyorgan ized city-states , whose constant struggles resulted 1n
the temporary hegemony of the victo r. No thing 18 morestriking than the strength of the theo crat i c posit ion ; forthe p atesz
'
makes w ar and gains the victory entirely at thebidding of his city—god , and this fiction is fully maintainedin the subsequent treaty of peace . In short
,the p atesis are
merely the human agents of the gods . There is reasonto bel ieve that these ci ty-states were common to Babylon iaand Elam ,
and that Susa and Anshan were anc ient citystates co eval with Lagash , Erech , Ur, and Larsa. It is
1 See Arno Poebel, Tbc M useum journal (Univ ersi ty of Penngyl‘vania), vol. iv.
,No. 2
(June, pp . 4 1 fit, where a descript ion is given of the new text. The text itselfis being prepared for publ ication by Dr. Poebel, its discoverer.
ELAM,SUMER
,AND AKKAD
also reasonable to suppo se that the mountain tribes weremuch less advanced than the inhabitants of the plains .
Eannatum,King of Lagash, 2900 B .C .
— The mo ststriking figure among the earl iest Kings whose date isknown is Eannatum , p a tes i of Lagash by inheritancefrom a line of ancestors . He acquired fame and pow erthrough the d efeat of the neighbouring city state of
Umma and it is deeply interesting to read the detai ls ofhis campaigns and their results . These are graven on the
famous Stele of the Vultures, erected as a memorial of
victories which w on him the hegemony of Sumer someforty eight centuries ago . The sculp tured fragments
give a picture of the Sumerians advancing to the at tack
i n a so lid phalanx of spearmen pro tected by shield bearers .The Great Conquero r himself is represented driving in a
chariot drawn by asses,horses being at that t ime unknown
in Babylonia. The burial customs , too , are vividly portrayed , the dead being p iled up in horizontal layers toform a mound .
Nor did Eannatum neglect the peaceful task of
developing the resources of his state ; for numerouscanals were dug
,apparently during the latter years of his
reign,when
,to use his ow n expression,
his might hadborne fruit .”
Victor ies of Eanna tum over the Elamites — It wouldappear that in the reign of Eannatum the Elamites wereregarded by the agriculturists of Sumer and Akkad as the/
natural enemy : indeed, the ir rulers could never be sure
of immunity from the attack of the hardy mountaineers .This feel ing is w ell expressed by Eannatum in his referenceto Elam as the mountain that strikes terror .” However,the great Sumerian w as able to reco rd victories over thehereditary foe
,in lines which run :
“ By Eannatum w as
Elam broken in the head,Elam w as driven back to his
ow n land,
the metaphor be ing taken from a mace whichw as then a favourite weapon . Elsewhere Eannatum statesthat he heaped up burial mounds
,
”apparently referring
to a severe defeat of the foe . I t is to be noted,however,
that these victo ries accompl ished no thing more than the
driving back of an Elamite expedit ion ; there w as apparently
70 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
no fo llowing up of the enemy into his ow n country . In
o ther. words,the ' po licy of Sumer w as defensive and not
offensiveThe Earliest-know n Letter ana
’Elam.
— The earl iestexample of a letter which has been found in Babyloniarelates to Elam . It probably belongs to the reign of
Enannatum I I . , one of the later kings of Lagash . The
writer, w ho w as chief pr1est of the goddess Ninmar
,
informs his correspondent that a band of Elamites hadraided ' Lagash territory, and that he had defeated themwith heavy loss . The date of this document must beabout 2 850 B . C .
Elam and tile Kisil Dynasty,2750
— 2650 B . C .— Upon
the downfall of Lagash rose the dynasty of Kish .
Manishtu,one of its warrior kings
,conducted a campaign
against Anshan and records its success not only were thepeople subdued and forced to pay t ribute , but the captiveking of
'
Anshan graced the conqueror’s t riumph . Again ,
on a vase found at Nippur an inscript ion has beendeciphered which states that the vase w as booty fromElam,
'
and w as dedicated by ano ther warrio r king termedUrumush,
“ when he had conquered Elam .
” From thisit appears that the agricultural states are at last assuminga forward pol icy, and that, no longer content with beat ingoff the raids from Elam
,they aim at the subjection of
that country .
T/ze Emp ire of Akkad , 2650 B.C .— We now turn ~ to
Akkad,
“
or Agade,which
,some tw o centuries after the
death of Eannatum, w as not only the leading state , bu t
welded the collection of city- states into an emp ire ruledby a Semiti c dynasty . To accomplish so much
,a great
man w as needed and a great man appeared in the personof Sargon
, w ho boasted that “ he poured out his gloryover the world and that the Western Land ( Syria), andtheEastern Sea ( the Persian
'
Gq ), formed the boundariesof his empire . Indeed
,there i s a tradit ion to the effect
that he subdued the i sland of Dilman 1n the Persian Gulf,and w e know that he conquered not only Elam , but manydistricts of the Zagros to the north .
Sargon w as equally distinguished for the arts of peace
v ELAM,SUMER
,AND AKKAD 7
and it w as under his influence that the old laws , the
religious writ ings , and the works of magic were compiledand translated into the Semit i c language . All thesedo cuments were stored in the temple of Erech , where ,1500 years later , they were c0p ied
l by order of the
Assyrian monarch Assurbanipal ; and it is owing to
the enl ightened action of this sovereign that a store of
priceless knowledge has been preserved for the use and
profit of mankind . Moreover , Sargon is the first monarchw ho is known to have organized a regular system of,
communication throughout the emp ire,a feat which alone
i s sufficient to mark him out as a great man .
The Camp a ign of Sargon aga inst Elam.- Sargon has
recorded his campaigns against Elam . The mo st importantw as that in which the Great Warrior gained his v i cto rypartly by devastat ing the country and destroying the crops .There i s
,however , no proof that either in the t ime of
Sargon or in that of Naram Sin, w ho also waged w ar withElam
, that country w as annexed by Akkad , although tributew as probably exacted for periods of varying length .
The Stele of Naram—Sin.— The famous stele o f Naram
Sin,one of the most splendid trophies of the de Morgan
mission ,which has been mentioned in connexion with the
Negrito question ,w as erected in memory of the conquest
ofLulubi,a distri ct in the Zagro s between modern Baghdad
and Kermanshah . It represents the king and his alliestriumphing over the enemy in a hilly country . Moreover,in the same distri ct , in the valley of the Hnlvan , thereare also important sculptures , which represent an earlySemitic monarch
,by name Anu-banin i
,and also his goddess
Ninn i or Ishtar .1 The conquests of these tw o warriormonarchs undoubtedly tended to develop the intercoursebetween Elam and the Babylon ian empire , of which thereis some ment ion in the tablets . Elam ,
it is true,appears
mainly as supplying contribut ions , and no t as trading ;but
,no doubt
,commerce w as developed even by this sort
of intercourse . From the po in t of V iew of the historyof Babylon ia the dynasty of Akkad marks the supreme
1 Sumer and Akkad, p . 250 also de M organ’
s M i ssion scientifigue e n Perse, vol. iv .
p . 16 1 .
72 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
expression and culmination of Sumer and Akkad,both in
civilization and in art,during the earl ier period of the ir
history . Out of a loose confederacy of city- states a greatempire had been founded
,and , although it w as not dest ined
to last long , its memory must have remained as an in
sp iration and a guiding star in after years, which were tosee even greater power swayed by the rulers of Babylonia.
The Kingdom of Gnti .— The close of the Akkad dynasty13 no longer wrapped in
'
the total darkness by which,unt il
recently,it w as surrounded . Indeed the names of its last
seven kings have been recovered,although w e are ignorant
of the ir achievements or of the state of Babylon ia and Elamunder the ir sway . We now know also that the dynastyof Akkad w as succeeded by another wi th its capital at .
Erech in the south,which w as short-l ived . But the mo st '
interesting historical fact which has lately come to light isthe complete dominat ion of the country
,at the close of
this l ine of Erech Kings,by the Semitic Kingdom of Gut i
,
which lay to the east of the lower Zab . The Gutian/
in
vasion led to the subjugat ion of bo th No rth and SouthBabylonia
, and there can be l ittle doubt that Elam itselfacknowledged the suzerainty of these vigorous rulers , w hohad long been established in the mountainous regions upontheir western border . The dominat ion of these Gut ianSemites w as brought to an end by the valour of U tukhegal, King of Erech , w ho captured and defeated the
Gut ian King Tirikan,after having sought the assistance
of the great Babylonian gods in their shrines upon hisline of march . The success of this monarch marks thefirst wave of the Sumerian react ion , which reached itshigh-water mark under the Dynasty of Ur .
Gudea Patesi of Lagash, B.C .— As the generat1ons
go by w e see Lagash once again powerful as a city—stateunder the famous Gudea
,whose reign became the golden
age of this already ancient city . Gudea w as no t renownedas a conqueror
,although he subdued Anshan : but he i s
fully entitled to his position in the temple of Fame for hislove of j ust ice and his championship of the weak and poorat a period when such enl ightened conduct w as almostunknown . H e will also be remembered by his buildings ,
74 H ISTORY OF PERSIA ca r p .
several of the patesis of Elam,none of whom is a nat ive
of the country . This would account for the constantattempts at revo lt , and it is quite l ikely that i t had something to do with the progress of Elam towards nationalityand the downfall of the dynasty of Ur .
The Overthrow of the Dynasty of Ur hy Elam — The
fall of the dynasty of Ur w as caused by an Elamite invasion
,i ts last king being captured and taken as a prisoner
to Anshan . Few detai ls are known,but it is reasonable
to suppose that,as the dynasty became weak
,Elam re
covered i ts liberty and finally turned on its oppressor .The Sack of Erech hy Kudur-Nanhhundi , 22 80 B . C .
Connected with the downfall of Ur is the sack of Erechby an Elamite king . The knowledge of this event reachesus in a w ay that i s truly remarkable . When Assurbani
pal captured Susa in 64.5 B .C . he recovered and restoredto Erech the image of the goddess Nana
,which Kudur
Nankhundi had carried off 1635 years before . Thisamazing piece of history is accepted as genuine , and it
po ints to 22 80 B . C . as the approximate date of the
campaign . As King observes,the sack of Erech could
no t have occurred when the dynasty of Ur w as in posses'
sion of Elam,and he i s consequently of opinion that no
more probable epoch for this event can be found than thatof the Elamite invasion which brought about the destruct ion of Ur .
The Dynas ty of I sin, 2300— 2075 B . C .— Little is known
about the dynasty of Isin,which reigned for a period of
225years after the downfall of the house of Ur . Whatl ittle 18 known i s derived from the Nippur dynastic list ,which gives the names of sixteen kings . During most ofthis period the empire probably included Sumer and Akkad ,and possibly Elam also
,although
,no doubt , the latter state ,
after the collapse of the Ur dynasty , recovered and maintained its independence for many years .
The Influence of Sumer ian Civ i liz ation — The dynastyof Isin fell and with it the old order passed away . The
race of the Sumerians w as run and as a po l it i cal facto rthey ceased to count . At this moment let us pause . and
take stock,before pro ceeding to outline even more
ELAM,SUMER , AND AKKAD 75
dramati c periods in the histo ry of the ancient races of
Elam and Babylonia.
All nations that have passed away must be tested at
the bar of histo ry by their deeds and Sumer can face thetrial without fear . The most important achievements ofthis great race which have come down the ages as a legacyto mankind are the invent ion of cuneiform wr i ting , one ofythe greatest intellectual triumphs of the ancient wo rld , andthe code of laws on which the famous code of Hammurabiw as based . Nor is our indebtedness confined to these tw ogreat boons . We ow e the beginnings of art and sciencealso to this hoary civil izat ion . The more the mists thathang over the past are lifted
,the mo re clearly shall w e
discern how astronomy,medicine, and art were learned by
the Greeks from this ancient land . One legacy fromSumer w e all carry in our pockets in the shape of a watch ,whose face i s a direct reproduction of the twelve doublehours of the Sumerians . Indeed
,it i s profoundly impres
sive to fo llow the archaeologist deeper and deeper into the
past of Sumer and to find , in the fourth millennium B. c .
,
organ ized communities enjoying a civilization which eventhen w as clearly old and i t i s impossible no t to expressprofound admirat ion and grat itude to those workers ,through who se untiring labours and lucid exposition w e
of the twent ieth century are receiving such gifts of fundamental knowledge .
ANZANITE TFX’
I‘OF SH ILHAK-IN-SHUSHINAK ON A H ILT 01? GLAZED POTTERY.
(From J . de Morgan’
s Etudes , etc. [Ernes t
CHAPTER VI
ELAM AND BABYLON
I Shilhak-in Shushinak,son of Shutruk-Nakhunta, a valiant ch ief, for the
blessing of my life, the blessing of the life of Nakhunta Utu , my beloved w ife,and the blessing of the l ife of our fam i ly .
A Retrospect— Before w e consider the relat ions of
Elam with the earliest dynast ies of Babylon , it will beinterest ing to look back and gain a general impression of
its internal condit ion . It may be accepted that Elam w as,
throughout , more backward and less developed than its
western neighbours . This w e naturally infer from its
hilly format ion,which prevented easy commun ication
,and
provided few large tracts of fert i le land , and the scantyinformation at our disposal tends to prove that the inference i s correct . Raids and not conquest were the aim of
i ts endeavours,and unti l a foreign yoke welded the loose
congeries of tribes into a nation,i t does no t appear that
Elam obeyed a single ruler . Nor is it at all certain thatthe hill tracts were subdued when the cit ies of the plainswere brought under the rule of the Babylonian monarchsindeed de Morgan ho lds that the Elamites of the hillsnever lo st their independence . In any case , the length of
t ime under review is so great , covering , as it does , a periodequal to that separating the Norman Conquest from the
twent ieth century,that there w as ample t ime for the
wild tribesmen to un ite with the inhabitants of the
plain and develop into citizens of an empire which w as
76
78 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
Elamite reaction, which w as undoubtedly vio lent , and evensavage so much so that who le bodies of the inhabitantsof Babylonia fled to save their lives . According to the
views of the French writer, it w as on this account that theworshippers of Assur fled up the valley of the Tigris , andfounded the Assyrian nat ion . Again
,to the south , the
inhabitants of the country at the head of the Persian Gulfand of its islands
,among them the Bahrein islanders
,
emigrated to the coast of Syria, and under the name of
Phoenicians became c elebrated as navigators,co lon izers
, and
traders .1 Yet,again,
it w as this same movement w hich
caused the Hyksos invasion of Egypt and , finally , it .w as
responsible for. the departure from Ur of the Chaldees of
Abraham ’s tribe,which ult imately fo llowed in the wake of
the Hyksos to Egyp t , and w as well rece ived by the Shepherd Pharaoh . King
,on
‘
the other hand,is cautious
,and
ho lds that there i s no evidence that Elam contro lled Babylon ia for any long period . His View is that Elam threwoff the foreign yoke as the result of the V i cto ries of hermonarch
,and then . probably broke up into a number of
independent states . But w e can well bel ieve that the
Elamite outburst w as fierce, and it i s quite probable thatits effects were felt far . beyond the boundaries of Babylon ia.
2
Chedorlaomer,King of Elam — The most important
figure after Kudur-Nankhundi i s Kudur -Lagamar , theChedo rlaomer
‘
o f. Ho ly Writ . This mighty conquerorextended the emp ire of Elam to the Medi terranean Sea,and it is most interest ing to read of his campaigns in the
14 th chapter of Genesis , which is believed to be one of theo ldest parts of the book . An account i s given of a cam
pa1gn known as the batt le of four kings against five .
Verse 9 running With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam ,
and with Tidal king of nat ions , and Amraphel king of
Shinar,and Ario ch king of Ellasar four kings with five .
It i s probable that Tidal w as king of the Khatt i or
Hitt ites that Amraphel w as Hammurabi king of Sumer,
1 This trad1t10n is not now general ly accepted as historically accurate.
2 Winckler’s view is that it is possible that the Hyksos dynasty w as formed by thesame wave of immigrants which founded the First Dynasty. See his Hi story of
‘Baby
lonia and A ssyria , p . 60.
-DRESS GLAZED POTTERY STUDDED BRONZE NAILS .
ELAM ITE PERIOD.
de Morgan’
s .Mémoi res de la Delega tion en P erse. Ernes t Leroux . )
80 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
The Law s of Hammurahi .— The greatest monarch of
this dynasty w as the sixth , Hammurabi, the law -giver
,
organizer and conqueror, w ho reigned , according to
Winckler,from 2267 B .c . to 22 13 B.0. H e w as the author
of the famous code of laws named after him,which is the
most ancient in existence , although fragments have beendiscovered of the Sumerian code , on which it w as un
doubtedly based , and which show a standard almost equallyhigh . When it i s remembered that the laws ofHammurabiwere codified centuries before those of Moses
,which
,1n
the view of some scho lars , were to a considerable extentbased on them ,
1w e realize the magnitude of the debt w e
ow e to de Morgan for recovering the priceless stele on
which they are inscribed . The code as a who le is remarkable for its high moral tone , and also for the
it i s a royal , o r secular, and not a religious code. Amongthe subjects of legislat ion are the status o f j ud
ges and
o ther offi cials , farming , 1rrigat ion, and grazing , nav igation ,
purchase of slaves , their relation to the ir masters,marriage
laws , penalt ies 1n case of assault , the condit ion of women,
inheritance and brigandage . While the Empire enduredthese laws continued to be the foundat ion on which thewhole civil izat ion of Babylonia rested .
The Second Dynasty of Bahylon, circa 2 100— 173 2 B. c .
It i s now known that the First Dynasty w as brought toan end by an invasion of the Hittites
,after having been
weakened by cont inual confl icts with the earlier rulers ofthe so-called “ Second Dynasty recorded in the List of
Kings . The eleven rulers of this dynasty controlled theextreme south of Babylonia, known as the Sea—Country
,
”lluma—ila, i ts founder , having secured his independence 1n
the re ign of Samsu iluna, H ammurabi’
s son . But the
Hitt ites do not seem to have retained the
Babylon,for they were shortly succeeded as
by Kassite tribes from Elam , w ho had alreadyinto Babylon ia during the period of the late
1 According to King, the earl ier op inion that this w as the ease
up in many quarters. The more strik ing points of resemblanceare, it is pointed out, such as wou ld natural ly characterise tw o
kindred peop les in a s imi larof the Hammurab i Code have left no trace on the Mosaic legis lation.
THE UPPER PART OF THE CODE OF HAMMURABI .
8 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA can .
During the rule of the Kassite Dynasty Assyria appearedas a rising power in the middle reaches of the Tigris
,
and w e have the record of. a treaty concluded in the
fifteenth century . B C . between a Kassite monarch and theKing of Assur . In 1275B.C . the northern power temporarily conquered
'Babylon, and again about I 100 B. C . therew as a second , but equally ephemeral
, occupat ion ; the
attempt in bo th cases proving in the end d isastrous to thearms of Assyria 1
With Egypt intercourse w as mai nta1ned , and lettersexchanged between the tw o monarchs are still preserved .
When the Kassite power waned Elam possessed the greatestL
influence,and the dynasty at its close acknowledged the
overlordship of Elam ..I t w as under the Kassite dynasty
that the horse w as introduced into general u se in Babylonia,
to draw chario ts , although there is now evidence that italready known at the
,t ime
'
of the First Dynasty, wKassites served in its armies .
The Position of Elam — During this long strett ime the po sition of Elam is but sl ightly known .
read of a w ar waged in the later perioddynasty
,by Khurbatila, King of Elam ,
agai
King of Babylon . The former, w ho w as in
Babylonia, w as defeated and made prisoner . Susw as apparently captured . Some generations laterunder Kidin-Khutrutash, devastated and conquered Blonia and carried away many of its inhabitants .
Shutruh—Nahhunta,King of Elam,
circa 1 190 B.
Among the famous warrior -kings of this periodShutruk—Nakhunta
,w ho no t only conquered Babylon,
removed to Susa the c ho icest works of art from the che laid waste . It is thanks to this action that de Morglabours have been , so richly rewarded ,Naram-Sin
,for example , having been
monarch from Babylon, to be found by the Farchaeologist some 3000 years later . Marduk
,the
Babylonian deity , w as also carried off in triumph toand remained in captivity for 30 years .
Shutruk-Nakhunta w as succeeded by Shilha1 Vide Chapter V I I .
84 H ISTORY OF PERSIA cm . v 1
It w as not unnatural that Elam should endeavour to
take advantage of this state of affairs,but she effected
no permanent contro l over the country . The solitaryElamite ruler w ho ascended the throne (and possiblyadopted the Babylonian name of Ae-aplu
-utsur) failedto found a dynasty . The circumstance that Babylon
,
although overshadowed at this t ime bo th by Assyriaand by Elam
,managed to retain a semi- independence
may be connected with the cont inual menace of invasionby fresh Semit i c hordes .
The Chaldeans, circa 960—
73 3 B . C .-Babylonia, spo iled
by Elam and coveted by Assyria,w as now overrun by a
ho rde of Semitic immigrants,known to history as the
Chaldeans,who se appearance marks the beginn ing of a
new epo ch . Issuing from Eastern Arabia, they enteredMesopotamia from the south
,and thenceforward a third
power jo ined 1n the contest for Babylonia. It IS impossibleto enumerate the various campaigns waged during thisperiod . Winckler describes it as be ing characterizedthe attemp tS
'
of the Chaldean princes, w i
ance of Elam,to obtain the throne of
the superiority of Assyria when not engaged in oth
quarters .”1 In short,constant strife and anarchy follow e
unti l , during the reign of Nabu—natsir (74 7— 73 3w ho is famous as having introduced a new era, Babylonfell under the pro tect ion of the New Assyrian Empire .
1 0p . ci t. p . 107.
THE INSCRI PT ION OF ASSURBANI PAL.(From Sir H. C. Raw linson’
s Cuneiform I nscr ip tions of Wes tern As ia , 1861 , vol. v . p late 6col. 6, lines 96
CHAPTE R VI I
THE ASSYR IAN EM P IRE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ELAM
The dust of the city of Shushan,of the ci ty of M adaktu,
and the rest of
the cities, I have taken i t all away to the country of A ssur . During a monthand a day I have swept the land of E lam in all i ts w idth . I deprived the
country of the passage of cattle and of sheep and of the sound of Joyous music .
I have allowed w i ld beasts, serpents, the animals of the desert and gazelles tooccupy i t .
-The Inscription of Assurbanipa l
The R ise of / tssyria .— The “ land of Assur w as origin
ally the territory belonging to the city of the same name .
Like the city- states of Babylon ia, it w as ruled by p a tesis ,w ho
,as in the case of the o lder civil izat ion
,in t ime
developed into puissant monarchs . The first mentionof the city of Assur is in a letter of the t ime of Hammurabi
,when it apparent ly formed part of the empire of that
great monarch .
1 Between 1800 B .C . and I 500 B .C . Assyriaw on its independence . As it expanded it moved steadilynorthwards . The ancient capital , Assur ( the modern KalaShergat), w as superseded , as the seat of empire
,first by
Kalkhi,on the site of the modern Nimrod , and finally
1 Winck ler, op . cit . p. 180. I am special ly indebted to this w 01k in the present
8 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA cum».
by Nineveh . Situated 011 the only route connect ingBabylonia with the west
,Assyria, in the course o f its
development,naturally conquered the neighbouring states ;
and it is interest ing to note how it w as that Assur roseto such a splendid height as to subjugate the mo thercountry and to make the neighbouring states her humbletributaries .Unl ike Babylon ia
,which w as based on a feudal
,
ecclesiast ical system ,Assyria drew her strength from a
free agricultural class ; and this system led to the format ion of the mo st formidable army known in the NearEast . Indeed , Assyria rested ent irely on her army ; and
when the free-born cultivators of the so i l were exhausted,
steps were taken to employ mercenaries,w ho fought w ell
for Assyria as long as pay and boo ty were forthcoming,
but deserted her in the hour of n eed .
The Old Emp ire— Owing to the document termed the
Synchronous History,”on which important past events
in Assyria and Babylon ia were tabulated by the offi cialscribes of Assurbanipal , it is possible to follow the historyof Assyria from the fifteenth century without diffi culty .
The first event reco rded is a compact between Karaindash,
a monarch of the Kassite dynasty , and Assur—rimnishishu
of Assur . A generat ion or so later there is a letter whicha King of Assyria sent to Amenophis IV . of Egypt . In
this the Assyrian refers to letters that his grandfather hadwritten to Amenophis I I I . , a fact of considerable interest .
About 1300 B. c . Adad-Nirari I . overthrew the kingdomof Mitani to the north-west and obtained possess ion of
Mesopo tamia. His son Shalmaneser I .,about 1270 B.c . ,
cont inued his father’s conquests , and during his reign the
second capital , Kalkhi , w as founded between the Tigrisand the Upper o r Greater Zab . At this period Mitaniw as finally subdued and Babylonia, the great state to thesouth , which at that t ime w as harassed by Elam ,
conquered by Tukulti-Ninib in or about 1275 B. C .
Babylon ians , however , in the end drove out the inv
and as the result of internal troubles Assyria lost her eand reverted to her original position of subordinat iBabylonia.
.8 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
The greatest conqueror of this dynasty w as Assur-Nats ir
pal ( 8 84 — 60 w ho restored the kingdom to the
limits ruled by Tiglath-pileser I . His fame is tarnishedby the fiendish cruelty with which he treated his prisoners
,
all children,both boys and girls , be ing burned al ive at the
stake . His son,Shalmaneser II .
,failed to conquer
Damascus,the ally of whose monarch w as Ahab of
Israel , but his success in Babylon ia made him overlord'
of the country . At this period,Elam
,inaccessible and
warlike,and Egypt , weak but distant , alone were free
from attack,and Assyria again reached the height of
fame ; but , owing mainly to the rise of the kingdom of
Urartu or Ararat,she again found herself unable to hold
the conquered states , which broke away and regainedthe ir liberty .
The New Kingdom, 74 5— 606 B . C .
— Under Tiglathp ileser IV. Assyria became the ruling power of AnteriorAsia from the Iranian plateau to the Mediterranean Sea
,
a posit ion which she maintained for more than a century .
This great conquero r made his first campa1gn 1n Babylonia,
where he defeated the Aramaean and Chaldean tribes .H e assumed the overlordship of Babylonia , whose monarchNabu-natsir re igned under the pro tect ion of Assyria . In
the north he waged several campaigns against Urartu,
and although unable to capture Van,the capital
,he
annexed its southern provinces . But his campaigns tothe west excite our interest st i ll mo re , inasmuch as
,by the
ultimate conquest of Damascus in 73 2 B. c . , Palestine w as
deprived of the help of the state which alone stoodbetween it and Assyria .
Sa rgon IL, 722 705 B .C .
— Sargon I I . came to the
throne o f Assyria as the founder of a new dynasty .
It would appear that his immediate predecesso rs hadopposed the privileges of the priests
, w ho no t only wereexemp ted from taxation but owned a very large proport ion of the land , with the result that the free agriculturistClass had been driven away to make room fo r gangs ofslaves or prisoners of w ar. The priests
,however, were
able to bring about a revo lution ,and Sargon I I . ascended
the throne as their nominee . The monarchy henceforth
THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE 8 9
w as supported by mercenaries and the army ceased to bea nat ional force .
The Fi rst Ba ttle hctw een Assyri a and Elam.- It w as
under this monarch that Assyria fo r the first time met
Elam in a p itched battle . Tiglath—
p ileser had foughtwith the wild hill tr ibes in the mountains to the north of
Susa,and o ther Assyrian monarchs had come into confl ict
with the semi - independent tribes which formed bufferstates between the tw o powers ; but i t w as no t unt ilAramaean districts east of the Tigris had been annexedand Babylon conquered by Tiglath—p ileser II I . that the
tw o powers came into direct contact , which w as bound todevelop into ho st ilities sooner or later . On the one handw as the comparatively civil ized and o rganized state of
Assyria,which annexed o ther countr ies and admin istered
them , and on the o ther w as Elam,which
,l ike most
independent and secluded peoples , lacked all knowledgeas to its relat ive strength and felt confident of victory .
Moreover , Elam suffered from the fact that the Assyrianadvance interfered with its immemorial custom of raiding .
In these circumstances it is no t surprising that an all iancew as concluded between Elam and Babylon ia : but the
energy and genius of Sargon had no t been sufli cientlyrealized . Hearing from his spies that the army of Elamhad crossed the frontier, he reso lved to take the in it iat iveand to crush the tw o powers separately . Consequently
,
while the Elamite monarch w as await ing a junction withhis ally
, the Assyrian army most unexpectedly appearedin sight .
The tw o armies,which were to meet for the first t ime;
were unequally equipped . The Elamite infantry so ldierpossessed no armour
,whereas mail coats were worn by
the heavy Assyrian archers : he carried a l ight shieldas against the big Assyrian Shield , while his head w as
protected by a low helmet wi thout a crest and a largehorse—hair } plume . His arms consisted of a bow smallerthan that used by the Assyrians
,a lance , a mace , and
'
a dagger . His chariot w as much lighter than that of
Assyria and his force of cavalry very small . Finally , asthe Elamite army w as mainly composed of independent
90 HISTORY OF PERSIA CRAP .
or semi - independent all ies from the mountain rangessurrounding the plain o f Susa
,it is obvious that
,while
bravery w as no t lacking,there could not have been the
same cohesion or organizat ion as in the host of Assyria,
which had marched to victory all over the Near East .
The first engagement w as stubbo rnly contested and
sanguinary . Both sides claimed the victory , but the
Elamites had to retire and so the bat tle of Durilu (or1/Der) const ituted a defeat
,though not a crushing one
,for
the Elamite army . There,for the t ime being , the
contest rested,
and Sargon cont inued his marvellouscareer, in the course of which the land of the Hitt itesbecame an Assyrian province and the Greek Kings”of
Cyprus sent gifts to Nineveh . It w as during this re ignthat Samaria w as captured and the Ten Tribes were sentinto capt ivity .
Sennacherih, 704
— 68 1 B. C .— We now come to the
re ign of Sennacherib,w ho
,as ment ioned in Chapter I I I .
,
raided the sea—coast of Elam . His object w as to attackChaldean refugees w ho were trying to found a new state ,and to some extent he succeeded but , while his armyw as plundering the sea-coast of Elam
,Northern Babylonia
w as being laid waste by the act ive Elamites underKhalludush, w ho even captured the King ’s son .
His Camp a igns aga inst Elam.—A revo lution in Elam ,
in which Khalludush w as besieged in his palace and put to
death , gave Sennacherib an opportunity of which he didno t hesitate to take advantage and for the first t ime theAssyrian army w as able to ravage the rich plain on whichSusa stands . The Assyrian monarch recorded the resultas follows : “ Thirty - four strongho lds and townshipsdepending on them who se number is unequalled , Ibesieged and took by assault , the ir inhabitants I led intocapt ivity
,I demo lished them and reduced them into ashes .
I caused the smoke of the ir burn ing to rise into the wideheaven
,like the smoke of one great sacrifice .
”Kudur-Nankhundi , w ho had been elected to occupy the
vacant throne,retreated into the mountains , where he
remained a passive spectator throughout the campaign .
Encouraged by this Sign of weakness , Sennacherib deter
9 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
in return he rece i ved aid from Esarhaddon when Elamw as suffering from famine .
The Conquest of Egyp t .-The crown ing feat of Esar
haddon’s reign w as the conquest of Egypt , which hadindeed suffered defeat before at the hands of the Assyrians
,
but had never seen her cit ies captured , her lands devastated ,
and her princesses carried off into slavery . The
power of Assyria culminated after this campaign,which
brought the who le of the civilized world , except Elam ,
under i ts stern sway ; and the fall of Elam w as soon to
fo llow .
zi ssurhanip al, 668— 626 B. C .
— Upon the death of Esarhaddon
,Assurbanipal succeeded to the emp ire ; and his
bro ther Shamash—shum-ukin to the kingdom of Babylon .
In 665 B . C .,when the Assyrian forces were in far-off
Egypt,the Elamites
, w ho evidently thought the Oppor
tunity too good to be lo st,suddenly crossed the Tigri s
under Urtaku and devastated the land far and wide .
Babylon w as too s trong to-be captured , and so the Elam
ites,following their usual practi ce , returned to Susa, laden
with booty . There, however , U rtaku died , and the co incidence of his death with that ~ of o ther leaders
,left Elam
a prey to i anarchy. Urtaku w as succeeded by his bro therTeumman ,
whose attempts to murder his nephews causedsixty royal princes
,with a considerable following
,to flee
to the court of Assurbanipal . There they were receivedwith honour, as , it w as hoped , through their instrumental ity
,to weaken Elam by means of civil w ar . The po l icy
w as successful , for these family feuds were the ult imatecause of the downfall of Elam . In the meanwhile
,the
Nile w as again ascended by the Assyrian generals and
Thebes w as sacked,tw o of the obelisks which adorned the
temple of Amen being transported to Nineveh .
The F irst Camp a ign aga inst Elam.— A few years later
Teumman,firmly seated on the throne of Elam , made an
alliance with the Gambula, w ho occupied the Tigris fords ,and thus opened the road to Babylon . Before crossingthe frontier he offered Assurbanipal the cho i ce betweenw ar and the surrender of the refugees from Elam . The
Assyrian monarch could no t agree to a demand which
94 HISTORY 01? PERSIA CRAP .
The 'R evolution at Susa — The“
news of the disaster,
which r eached Susa the same day, brought about a
revolut ion . The adherents of the exiled princes threwthe ir opponents into chains , and met , the victors in a
solemn procession , in which the sacred eunuchs took theleading part . In accordance with instruct ions sent by.Assurbanipal
,Khumban—igash, the eldest son of U rtaku
,
]
w as presented to the populace as thei r monarch,and
the Assyrian army, after rece iving tribute,returned to
Nineveh .
The Tri umph of Assyr ia — The joy of Assurban ipal i ssome proof of the terror that Elam had inspired . The
captured leaders were flayed al ive and the ir bodies werequartered and sent to various parts of the emp ire . The
head of Teumman,after being hung on a tree at a banquet
,
w as -fixed over the gate of Nineveh . Although Elam hadno t beaten Assyria in any campaign ,
it had defied Esarhaddon
,had repeatedly ravaged Babylonia
,and w as the
only power which had hitherto remained free and a standing . menace to Assyria. Consequently w e can imagine thedel ight of Assurbanipal at having reduced the country
,of
the hereditary foe to tribute , and w e can admire hissuccessful diplomacy
,which encouraged the exiled Elamite
princes from their secure retreat in Nineveh to creatediv isions at home . But it i s diffi cult to understand w hythe Assyrian army stayed its hand when Susa w as apparentlyWithin its grasp .
The R ehellion of Bahylon.— After the crushing defeat
infl icted on Elam and the accession of an Assyrian protégéto its throne
,it seemed unlikely that there would be
trouble from that quarter for many years . ~ But Assur,
banipal by his unbounded arrogance al ienated his bro ther,whom he treated as a mere V i ceroy of Babylon removableat w i ll , with the result that the latter formed a coal it ionagainst the Assyrian monarch , which included the chieffeudatory states . Khumban— igash, king o f Elam
,would
naturally have remained loyal to Assyria but Assurban ipalhad demanded that the statue of Nana should be restoredto Erech . To comply with this demand and keep the
throne w as impossible , the statue be ing intensely venerated
THE ASSYR IAN EMPIRE
by the whole Elamite nat ion ; and,as the Babylon ian
envoys offered the treasures of the gods , Khumban— igash~
threw himself into the all iance,which w as undoubtedly
popular.The Second Camp a ign aga inst Elam, 651 B . c .
—The
campaign opened and the oppo sing forces watched one
another throughout 651 B . C . Assyria again reaped the
benefit of internal dissensions In the Elamite royal family .
Tammaritu,bro ther of Khumban-igash, consp ired against
him,and after putting him to death seized the throne
but,to prove that there w as no change of pol icy , he at
once despatched more troops to jo in the army in the field .
His reign w as sho rt for one of the great feudatories ofElam
,by name Indabugash,
1w as encouraged by the state
of affairs to rebel, and w as so successful that Tammaritu
w as forced to flee to the marshes bordering the PersianGulf
,where a ship w as seized by the refugees . But a
storm drove the ship ashore,and Tammaritu w as made
prisoner and sent to Nineveh . There he w as kindly treatedby Assurbanipal
, w ho hoped , no doubt , to make use of himin the future . Meanwhile the successful rebel withdrewthe Elamite forces from the field and left his al ly to his fate .
The Cap ture of Bahylon, 64 8 B . C .— Assurbanipal w as
thus free to deal with Babylon ,which
,after a long siege ,
w as captured and dealt with in exactly the same w ay as it
had been by Sennacherib,its inhabitants being massacred
by thousands in front of the great winged bulls.The Third Camp a ign aga inst Elam
— The Assyrianmonarch now wisely determined to take advantage of
Elamite divisions to make an end of the independence of
this turbulent state,and , as may be imagined , Tammaritu
w as the cho sen instrument . Even befo re the fall ofBabylon a demand had been made for the surrender of theChaldeans w ho had taken part in the rebellion
, but no
definite answer had been given . Upon the fall of the
great city , which it w as to the vital interests of Elam to
prevent , Assurbanipal dismissed the Elamite ambassadorsw ith the following message to the ne ighbouring monarch
1 This name is clearly an Aryan one,as it contains the Slav buga or god, the modern
Russian bog. Vzde Hal l,op . ci t. p . 20 1 .
96 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
If thou dost not surrender those men,I will go and
destroy thy c it ies and lead into capt ivity the inhabitantsof Susa, Madaktu
,and Khaidalu . I will hurl thee from
thy throne,and will set up ano ther thereon as aforetime
I destroyed Teumman,so will I destroy thee .
”M eanwhile Indabugash had been murdered by his
nobles, w ho had set up Khumban-Khaldash in his place .
Thus the moment w as specially favourable for Assurbanipal, w ho openly espoused the cause of Tammaritu
,
and the latter, aided by the Assyrians , re-entered Susa, andw as again crowned king . No sooner w as this successfully accomplished than Tammaritu with incredible follyattempted to massacre his grasping allies ; but the plo t w as
revealed , and he w as again seized and thrown into prison .
The Assyrian army,however
,no t feeling strong enough
to maintain its posit ion unsupported , retired to Nineveh,
laying the who le country waste .
The Cap ture and Sack of Susa , 64 5B. C .— Assurbanipal
,
dissat isfied with the meagre results of the campaign,sent
the treacherous Tammaritu to demand the surrender of
the Chaldeans and of the goddess Nana ; but KhumbanKhaldash knew that to accede would mean his ow n deathand preferred to resist to the bitter end . But on thiso ccasion the Assyrian forces were too strong , and , afterburning fourteen royal cities , found Susa at their mercy .
1
An Assyrian army had twice befo re entered Susa in the
guise of allies but now the soldiers of Assur were able tograt ify the ir ancient hatred and to satisfy the ir lust o f
p illage to the full. The booty w as rich . Apart fromtreasures loo ted in bygone days from Sumer and Akkad
,
there w as the go ld and silver of the temples o f Babylon,
which had been used to secure the Elamite all iance . The
gods,too ,
whose sanctuaries were vio lated and whosetreasures were sacked , were sent to Nineveh , together withthirty- tw o statues of Elamite monarchs in gold
,silver
,
bronze,and marble . Finally
,the tombs of the ancient
heroes were broken open and the ir bones despatched to
Nineveh , where , in a suppo sed exquisite refinement of
1 The sack of Susa took p lace in the decade 650-640 B.C.,so I have given‘ it as
64 5B.C .
m THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE 97
cruelty,l ibat ions were offered
,by means of which the
souls chained to the crumbl ing bones were kept alive totaste to the full the bitterness and humilation of exile In
short,everything w as done that mal i ce or cruelty could
suggest to fill the cup of bitterness of fallen Elam . To
quote the glowing words of Ezekiel,There i s Elam and
all her multitude round about her grave , all of them slain ,
fallen by the sword .
”1The Statue of Nana restored to Erech — And at last
Assurbanipal w as able to carry out his purpose and sendback the statue of
'
Nana to Erech , after a capt ivity lasting1635 years . Is there any parallel in history comparableto this ?The Assyrian army finally marched back in triumph
,
taking with it no t only the wealth of Susa,but also a large
proportion of its surviving population as well as that ofthe surrounding districts . Khumban-Khaldash escapedfor a while ; but he w as finally driven to surrender
,and
the culminat ing triumph w as reached when Assurbanipalharnessed him and Tammaritu
,with tw o o ther conquered
kings,to the chariot which bore the great monarch
,now
at the zen ith of his glory,to the temples of Assur and
Ishtar .The D isapp earance of Elam — Elam as a kingdom had
fallen,and
,even if there st i ll remained independent hill
tribes,her memory passed away and w as lost in a mist
of fable and legend . I t is not unprofitable , before w e
leave it,to look back for a moment at her history . Elam
in her earliest days w as a predatory power,and so she
remained throughout . At the same t ime she developed herow n system of writ ing , her ow n art
,
2and to a certain extent
her ow n civilizat ion . But she raided rather than subdued,
ade l ittle serious attempt at empire and when she
conquests she signally failed . In
behaviour might perhaps be com
he thresher to the whale ; she raidedrelentlessly , and although her resources
omparably more slender, she almost invariablyxxxu . 24 . 0
making of jewelry and in casting metal the Elam ites excel led the
9 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP . VI I
succeeded in bringing booty safely back to Susa. Broughtface to face with Assyria, when the intervening bufferstates had been absorbed , Elam fought hero i cally againstsuperior organization, forces , and equipment . Even so
,
thanks to her inaccessibility and valour, she might wellhave survived Assyria but for Civil dissensions
,which again
and again paralysed her arms at the most crit ical juncture .
In the end she fell , and so ent irely w as her greatnessforgotten that in the pages of Strabo w e read thatCyrus placed the capital at Susa because of its situationand the importance of the city, and also because “ it had
never of itself undertaken any great enterprise and had
always been in subj ection to other people .
”1 Sic transit
gloria mundi
1 Strabo, xv . 3 . 2.
I OO HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
the Aryan question (although the term Aryan is strictlyapplicable only to the Indo- Iranian group), excited con
troversies without number at a t ime when the study of
these absorbing problems w as in its infancy . The originalidea w as that from some primitive home swarms ofAryanspeopled the uninhabited parts of the northern hemisphere .
We have travelled far from those early conceptions and
know that the world w as already, at the t ime w e speak
of,inhabited by other races . Consequently
,it i s
generally admitted that it i s only correct to speak of a
family of Aryan languages and perhaps of a primit iveAryan civ iliz ation, which had preceded the separat ionof the different Aryan dialects from their commonsto ck .
’ 1
We may, indeed , be proud to be descendedAryan stock , which has imposed its genius onwo rld
,conferring upon i t the priceless gift 0
civilization but let us not forget theSumerians and to the Semites , whosebarous Aryans adopted and developed . The mo rigins of our CIV1lization are examined
,the more
it becomes that w e inherit from all the civilizat ions ofthe ages .
The Cradle—land of the Aryans— The identificat ion
the centre from which the Aryan races issued is a pointwhich the greatest diversity of opinion has prevailedthere are some indicat ions to guide us . The Aryansevidently inhabitants of a land with a continental clias they recognized only t
language shows that they were steppe-dwellers ,w as a marked absence of mountains and forestonly a few hardy trees such as the birch and
were known . Now w e know that the Aryansthe north , and, as nomads range widely
,it is
some that the ir home may be sought in the
of the steppes to the far no rth of Khorasan— the
probability , more fert ile— and in the adjacent andbut better -watered , plains of Southern Russia.
regard the district to the south-west of the Casp ia1 The Races ofM an, by Deniker, p . 3 18 .
VI I I THE ARYANS OF PERSIA 10 1
the original home . In any case, the quest ion i s no t one
for dogmati c pronouncement .
The Tradition of the Aryans of Pers ia .— The Aryans
of the Iran ian branch , with whom w e are here concerned ,were the first to be civilized and to acknowledge one god ,
"
and consequently they have special claims on our interest .
They possessed a tradit ion that they quitted their ancienthome because the Power of Evil made it ice—bound and
uninhabitable . Perhaps this may mean that they wereirres istibly urged fo rward by a change of climate
,j ust as
aridity possibly caused the ho rdes of Mongo l ia to swarmwestwards
,and incidentally to blast the civilization of the
countries they overran .
Special legends 1 refer to a lost home termed Aryanem
Vaejo . When co ld compelled them to leave this terrestrialparadise
,they moved to Sughda and Muru ( the classical
Soghdiana and Margiana), the former being Bokhara and
the latter the modern Merv . Locusts drove them fromSughda and ho st i le tribes forced them to Bakhdhi , the
country of lofty banners , which w as later known as
Balkh . From Balkh they proceeded to Nisaya, whichhas been identified with Nishapur , but in my opin ionerroneously fo r the district of Nasa or Nisa
,now known
as Darragaz , a l ittle to the west of Merv,fits in much
better . Haroyu (Herat) and Vaekereta (Kabul),“the
land of noxious shadows,
”were reached in the fartherstages of the migrat ion . Later
,the chron iclers divided
these countries into tw o groups,namely
,Arahvaiti (Ara
chosia), Haetumant ( the Helmand), and H apta—Hindu
(the Panjab) to the east ; and Urva (Tus), Vehr-Kana
(the Gurgan), Rhaga (Rei), Varena (Gilan), and o therdistricts to the west . This grouping may well have beendevised to explain the Indian and Persian divisions of theAryan .
The site of Aryanem-Vaejo has been placed in the
northern port ion of the modern province of Azerbaij anbut de Morgan 2 po ints out mo st pert inent ly that , if thenorthern or any other part of Azerbaijan had been the
1 Cf. especially Farjand I . of the Vendidad.
2 E tudes, etc.,p . 4 15.
102 HISTORY OF PERSIA cus p .
orig inal Aryanem-Vaejo , the Aryans would have beenbrought into contact with the tribes inhabiting what i snow Armenia, w ho knew the art of writing and werecomparat ively civilized . In truth w e cannot fix thiscentre with precision . The entire legend , as it has comedown to us , i s too detailed to be very ancient
, and it isquite possible that at the time when it assumed its finalform Azerbaijan w as regarded as the Aryanem—Vaejo , andthe original home in the north w as forgotten . Nevertheless
,Avestan scho lars set much store upon i t ; for
there can be little doubt that i t is based on tradition fromthe remote past .
The Arri val of the Aryans in Persia .-It i s believed
that the Medes migrated into Persia from Southern ?11
Russia and, fmfl ing the kingdom of Urartu or Ararat too
strong to be attacked, avo ided it and gradually occupiedthe western side of the Iranian plateau Other Aryantribes o ccup ied districts of Asia Minor farther west,where they were found by Cyaxares .
1 Another Aryanbranch
, that of the Persians , entered Eastern Persia fromthe steppes to the north of Khorasan and
,traversing the
province of Kerman , occupied Fars, from the neighbourhood of the valley of the Zenda Rud
,possibly already
held by the Medes,to the Persian Gulf. Their western
front iers would touch tho se of the tribes under Elamiteinfluence . A third migrat ion took a south—easterly direction '
~
from Aria or Bactria, the invaders crossing the
Hindu Kush and conquering the Panjab , the Hap ta
Hindu of the legend . Behind these three great bodiesw e hear of the Hyrcanians w ho inhabited the moderndistrict of Astrabad ; and behind the Persians came the
Carmanians,whose name survives in Kerman the Gedro
sians ' of the littoral of Baluchistan ; the Drangians and
A‘
rachosians , inhabiting the northern districts of Baluchistan and part of Southern Afghanistan respect ively ;and
,finally , the Margians of Merv and the Bakhtrians of
Balkh .
1 The recent ly discovered tablets at Boghaz Kyoi (Pteria) in Cappadocia, on one of
which,a document of a dip lomatic character, oaths are taken by the Aryan deit ies
Indra and Varuna, prove the date of the arriva l of the Aryans to have preceded1400 B.C.
vm THE ARYANS OF PERSIA 103
The Dates of the M igration.— De Morgan 1 ho lds that
the migrat ion o ccupied thousands of years ; that the
Aryan i nvas ion of Bactria took place before 2500 B .c .,
and that the Medes entered No rth-western Persia about2000 B .C . The first waves occup ied Gilan and Mazanderan ; but did no t penetrate as far as the plateau
,in
habited at that period by primit ive races , possiblyTuranian ,
akin to the primit ive race of Babylonia. The fact that,
as ment ioned in Chapter VI . , the Kassites were an Aryantribe which founded a dynasty about 1700 B .C .
,and were
heard of during the First Dynasty of Babylon,helps to
date this migration more defin itely than could be doneunt il the identity of the Kassi tes had been established .
The M edes and the Ancient Inha bitants — The ancientinhabitants were , in all probability
,partly dispossessed
,
partly driven into the hills,and part ly permitted to l ive side ’
by side with the conquerors . I f w e consider the heavylosses which the defending tribes must have sustained
,the
wide area affected,and its mountainous character , this
appears to be a reasonable hypothesis,and history shows it
to be in accordance with the procedure of most conqueringnat ions . I t is also corroborated by Herodo tus , w ho givesthe names of the tribes that were welded into a nat ion as
the Busae,the Paretaceni
,the Struchates
,the Arizant i, the
Badii , and the Magi .2 I t IS generally believed that the firstfour of these were Aryans and that the Budii and Magiwere Turan ians . The last-named tribe w as found by theinvaders to be possessed of a form of worship which , fusedwith that of the Aryans
,developed , under the influence
of Zoroaster,into the religion which st i ll bears his name .
The Aryan invaders were a primit ive pastoral folkowning horses , catt le , sheep , goats , and the watch—dog.
av elled in rude waggons with axles and wheelshewn from a single stem . The bride w as
and the family w as based on patriarchal authpolygamy . They knew go ld
,electrum ,
3and
2 Herodotus, i . 10 1 .
aphie et de Sociologie, vol. 11. p . 5, de M organ po ints out thated from the nuggets and dust
nknow n,
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
bronze : but their art w as l imited to a very few simplel ine patterns and to ornaments . They were ignorant of
writ ing . Gradually they settled down and , learn ing agri
culture , founded villages and towns ; and for a long t imethey continued to be a number of loosely organized clans
,
independent of one another but usually ready to unite incase of danger .
Aryan M ths.— It has been well said that no religion
i s ever invented,a characterist i c which it shares with
language . Both are the results of growth and transformat ion
,and since religion is founded on beliefs which
themselves are deeply affected by myths , if not based on
them ,it i s of primary importance to study
,if w e can ,
these fundamental old —world ideas . Most fortunatelythe Aryan legends have been preserved for the i r descendants and appeal to us
,i f only for the l ight they
throw upon modern civilizat ion in its primit ive phases .Our earl iest glimpse of the Aryans shows them to be
at the stage of pure nature—worship . The bright heavens,
l ight , fire , the winds and the l ife-giving rain-storm wereall worshipped as divine be ings
,whereas darkness 1 and
drought were held to be accursed demons . To the
heavens in this po lytheist i c system pre- eminence w as
granted,and the sun is termed Heaven’s eye , and l ight
n ing Heaven’s son . I t may be urged that most religionscontain these myths , which are , indeed , widespread ; butwith the Aryans there w as not
,as in the case of the
Sumerians, the propit iation of the evil sp irits . R ather
they had to be faced and overcome by the good sp irits,w ho
,in the ir turn ,
depended largely for success on the
prayers and sacrifices of man . It is thus evident that ,from the beginn ing
,the position of man w as one of
assured dign ity,with a manly att itude towards his deit ies ,
to whom he prayed for help,to whom he sang hymns of
praise , to whom he offered sacrifices and , above all, drinkofferings of the sacred haoma .
2 By such prayers and l bysuch sacrifices he felt that he aided the beneficent de ities
1 The Gathas and Later Avesta differ as to darkness . Ahura Mazda created darkness according to the C athas
,Tasna, xliv.
2 The haoma,iden tical w ith the soma of India
,is a mountain p lant , but there is
doubt as to its identity.
PART or A PERSIAN H UNTING SCENE .
(From a Silver Vase in the Hermitage Museum. )
CHAPTER IX
THE RELIG ION OF THE M EDES AND PERSIANS
They (the Persians) are in the habi t of ascending the h ighest mountaIns
and o ffering sacrifices to Zeus— they giv e the name Zeus to the who lecelestial circle . M oreover, they sacrifice to the sun
,moon, earth, fire, water,
and winds . To these alone they were accustomed originally to sacrifice .
H ERODOTUS, i . 1 3 1 .
Zoroaster loquitur :“ Th is I w i ll ask ; tell i t me r ight, 0 Ahura
,
‘Wi llthe good deeds of men be rewarded already before the future life for the goodcomes i"
The Common R eligion of the Aryans of Pers ia and ofIndia .
— In the last chapter reference w as made to the
Aryan worship of the great forces of nature,and the
present chapter 1 is mainly a development of this theme .
This nature—worship , as described by Herodotus in the
passage quo ted above,w as characterist i c of all the Aryan
peoples,but with the Aryans of India the Iranians shared
a common rel igion and culture throughout a long period ,which came to an end not very long before the t ime withwhich w e are now deal ing . The Aryans of India possessed revealed scriptures termed Vedas or Knowledge , consisting of a collect10n of mo re than 1000
1 In this chapter I have consu lted ProfessorWi l l iams Jackson ’
s Zoroaster , the Prop hetof Ancient I ran. M r. Edwards very k ind ly sent me a proof of the masterly article on
God ( Iran ian), contributed by him to Hast ings ’ Encyclopaedza if Religion and Ethics.
During revis ion I have consulted Early Zoroastr ianism,by J . H . M ou lton, which Work
g ives a careful ly reasoned and moderate op in ion on the Various diffi cult questions .
on . 1x RELIGION OF MEDES 8: PERSIANS 107
hymns preserved by the ancient Aryan conquerors of thePanjab . Now ,
especially in the early Vedic period, w e
find among them the same general stage of developmentas in Iran ,
and the same worship of the Nature-powers .Similar terms were employed for a god , indicat ing , as
Edwards po ints out,that the character of the obj ects of
worship w as s imilar . One name w as asura (Sanscrit ,asura , Av esta ,
ahura), signifying“the Lord”; another
w as da iva (Sanscrit, deva , Avesta , daefva), from the Indo
European word denoting “ heavenly ones .” The latterhas continued to be an Aryan word for god , in such formsas theos , deus, dieu, and deity in Greek, Latin ,
French,and
English respect ively.
Even in early Vedic t imes the tw o classes of gods ,ahuras and dae‘vas, were looked upon as rivals in theirclaims on the venerat ion of the tribesmen . In India the
dae‘vas were in the ascendant,and in the later Veda the
asuras are regarded as demons . In Iran,on the o ther
hand, the ahuras were in the ascendant
,and it is in relat ion
to Ahura that the religious consciousness o f the Iraniansdeveloped , the daev as be ing relegated to the posi t iongiven to the asura s in India.
Indo-I ranian Legends, Yama or 7amshid.-There are
also legends common to both countries .1 Of these perhapsthe mo st interesting is that of the hero Yama, originallyone of the names of the sett ing sun . H e w as held to be
the first to Show the w ay to many, and , being the firstto arrive in the vasty halls of death , as Matthew Arno ldbeautifully expresses it , he not unnaturally becomes transformed into the King of the Dead . He possessed tw odogs , brown, broad- snouted , four-eyed ,
”w ho went forth
dai ly to scent out the dead and to drive them into the
presence of their monarch . We can trace a remin iscenceof these dogs in Persia in the Zo roastrian custom knownas Sagdid, or
“ The See ing of the Dog.
”The Avesta
prescribes that a yellow dog with four eyes or a white dogwith brown ears”shall be brought to the side of everyperson w ho dies
,as its look drives away the demon which
attempts to enter the corpse . To -day the Parsis , w ho , in1 This subject is referred to again in Chapter X I I.
H ISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
Persia at any rate, are ignorant of the great ant iquity ofthe custom
, p lace a p iece of bread on the chest of the man
supposed to be dead . If the dog eats it , the man i s pronounced to be dead
,and i s carried off to the Dakhma
,or
Tower of Expo sure,by members of the community w ho
are held to be permanently impure and are condemned toa miserable l ife .
Zoroaster , the Prop het of I ran — The founder of thdancient religion of the -Persians w as Zoroaster, aroundwhose name and personality have gathered bitterly con
fl icting opinions . I t has been den ied that he w as a historical personage , and , not so very long ago ,
it w as heldamong o ther theories — that he w as a product of the
ubiquitous storm—myth . Here again,as in the case of
the Aryan problem,an immense advance has been made
on the theories of the early pioneers,to whom ,
however ,all . honour is due . In spite of legend and fable whichobscure his figure
,the Great Reformer
,the Prophet of
Iran , stands out now , through the mists of ant iquity, asan actual historical person .
The o rigin of the name Zarathustra Zoroaster ismerely a Latin corrup tIOn
— Is not known in its ent irety ,but i t contains the word ustra
,a camel
,which still exists
in .modern Persian In a slightly different form . There isreason for accept ing the tradition that the Prophet w as a
nat ive OfAzerbaijan , the classical Atropatene , in both formsof which may be discerned the ancient word a thar , fire .
His birthplace is bel ieved to have been Urumia,to the
west of the lake of the same name . His youth w as givenup to meditat ion and retirement , in the course o f whichhe saw seven visions and endured various ‘temp tat ions .
U ltimately he proclaimed his mission ,but for many long
years he met with little success indeed , in the first decadehe gained only one convert .
Gus tasp ,the First R oyal Conv er t
— Zoroaster w as theninsp ired to travel to Eastern Persia, and at Kishmar 1 inthe province of Khorasan he met Vistasp , the Gustasp
j
of Firdausi’
s ep ic, w ho may possibly be identified with
1 I Vis ited this interesting site in 1909 . Vide yournal R.G.S. for January and
February,19 11 .
RELIGION OF MEDES PERSIANS 109
Hystaspes , father of Darius . At this ruler’s Court he firstconverted the tw o sons of the Vizier and then the Queen .
There w as a formal disputation between the Prophet andthe wise men
,during the course of which they t ried to
overcome him by their magic ; but Zoroaster triumphedand gained the King himself as a fervid convert to the newreligion . To quote from the Farvadin Tasht
He it w as w ho became the arm and the support of the ReligionofZarathushtra
,ofAhura He
,w ho dragged from her chains the
Religion that w as bound in fet ters and unable to st ir.
The conversion of Gustasp and his Court w as fo llowed byinvasions of the Turanian tribes of Central Asia
,perhaps
provoked by crusades of the converts . These “ Holy .
Wars,”as they may be considered, were waged mainly in
Khorasan ,and
,if the legend can be trusted
,the deciding
battle w as fought to the west of the modern town of
Sabzawar .1 Zoroaster, full of years and honours, w as
slain at Balkh when the Turan ians made their secondinvasion . The tradition runs that he died at the altar
,
surrounded by his disciples .The Date of Zoroaster
’
s Birth and Dea th.—To sum
marize , Zo roaster w as an inhabitant of Azerbaijan and
perhaps a M agian ,although this is doubtful . H e w as
born about 660 B.C . or perhaps a few generations earlier .Like Mohamed , whose rel ig ion w as also dest ined to
prevail in Persia in later t imes , he saw visions and enduredmany years of bitter fai lure before success w as gained .
He converted Gustasp , King of Eastern Persia, and
remained at his Court, teaching and preaching,unt il his
death about 58 3 B.C .
2
The Av esta — In the eyes of a Moslem,the inhabitants
of the world are divided into tho se nations which haverevealed scriptures and those which have not . The
Zoroastrians can certainly claim to belong to the formerclass
,as they po ssess the Avesta, which , or part of which ,
w as revealed to Zoroaster . This sacred w ork,
-written in1 I v is ited this interesting site in 1908 . Vide yournal K.G.S. for January and
February, 19 1 1 .
2 Moulton p leads strongly for a few more generations,
and it wou ld be unsound to
be dogmat ic on this very difficu lt question . Personal ly,I am inclined to fol low Mou lton ,
l'
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
a language which is generally termed Avestic and whichdiffers from the language used by the Achaemenianmonarchs in their inscript ions , i s believed to have con
sisted of twenty-one books inscribed in letters of go ld‘on ox- hides . It is understood to have beendestroyed after the downfall of the Achaemenian dynasty
,
and but l ittle of it has been recovered . Volagases I .
,the
Parthian monarch w ho reigned about the middle of the
first century A .D .
,i s bel ieved to have begun a reconstruct ion
of it,which w as
,however , mainly the work of Ardeshir ,
the founder of the Sasanian dynasty ; and it is probablethat it rece ived addit ions for the next tw o or threegenerat ions .
Ant iquity appeals strongly to mankind , and when w e
reco llect that Zoroastrianism,which is a l iving rel igion
st ill , w as contemporary with the rel igions of Baal,ofAssur ,
and of Zeus , which have all been forgo tten for manycenturies, w e can sympathise with the eagerness and zealof students w ho devo te their lives to tracing it back to its
remo te source amid the mists of legend and myth .
The extant port ions of the Avesta contain only onecomplete
'
book,the Vendidad (mo re correctly Videvat ),
or Law against the Demons . Port ions of some of theo ther chapters enter into the composition of the Tasna or
l iturgy,and other fragments are preserved in Pahlavi
books . The latter bear much the same relat ionship to
the Avesta as patrist ic l iterature does to the New
Testament . What exists of the Avesta i s divided intofour sect ions as fo l lows
(a) The Tasna , subdivided into seventy-tw o chapters,
and consist ing of hymns,including the Cathas .
.(h) The Visp ered or co llection of doxologies
,used In
conjunction with the Tasna .
(c) The Vendidad, the ecclesiastical law book prescribing penances
, purificat ions , and expiat ions .
( d ) The Ya shts or hymns in honour of the angels w hopreside over the various days of the month .
The o ldest port ion is represented by the Cathas, whichhave been aptly compared with the Hebrew Psalms andare believed to I
iepresent the actual teaching and utterances
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
abolished , were brought back and worshipped side by sidewith Ahura Mazda and his archangels ; the worship of
Anahita,modelled on Ishtar , the Semitic goddess of
fecundity, w as also introduced . Thus the reforms and
the monotheism preached by Zoroaster were graduallyforsaken and a return w as made to the old po lytheism .
Ahriman, the Sp iri t of Ev il — Coeval with AhuraMazda
,fundamentally host ile to him and hav ing the
power to thwart his beneficent actions for a while,is
Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, the Spirit of Evil , w ho thuslimits the omnipo tence of Ahura Mazda . As Edwardsputs it , he is the dark background against which our
lofty conception of Ahura Mazda must be set . Later,
when the good sp iri ts are personified , evil sp irits are
created to oppose them and the fight between the powersof Good and Evil is waged grimly with alternations of
victory and defeat . It must , however , be rememberedthat for Zoroaster Drujor the Lie summed up all evil asit did for Darius , and that Ahriman i s a somewhat laterconception .” ( The Three Pr incip les of Zoroastrianism — In the
Vendidad there are three fundamental principles underlying an immense accumulat ion of priestly ritual and
formal ity
( I ) That agriculture and cattle-breeding are the onlynoble callings .
( 2) That the who le creation is a combat betweenGood and Evil .
( 3) That the elements— air,water, fire and earth— are
pure and must no t be defiled .
To illustrate the first principle,I canno t do better than
describe what may be termed the ideal life according toZoroastrian ism . In reply to a question put by the Prophet,w e are informed that : “ It is where one of the faithfulerects a house with cattle , wife, and children ,
and wherethe cattle go on thriving ; the dog, the wife, the child,the fire are thriving where one of the faithfulcult ivates most corn ,
grass , and fruit ; where he watersground that i s dry or dries ground that is too w et .
”
The precepts are singularly sane and wholesome. Among
RELIGION OF MEDES st PERSIANS 1 13
other things, they forbid fasting , on the ground that“ Whoso eats no t , has no power either to accomplish a
valiant work of rel igion,or to labour with valour .
it is by eat ing that the un iverse l ives , and it dies by no teating . Contrast this with the curse of fast ing in
modern Persia which yearly adds thousands to the numberof opium-smokers , the half starved men and women beingweakened to such an extent that they are unable to res i stthe deadly drug : moreover
,the ordinance presses lightly
on the rich , w ho sleep all the day, and heavily on the
poor . The good physique of the Zoroastrians in Persia is,
I am sure , due mainly to the absence of all unnaturalrestraints . To continue
,marriage w as stri ctly enjo ined
,
as also po lygamy . Herodo tus notes that the Kingawarded a prize yearly to the subject with the largestfamily .
The second principle is a statement of the abso lutedualism of Zoroastrianism . Ahura Mazda created all thatis good
,such as the ox , the vigilant dog, and the cock
,
whom it w as the duty of all bel ievers to cher ish . Ahriman,
on the o ther hand,created all noxious creatures
,such as
beasts of prey,serpents
,and all fl ies and insects
,which it is
the bounden duty of the faithful to destroy . In this lattercategory are the ant
,which it is meritorious to kill as
eating the farmer ’s grain ,the l izard
,and the frog . The
posit ion of cattle needs no comment ; it i s illustrated bythe sanct ity which still attaches to cat tle in India. The
explanat ion of the dog’s position,as placed in the mouth
of Ahura,is delightfully poet i cal “ I have made the dog
self—clothed and self-shod , watchful , wakeful and sharptoothed
,born to take his food from man and to watch
man ’s goods . . And who soever shall awake at his,ne ither shall the thief nor the wolf steal anythinghis house without be ing warned ; the wo lf shall be
and torn to pieces . For no house couldn the earth made by Ahura, but for those tw o
mine,the shepherd ’s dog and the house-dog.
”
man I noti ced that the Parsis shrankthe example of the ir Moslem neighthe dog i s impure and I never fai led
I
HISTORY OF PERSIA cu s p .
to po int out how contrary to the precepts of their religionw as their act ion . These precepts o ccasionally went too farin placing the dog on an equal ity with man . This appearsin the phrase the murder of a dog or of a man
,
”and in
the ideal of a Zo roastrian life quoted above,where in the
dog is mentioned before the wife and children IThe posit ion assigned to the cock , which arouses the
slo thful,would certainly have flattered Rostand ’
s Chan
tecler . I t runs : “ The bird that lifts his vo ice againstthe mighty Dawn And whosoever w ill kindly and
piously present one of the faithful with a pair of these mybirds
,i t i s as though he had given a house with a hundred
co lumns .” It also perhaps tends to prove that domesticpoultry were rare in Persia at that t ime . The water-dog,presumably the o tter, w as held to be extrao rdinarily sacred .
The penalty for killing one w as ten thousand stripes,the
highest laid down for any crime . Perhaps its modernname of Sag M ahi , or
“ dog fish,is reminiscent of the
period of its sanct ity .
The third principle invo lved the sacredness of fire as
a symbol , and caused the priest to cover his mouth whenofli ciating at the altar . It also led to rules againstrunning water which are sti ll known in Moslemalthough mainly honoured in the breach . Again
,t
Zoroastrian is exposed on a tower to prevent pof the earth . But
,further
,since all sickness
as possession by the powers of Evil , the dyingis frequently neglected by the members of hideprived of even the necessaries of life .
of sickness,indeed
,and the disgusting ablut
'
purifications with the urine of cows are amongfeatures of this wonderful religion .
Turanian Influences on Zoroastri anism — Even in a
review of Zoroastrianism it is impossible to neglec
quest ion of Turanian influences on the Aryan reliIt Is , of course , natural and , indeed , almost inev itan i Iivading tribe which takes possession of a new
without exterminat ing or driv ing out its originalants, should be more or less influenced by the i r
,
beliefs . The history of the tribes of Israel furI
I I 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
and that it w as they alone w ho slew the vict im ,prepared
the sacred haoma,and held the bundle of harsam ; moreover,
they were deeply versed in astrology,and through this d
science connect themselves with the birth of Christ . Theirinfluence
,as the generat ions passed
,became supreme
,and
it is possibly owing to this fact that the pure beliefs taughtby Zoroaster
,w ho w as
,however
,himself bel ieved to be of
Magian descent,were overlaid with superst ition and rigid
formalism . The Persians do no t seem to have readilyadopted the Observances of the Magi
,and it w as apparent ly
not until the Sasan ian period that the religion w as embracedin its ent irety .
The Doctrine of the Resurrection.— The bel ief In a future
l ife which w as to const itute reward or punishment afterdeath w as an ancient fundamen tal Aryan bel ief. In
Ca thas,this doctrine is no t defined with precision, bu
the Vendidad the somewhat vague speculat ion of
Ga thas became more definite . The do ctrine is giventhe usual form of a revelation . In reply to the quest iwhether the believer, and the unbeliever too , have“ leave the waters that run
,the corn that grows and
the rest of the ir wealth,
”Ahura says that it is so,a
that “the soul enters the w ay made by Time and
bo th to the wicked and the righteous . We nextthat for three n ights after death the soul has its seatthe head of the body it has just quitted and
,
to its deserts , enjoys pleasure or m i sery in a
degree. When the fourth dawn appears,a
wind blows from the south and the soul ofmet at the bridge of Chinvat
,or Bridge of the
which Is thrown across the abyss of hell,
“ by aarmed maiden as fair as the fairest thi Iigs In t
The soul enquires w ho she i s and rece ives the replthou youth of good thought, good Words and goodI am thy ow n conscience . Led by this beauteousthe soul of the faithful is brought to the preseAhura and is there welcomed as an honoured guest .
wicked soul , after meet ing a hideous woman,cannot
the bridge and falls into the Abode of Lie, there to bethe slave of Ahriman .
1 18 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
Again,the purity and loft iness of conception of Ahura i
Mazda,as preached by Zoroaster
,exceeds that of Yahveh,
the tribal god of Israel, w ho is represented as exclaiming
,
If I whet my glittering sword , and mine hand take ho ld onj udgment , I will render vengeance to mine enemies and willreward them that hate me . I will make mine arrows drunkwith blood
,and my sword shall devour flesh .
”1 What aterrible
,nay ferocious , god is this ! On the o ther hand ,
the God whose sublime nature i s depicted in the loftypassages of Isaiah surpasses the highest concept ion of
Ahura Mazda .
We now come to a st ill more important quest ion . I t
is perhaps go ing too far to claim that the do ctrine of the
immo rtality of the soul w as first preached by Zoroasterand adopted by the Hebrews , w ho w ere placed by SargonI I . “ in the cit ies of the Medes”as they disappearedand were lo st to Israel . We do
,however , know that the
priest ly and aristocrat ic families of the Jews,represented
by the Sadducees, held , at the beginning of the Christ ian
,
era,that there w as no thing in the Scriptures to warrant the
bel ief in angel , sp iri t , o r resurrect ion . Thus w e have, on
the one hand , the Zoroastrians , with whom the doctrineof the immortality of the soul w as a fundamental articleof belief, and
,on the o ther
,the Jews divided among
themselves on this vital doctrine six centuries after thedeath of the great Prophet of Iran . Space fo rbids me to
enlarge further on the immense influence which Zoroastrianism must have had , bo th directly and indirectly
,on
Judaism : even if it w as no t the pure rel igion of Zoroaster,it w as undoubtedly an influence which tended to the discouragement of the idea of the tribal god and to the
strengthen ing of the grand ideal of a god of all nat ions .It remains to po int out that the tone of the Hebrewprophets towards the Persians i s remarkable , and, to givea single example out of many , w e read In Isaiah , “ Thussaith the Lo rd to his ano inted
,to Cyrus . Indeed
,the
Persians are never doomed to Hell ; and are to some
extent recogn ized by the Hebrews as a people whoserelig ion w as akin to their ow n .
1 Deuteronomy xxxn . 4 1-4 2 .
RELIGION OF MEDES 85 PERSIANS 1 19
Summary.—We have traced the Aryans in their migra
t ion and the i r occupat ion of the land of Iran,to which
they have given the i r name . We have seen them firstas rude nomads , worshippers o f nature and then appearsthe stately figure of Zoroaster , w ho spiri tualized the irmyths and evo lved a de ity whose sublimity approachesthat of the God of Isaiah . It w as Zoroaster w ho preachedthe Aryan belief in the immo rtality of the soul , and who semessage of hope has surely come from the remote pastalong the whispering-galleries of t ime and has influencedthis twentieth century in which w e l ive
,both directly
and indirectly . According to his teaching,man , in the
eternal combat between Good and Evil,is free to take
his cho ice,i s supported by the good spirits and assailed
by the evil ; but knows that in the end Good willtriumph over Evil just as the rain-cloud dispels drought .
In my humble opinion ,it i s very diffi cult to improve on
the tenets of this religion as repeated by every lad whenhe is old enough to don the myst i c girdle and
,instructed
by his elders,says
, Humata ,Huhhta , H'
varshta ,“ Good
Thoughts,Good Wo rds , Good Deeds .
IRAN IANs F IGHTING ScYTH IANs .
(From R .A .S . journa l, vol. Iii .)
CHAPTER X
TH E R ISE OF M ED IA AND THE FALL OF A SSYR IA
And i t shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee fromthee, and say, Nineveh Is laid waste . w ho w i ll bemoan her ? whence shall Iseek comforters for thee — Nahum I i i . 7 .
A Descrip tion of Media .—The Aryan empire of the
Medes came into be ing earlier than that of the kindredPersians , owing to the i r closer proximity to the p re
dominant Semit ic power of Assyria,and the fact that the
one great natural route from Mesopotamia to the Iranianplateau runs across the Zagros range, through the heart ofthe country o ccupied by this tribe;I We read of Assyrianexpeditions travers ing Media for
generat ion after genera
t ion, apparently with ease , and agai n w e hear of the tributewhich w as paid ; and nothing seemed more unlikely thanthat the loose congeries of tribes should , within a few years,develop into a formidable power .
The kingdom of the Medes arose in the centre of the
Zagros range and the fert ile plains to the east of it . It ‘
w as formed , as ment ioned in the preceding chapter, by theun ion of the six mo st important tribes under one rule .
At first the district around Hamadan w as o rganized but
the rising power soon extended its territories until itsnorthern boundary w as the Caspian Sea. To the northwest it included the modern province of Azerbaijan ; tothe east there w as the Lut , with a scanty nomadic populat ion and on the west and south the kingdom touched the
120
122 HISTORY OF PERS IA CHAP .
Herat , then termed Ariarm i,
and other provinces of
Afghanistan . But de Morgan believes that this campaigndid no t extend beyond the Lut
, and w as , in all probability,
directed against the Medes and kindred tribes . Thisview is supported by the inscriptions of later Assyrianmonarchs , as w e shall see hereafter . It i s quite possiblethat the expedit ion w as intended to thrust back the Medes ,w ho may have arrived at about this t ime and upset thefront ier ; but it may also have been one of the series ofcampaigns which , at this period , carried the arms of Assurin every direct ion , and upon the who le , I am inclined toaccept this latter theory .
The Exp edi tions of Shalmaneser , 8 4 4 B.C .— Some three
centur ies later,Shalmaneser I I . led an expedition into
Namri,the modern Kurdistan
,a count ry which
,it i s of
considerable interest to no te,had been under Babylonian
influence for a long t ime . Its prince, w ho bore the Semit ic
name of Marduk-Mudammik, escaped to the hills ; buthis people and treasure were captured and carried off bythe conquerors . Shalmaneser also appo inted a king of
Kassite origin , Ianzu by name, to rule over the d i strict .
Seven years later he again marched into Namri,as
Ianzu had revolted . On this o ccasion he surprised the
rebels and drove them into the forests . H e then boredown on Parsua
,the ne ighbouring district to the east ,
and plundered twenty-seven princes . Finally , he skirtedAmadai and Kharkhar ( the district of Kermanshah), andat length overtook and captured Ianzu , whom he broughtback to Assyria in triumph . This expedit ion is of specialinterest , as the Madai or Medes are ment ioned for thefirst t ime in the inscript ion recount ing this campaign ,
and
thus make thei r humble entry on to the stage of history .
In this connexion ,in Genesis x . 2, w e read :
“ The sonsof Japheth Gomer ( the Cimmerians), and Magog
(Armenia), and Madai (Media), and Javan ( Ion ia), etc.
During the re ign of Shalmaneser’
s successor, SamsiRamman IV . ,
the Medes are again ment ioned as be ing'
conquered and paying tribute , and it would appear, from
1 De M organ sugges ts that the names of these distant provinces were added to
increase the prestige of Assyria. Etudes, etc. p . 351, note 5.
THE RISE OF MEDIA 123
the frequency wi th which expedit ions raided the Iranianplateau and from the number of towns destroyed , that itw as then a distinctly fert ile and well- populated country .
The inference i s confirmed by the number of pri sonersand the thousands of ho rses
,cattle , and sheep that were
captured .
T/te Invasi on of Ramman—Ninani I II . ,8 10 B. C .
— In
B .C . 8 10 ,Ramman-Nirari I I I .
,whose wife Sammuramat
,a
Babylonian princess , i s po ssibly the Semiramis of legend ,1
led an expedit ion into Media. It w as the earliest of at
least four campaigns conducted by this energet ic monarch ,w ho extended the Assyrian Empire unt il it included thegreater part of the western side o f the Iran ian plateau .
T/ze Campa igns of Tigla tn-
p i/eser IV., 74 4 B . C .
Tiglath-
p ileser IV . , w ho ranks high among the manywarrior-kings of Assur
,invaded M edia in 74 4 B.C . Like
his predecessors , he found the various tr ibes disun itedand w as therefo re able to attack them one by one . The
nearest districts he converted into an Assyrian province ,and the success o f the campaign may be est imated fromthe fact that prisoners and enormous herds of
oxen,sheep
,mules
,and dromedaries were led back in
triumph to Calah . One of his general s had pressed on as
far as the l pes of Bikni, the modern Demavand , held by
the Assyrians to be the extreme boundary of the world .
This explo it , curious as it may seem ,decided the success
of the campaign , and the victo r w as met by every chief inthe country
,all equally anxious to pay homage to the man
w ho had achieved such an explo it . Later in his re ign , in737 B . C . , the districts of Media were again ruthlessly sweptbare of every l iving thing ; not even the mo st remo tevalley or the most rugged mountain range saved the chiefsand the i r subj ects from capture by the ubiquitous enemy
,
whose most valuable boo ty w as , in all probabili ty , themult itude of capt ives
,destined to be employed ln building
the Assyrian wo rks of peace .
I sra el carried Cap tiv e into Mea’
ia oySargon B . c .
— A generat ion passed and Sargon I I . captured Samaria,
which , relying on help from Egypt , had W ithheld the
1 Tba Pa ssing of tize Emp ires, p . 98 , note I .
124. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
onerous tribute . This event is narrated in the book of
Kings as follows : “ In the n inth year of Ho shea the
King o f Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away intoAssyria
,and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the
river ofGozan ,and in the cities of the Medes .”1 Halah 2
is Calah,at that period the capital Habor is the Khabur,
a main tributary of the Euphrates Gozan lay to the eastof the Khabur , and “
the cit ies of the Medes were the
districts which had been formed into an Assyrian provinceby Tiglath-p ileser IV .
The same sovereign ,a few years later
,during the
course of a campaign with the Mannai, w ho inhabited
Azerbaijan to the south of Lake U rumia, and were akinto the Medes , captured one of their chiefs , Dayaukku ,Whose name is apparently ident i cal with that o f the
classical Deioces, the founder of the Median Empire .
Contrary to the Assyrian custom , the prisoner’s l ife w as
spared and he w as sent with his family into exile at
Hamath . As the result of this campaign the Medes oncemo re acknowledged the suzerainty of Assyria, and twentytw o of thei r chiefs swore the oath of allegiance at the feetof the monarch .
Esarhaddon’
s Exp editions , circa 674 B. C .— Under Esar
haddon,the Assyrian expeditions penetrated as far as
Mount Demavand and the Salt Deserts,
”a country
rich in lapis lazuli,which no Assyrian army had hitherto
reached . I t i s related that the monarch captured tw o
petty kings and depo rted them to Assyria, with the i rsubjects
,their tw o—humped camels and the ir tho rough
bred horses . Owing to the successful results of thisexpedition
,o ther Median kings followed Esarhaddon back
to Nineveh with gifts of lapis lazuli and ho rses , and
begged for his pro tection . This w as graciously acco rded ,and thus the empire of Assyria expanded its borderstowards , and even beyond
,M edia. The exact date of this
campaign canno t be fixed,but it is known to have been
befo re 673 B. C . This reco rd tends to prove that Tiglath
p ileser I . did not penetrate as far as Afghanistan , the only12 Kings xvu . 6 .
2 For a suggested emendation for Calah 'v ide Tne Passing of t/ze Emp ires, p‘
. 2 16,
note 2 .
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
countrymen to the obvious detriment of his privateaffairs , and thereupon he ceased to administer j ustice .
As he had probably ant icipated,robberies and disorders
of every kind again broke out , which the Medes con
trasted with the order previously maintained . To quo teHerodotus : “ We cannot possibly
,they said
, go 011
l iving in this country if things cont inue as they now are
let us set a king over us,so that the land may be well
governed , and w e ourselves may be able to attend to our
ow n affairs,and not be forced to quit our ow n , country
on account of anarchy .
”1Eeha tana
, the Cap i taZ.—An election w as held and
,as
had in all l ikelihood been carefully prearranged,Deioces
w as cho sen king . His first act w as to surround himselfwith a powerful bodyguard . H e then pro ceeded to
build a capital,selecting for the purpo se the town of
Hamadan.
‘This historical city is first ment ioned , underthe name of Amadana
,in the inscript ion of Tiglath
p ileser I .,and in ancient Persian inscript ions it appears
as Hagmatana or“ The meeting place of many roads”
the Greeks termed it Ecbatana. Hamadan is situated at
the foot of Mount Alvand ,2 the classical Orontes , a mightygran ite range rising more than twelve thousand feet abovesea level
,or j ust six thousand feet above Hamadan
,the
climate of which,though severe in winter
,is delightful in
summer . Its situat ion marked it out for a capital . It
i s pro tected by Alvand to the south and south-west , andcommands the route to Babylon ia and Assyria andalso the plains of upland Persia . Placed at a po intwhere many roads meet and surrounded by a fertile
,
well-watered plain,it is not surprising that . through all
i ts vicissitudes Hamadan has invariably been an important centre . The modern city, with its thirty thousandinhabitants , among whom are a number of Jews
,is
exceptionally squalid .
The M usallah hill,on which once stood the famous
capital of Media,l ies to the east of the modern city .
The walls,seven in number
,were concentric and so
1 i . 97.
2 A lvand is the Aurant of the Avesta. The c lassical Orontes is nearer the old
Median name than the modern A lvand.
THE RISE OF MEDIA 127
arranged that they rose one above the o ther by the he ightof the ir battlements . The royal p alace and treasurieswere situated within the seventh wall , which had its
battlements gilded , the o ther walls being decoratedin various colours . The who le design w as derivedfrom
,,Babylon ia, where, in the Birs Nimrud of Borsippa,
each stage w as co loured differently , to symbo lize the
sun,the moon ,
and the planets . Deioces also inst ituteda ceremon ial , probably modelled on that of Assyria, bywhich it w as forbidden to see the king face to face
,all
pet itions being conveyed by messengers . This and otherrules were establ ished to inspire aw e by the feel ing of
remoteness , as o therwise the new monarch feared thathis peers would rebel against him .
This account is drawn from Herodo tus and i sbelieved to be t rue . Mo reover
,as already mentioned
, a
certain Dayaukku , a chief of the M annai , w as deported toHamath in 7 15 B . C . ; and tw o years later what corresponds to the province of Hamadan is termed Bit
Dayaukku . Inasmuch as the epoch assigned by traditionco incides closely with the date of Dayaukku
, it is quitepossible that he may have been the actual founder of theroyal family of the Medes .
The Language of the M edes .— Accord ing to Strabo
,
the language of the Medes clo sely resembled that of the
Persians,the Arians
,the Bactrians
,and the Soghd ians .
1
Unfortunately w e have no inscript ions in this language,
in spite of the excavat ions that have been made . At
Hamadan,where the so il has been searched most
thoroughly by the treasure — seeker,
no remains of a
Medic language have been discovered .
2 In these circumstances
,i s it not reasonable to bel ieve that the Median
w as only a spoken language and w as no t used for writ ing ?Examples of this dist inct ion are common
,as
, for
instance,in Afghanistan ,
where Pashtu 13 the nat ionaland Persian the written language . It seems possible thatthe written tongue of the Medes w as the Assyrianlanguage . Oppert
’
s View is that it is the language which1xv . 2 . 8 .
2 In 19 13 a French M iss ion excavated the Musallab,but fai led to di scover anything
of value.
HISTORY OF PERSIA cus p .
o ccup ies the second place in the trilingual inscriptions,
generally believed to be Susian , whereas Darmsteter holdsthat it is identical with the language of the Avesta . To
go into these questions is beyond the scope bo th of thiswo rk and of my powers and I chiefly refer to them to
show what very divergent views have been propounded .
Senna cherih and theM edes .— The welding of the Medes
into a nat ion began,as w e have seen
,during the reign
of Sennacherib ; and only one expedition to the Iranianplateau— against Ellip i , the district of Kermanshah— i srecorded . Thus the Medes
,guided by the astute Deioces
,
had le isure to develop along the path of progress,while
Sennacherib w as far too busy with Babylon and Elam to
give much thought to the obscure and distant mountaineersof the Zagros . The proud monarch could never havedreamed that these mountain shepherds would
,at no very
distant date , sack great Nineveh and cause the name of
Assyria to disappear from among the nations .The Exp ansion of M edia — Deioces re igned for fifty
three years,and his son
,Fravartish, the Phraortes of the
Greeks,succeeded him about 655 At this period w e
may believe that Media w as not yet strong enough to thinkof refusing to pay the Assyrian tribute , more especially as
Assurbanipal w as at the height of his power . It appearsthat Phraortes cont inued his father ’s po l icy of annexingthe few remaining petty states which had not been absorbedby Deioces ; and he then set to work to conquer thekindred tribes of the Persians , whose territory w as the
modern province of Pars or Fars .The Conquest of the Persians hy theM edes.
— The Persianshad probably , like the Medes
,partly absorbed and partly
driven out the o lder o ccupant s of the so i l . At thisperiod
,being divided up into independent tribes
,they
were apparently unable to offer a successful resistance to therelat ively well-o rganized Medes
,and were absorbed
,so far
as i s known,without any desperate contests . But it is
necessary to bear in mind that the Medes have left no
authent i c documents of any kind , and in piecing together
1 In The Passing of the Emp ires, p . reference is made to untrustworthy traditionembodied in the work of Ctes las of Cn idus, which doubles the number of kings .
130 H ISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
ho rseback , these hardy horsemen , l ike the Parthians o f
a later date , kept just out of reach of their enemy andpoured in a ceaseless stream of arrows which w as demoral
i z ing even to the best- trained veterans . Cyaxares , whileorganizing his army
,t rained it to w ar by stubbornly
res i sting the Assyrians and at length a victory w as
w on over the generals of Assurbanipal and Assyria w as
invaded for the second t ime .
The First Siege of Nineveh — Nineveh , it might bethought , w as too strongly fort ified for the Medes to
attempt to capture it . Nevertheless Cyaxares laid siegeto it while his troops devastated the fertile plain,
and
the feelings inspired by his attempt to overthrow Assyria 1
may be read in the book of Nahum .
“ The burden of’
Nineveh ,”begins this splendidly realistic book
,and w ho
does not feel ‘
the spell of its burning lines ? The no iseof a whip , and the no ise of the rattl ing of the wheels
, and
of the pransing horses , and of the jump ing chario ts . The
horseman l ifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear : and there i s a mult itude of slain
,and a great
number of carcases and there is none end of their corpses ;they stumble upon their corpses ."1
The Scythian Invasion— Just when it seemed p ro
that the great robber nat ion'
w ould at last be dealtas it deserved , a ho rde of Scythians , possibly as allies ofAssyria
,flung themselves on Media and compelled Cyax
ares to raise the siege of Nineveh and to return to defendhis ow n country . There he w as defeated
,to the north of
Lake U rumia, and forced to accept the victors ’ terms .The Scythians , intoxicated by success and aware of the
weakness of Assyria,which had succumbed to the power
they had themselves vanquished , overran the
country . The fortresses alone resisted the
charge of these wild horsemen,w ho destro
they could capture . Meet ing with littlefinding insuflicient booty ln Assyria
,they swept
i t l ike a cyclone and then overran province afteras far as the Mediterranean Sea. It i s to thisthat the prophet Jeremiah referred when he wrote
1 Nahum i i i . 2 and 3 .
I 32 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP . x
emp ire soon melted into fable, in which the names of
mythical Sardanapalus and mythical Semiramis vaguelyattracted to themselves something of the splendour, might ,and prestige ofAssyria. How swiftly the waves of oblivionswep t over Assur maybe j udged by the fact that , tw o cen
turies later , Xenophon’s army passed by the vast deserted
cit ies of Calah and Nineveh,misnamed Larissa and M es
phila by the i r guides ; and , although they marvelled at
them , they never suspected that these were the great cit iesofAssyria .
1
The Verdict of Histoiy on Assyria — And what is theverdict of history on Assyria It is this that
,although
Babylonia and Egypt were merciless in the hour of triumph ,yet Babylon ia bequeathed to mankind law
,astronomy
,
science , and Egypt erected buildings which sti ll challengethe admiration of the world ; whereas Assyria, merelyborrowing such arts of peace as she adopted , shone onlyas the great predatory power , and when she fell
,she
passed away into utter and well-merited oblivion .
1 Xenophon’s Anabasis, i i i . 4 . 7 .
— The passage begins, “ There w as a deserted cityof large extent
,the name of wh ich w as Larissa ; but Medians of old inhabited it .
Vide a lso Chapter X IX . of this work .
EARLY LYD IAN Com .
CHAPTE R X I
MED IA,BABYLON IA
,AND LY D IA
There Babylon,the wonder of all tongues,
A s ancient,but rebu i lt by him w ho tw ice
Judah and all thy father David’
s houseLed Cap tive, and Jerusalem laid waste,Ti l l Cyrus set them free .
M I LTON, Pa radise Rega ined .
The State of theAncientWorld after the Fall of Nineveh.
Whenever a great empire falls a readjustment takesplace in the relations of the ne ighbouring states both to
one ano ther and also to the po ssessions of the fallen power .Consequently
, the fall of Nineveh affords a suitable occasion for surveying the state of the ancient world .
The Posi tion of M edia — The mo st virile and formidablepower w as undoubtedly Media
,the conqueror of the
Scythians and the leading confederate in the attack on
Assyria . The alliance between Media and Babylon ia w as
cemented by the marriage of the daughter of Cyaxares
w ith Nebuchadnezzar,son of NabOpolassar and he ir to
the throne of Babylon . The terms of this alliance wereadhered to throughout the l ife of Cyaxares and his successor
,although at t imes the wealth of Babylon must have
sorely tempted the M edes .The New Kingdom of Babylonia .
— If the downfall ofAssyria w as an immense benefit to Media, the gain to
Babylon w as still greater . Indeed , it w as owing to the
annihilat ion of Assyria that the new kingdom of Babylonw as formed and speedily showed an amaz i ng vital ity sufficient In itself to claim our not ice . But its interest for us
134 HISTORY OF PERS IA ca n .
is intensified by the knowledge that it is the traditions ofthis kingdom which have come down to us from the
classical and o ther writers .The Camp a ign of Necho I I — Nabopolassar had resigned
the active direction of affairs to Nebuchadnezzar duringthe campaign against Assyria, and after its fall he apparently arranged with Cyaxares that the western prov incesshould be jo ined to Babylon . The i r inhabitants were un
able , of themselves , to offer any resistance ; but Necho I I .of Egypt had first to be reckoned with . While
'
Ninevehw as be ing besieged
,this energet ic monarch had marched
north and had taken possession of Palestine and Syria,being opposed only by Josiah
,king of Judah
, w ho in spiteof friendly warn ings
, threw himself acro ss the form idableEgyptian army at Megiddo near Mount Carmel and theremet his fate .
1 Necho cont inued his march as far as the
Euphrates,where he halted at Carchemish . This w as his
farthest po int . Hearing,probably
,of the fall of Nineveh
and no t wishing to try conclusions with the victors,he
marched leisurely back,receiving tribute and post ing
garrisons at important centres . Upon his return to Egypthe rece ived the acclamations of his people
,w ho were
del ighted at the revival of the military glo ry of Egypt .
This triumph w as hardly j ust ifiable as Necho had not met
the forces of Babylon . Tw o years later Nebuchadnezzar,w ho had been engaged in securing his posit ion nearerhome , marched towards Carchemish , and thereupon Nechoagain set out
,this time really to try the fortunes of w ar.
The Victory of Nehuchadnez z ar ov er Necho 11.— The
tw o armies met at Carchemish and ,in spi te of the bravery
o f the Greek cont ingent,the Egyptians were defeated .
Their disaster formed the theme of a mordan t passage inJeremiah
, w ho , describing the campaign,wro te : Come
up, ye ho rses and rage , ye chariots ; and let the mighty
men come forth ; the Ethiopians and the Libyans , thathandle the shield and the Lydians that handle and bendthe bow . For the Lo rd God of hosts hath a sacrifice in the no rth country by the river Euphrates .”2
1 Vide 2 Chronicles xxxv. 20-24 also 2 Kings xx ii i . 29 . Josiah w as acting in the
interests of Assyr ia.
2 Jerem iah x lvi . 9 , 10 .
13 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
owing to the devastat ion wrought by the Cimmerians 1
and Scythians , w ho had been ravag ing and massacringincessant ly for more than a century without evo lving anyto lerable fo rm of government. Indeed, it is certai n thatall these lands had lost much of the civilizat ion which theyhad with difficulty acquired . Cyaxares subdued race afterrace in his westward career unt i l, upon reaching the rightbank of the Halys , he found himself confronted by the
powerful and warlike state of Lydia.
The Emp ire of Lydia .— The o rigin of the Lydians is
one of the quest ions on which recent research has thrownconsiderable light , and st i ll more may be expected fromthe excavat ions of the American Mission at Sardes .Originally the belief set forth in the book of Genesis 2
that they were of Semitic o rig in w as accepted , but it i snow held that this interest ing . people belonged to the
indigenous population of Asia Minor, which w as ne itherSemitic nor Aryan.
Anatol ia w as overrun from Thrace by the Aryan tribesof the Bryges or Phrygians , w ho were akin to the Helleni cGreeks and were gradually absorbed by the subj ect populat ion . These invasions took place in the tenth and ninthcenturies
,and in the eighth century the monarch of this
kingdom w as Midas,the histo rical Mita of Mushki .
JAbout 720 B. c .
,Mita, in alliance with Rusas , King of
“Urartu , came into confli ct with Sargon I I . of Assyria, andthis campaign
,being historical , suppl ies us with a fixed
po int of considerable value . The establishment of the1‘Phrygian kingdom w as fo llowed by the conso lidat ion of
u the Lydian tribes into a powerful state under the Heracliddynasty
,which absorbed Phrygia. It w as this state which
w as dest ined to meet Media on equal terms , and finally tosuccumb to the rising power of Iran .
The M ermnadae Dynasty — It i s beyond the scope of
1 Their name is preserved in the Crimea .
2 x . 22 :“ The children of Shem Elam,
and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud,
and Aram .
"3 I t is part icu larly interest ing to compare Hal l’s v iews in The Oldest Ci v ilizat ion of
Greece,published m 190 1, w ith his present v iews in The Ancient History of theNear East,
19 13. In the former he doubts the ident ity of M idas with M ita ; in the latter heaccepts i t wi thout quest ion . A Commentary on Herodotus, by How and Wells, has beenconsulted in this and fol lowing chapters.
HISTORY OF PERSIA can .
many games . They were capable , cult ivated people , towhom the epithet of “ luxurious 1
w as invariably appliedby the Greeks . At the same t ime, they were splendidfighters , and as at that period
,when the Medians appeared
on the Halys , their power w as at i ts zenith , i t w as only aquest ion of time when these tw o expanding emp ires wouldtry conclusions with one another .TheWar betw eenM edia and Lydia .
— The cause assignedby tradit ion for the actual outbreak of hosti l it ies is curious .Cyaxares , it i s said , maintained a band of Scythians as
huntsmen and entrusted some of the young nobles to theircharge . One day, upon the ir returning empty - handed,the king so insulted them that
,in revenge, they cut up one
of the young nobles and served him as a dish at a banquet ,and then fled to Alyattes
, w ho refused to give them up .
Whether there i s any truth in this or not , a trial of strengthbetween tw o such aggressive powers brought face to facew as inevitable . The Medians were certainly morenumerous than the i r opponents ; but they were a longw ay from the i r base
,and they possessed no t roops com
parable wi th the Greek hopl ites or the famous Lydiancavalry .
The Ba ttle of the Eclip se, 585 B.C .— For six years , the
w ar w as waged without decisive advantage to e ither sidea to tal eclipse of the sun
,foreto ld , it is said , by Th
of Miletus , interrupted a seventh contest and maderank and file of bo th armies unwill ing to mIn the peace negot iat ions that fo llowed
,w herei
played the part of arbitrator, the Halys w a
the boundary between the tw o empires . Again a marrisealed the contract
,the Median monarch bestowing
daughter on the heir-apparent of Lydia.
The Dea th of Cyaxa res, 58 4 B.C .
— The year after theeclipse
,Cyaxares , whose gen ius had raised Media into a
powerful empire,died . When w e recal l that he inherited
the throne at a t ime when aggressive Media had beenbeaten down by Assyria, that he organized an army onlyto be defeated by the Scythians , and yet not only overcame
1 dfipoi or dfipodia t‘roc. The usual trans lation of this word is “ delicate,”wh ich
wou ld imp ly effem inacy .
MEDIA,BABYLONIA
,AND LYDIA 13 9
these wild horsemen but within a few years played the
leading part in the overthrow of Assyria and afterwardsbuilt up a great empire
,i t is impossible no t to feel that
he w as one of the great figures on the stage of the world .
At the beginn ing of his reign the paramount power of
the East w as Semitic,but when he died it w as Iran ian .
Cyaxares is thus the leader in one of the great movement sin history.
Astyages , the Last King of M edia .— Ishtuvegu, gener
ally known to us by the classical name of Astyages ,succeeded to a splendid inheritance at a time when itspro spects seemed altogether bright . But
,so far as can be
gleaned from the scanty available information ,he w as a
degenerate and unwo rthy son of a noble sire,and spent
his t ime in vo luptuous idleness,immersed in semi-barbarous
luxury and indulging in excesses of every kind .
The Luxury of the M edian Court — The account of theMedian Court
,with its elaborate ceremon ies and myriads
of officials,the red and purple robes of the court iers ,
thei r chains and collars of go ld and all thei r luxury, showsthat it w as modelled on the Court of Assyria. At bothalike the chief pastime w as sport. Sometimes great drivesof game were o rganized in the open country , but , morefrequent ly, it w as sho t in a paradise or park near thecapital .
The Defeat of Astyages hy Cyrus the Great. -The longreign of Astyages w as peaceful until just before its close .
This fact probablycaused rapid deteriorat ion in his so ldiers ,who shared in
,and suffered from , the general surfe it of
prosperity . The king had no son ,and this must have
weakened his position . 50 unpopular did his rule becomethat when he w as attacked by an army of Persians underCyrus , his ow n subjects , instead of rallying round him ,
surrendered him to the foe . Thus in 550 B . C . the empireof Media passed into the hands of the kindred Aryanpeople of Persia . The Greeks did no t regard Media as
having fallen,and
,indeed
,it is more correct to look
upon it as having undergo ne internal transformat ion . Acentury later the wars against Persia were referred to bythe w riters of Hellas as The Median Events ,
”although
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP. x 1
it i s true that Aeschylus named his great tragedy ThePersians.
The Later Kings of the New Bahylonian Kingdom.
Before concluding this chapter w e must glance for a momentat the affairs of Babylon . Nebuchadnezzar , full of yearsand honour
,died in 56 1 B.C . During the next six years
three monarchs ruled Babylon in succession , and afterthem came Nabonidus , the last of all. Elected in 555B .C .
as a docile tool of the priesthood,this sovereign w as an
ant iq uarian born ent irely before his t ime and w as utterlyunsuited to occupy the throne at a crit i cal period such as
this . But his excavat ions in the ruined temples,which
have fortunately been rescued from oblivion ,are of price
less value,and
,since Babylon w as dest ined to fall before
the new power of Persia, it w as perhaps a piece of goodfortune that i t should be ruled by a monarch w ho
,at any
rate, would not arouse resentment in a conqueror . The
fall of Babylon belongs to the history of the Persians ,headed by Cyrus the Great . Here it need on ly be recordedthat everything w as ripe for the new order which w as
about to come .
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
The founder of this w as Keiomarz,the Zoroastrian Adam
,
w ho ,with his tw o successors Hushang and Tahmurz
,is
supposed to have laid the foundat ion of civil izat ion in
Iran .
7amshid and Zohah.— But the most famous of these
legendary monarchs w as Jamshid .
1 To hi s credit i s placedthe building of Persepol is— termed to this day Tahht—i7amshia
’or The Throne of Jamshid — the introduct ion
of the solar year , and the invent ion of mo st of the artsand sciences on which c1v iliz ation i s based .
21. His inven
t ion of wine i s stated to have been due to an accident .
H e had preserved some grapes which fermented and werebelieved to be dangerous to l ife . One of the wives of
Jamshid w as suffering from a painful malady and drank of
the fermented beverage in the bel ief that shewould die ;but
,on the contrary , she fell into a del ightful sleep and w as
cured . Persians from this date have termed wine sweetpo i son
,and in spite of the prohibit ions of the Ko ran many
of the upper classes are addicted to drinking it .Jamshid , after re ign ing for many years , w as uplifted
with pride . He became a tyrant and declared himself a
god . For his imp iety Zohak , a Syrian prince,w as ln
cited by the higher powers to attack him , and althoughhe fled to Sistan, to India, and even to distant China
,he
w as in the end made capt ive by his relentless foe . H e
w as put to a barbarous death , being fastened between tw o
boards and sawn in tw o with the backbone of a fish .
Zohak,at whose hands he perished so miserably
,and w ho
conquered Persia, is legendary , the name being a corruption of the primeval serpent , Aj i-Dahak . In Persianlegend he is represented as an Arab prince invading Persiafrom Syria
,and as a monster from whose shoulders hissing
snakes grew . The dai ly rat ions of these snakes consistedof the brains of tw o human beings ; and the levying of
this blood-tax led to the overthrow of the invader .Feridun and Kaw a .
-Kawa, a blacksmith , who se sons
1 The fi rst port ion of the name is ident ical w i th that of Yama or Y ima, w ho ismentioned in Chapter IX . Shid s ign ifies a k ing.
2 The Pers ian argument runs that whoever erected the bui ldings at Persepo lis and
Pasargadae must have been aided by the Divs. As on ly Jamsh id and So lomon hadpower over them, they alone could have bui lt these g igantic works.
HISTORY OF 'PERSIA CHAP.
grandson Rustam ,the Hercules of Persia
,fills the stage of
Persian legend , even the kings playing but secondaryparts . None of these figures appear in the Indo-Iranianlegends but it is quite l ikely that they embody a nucleusof truth , which succeeding generat ions overlaid with muchfict ion ; and the genius of Firdausi welded the wholeinto a grand epic . It i s related that Zal w as born withwhite hair , which convinced Sam that the infant w as no t
his ow n ,but the offspring of a Div . Consequently
,he
gave o rders to expo se it on Mount Elburz ; but it w as
nourished by the Simurgh, a fabulous eagle,and after a
while,Sam,
hearing a divine vo ice , repented of his conductand recovered his son . Zal grew up to be a mightywarrior , and ,
when hunt ing in the wilds of what i s nowAfghanistan ,
came to a castle where he saw the beauteousBudshah , daughter of Mehrab
,King of Kabul . It w as a
case of love at first sight on both sides, and the ardent
lover scaled his mistress’s tower by using her long tresses
as a rope .
Rustam the Champ ion— The offspring of the marriage
w as Rustam , the great champion of Iran,whose fabulous
explo its as a warrior , as a hunter , and as a trencherman st i llloom immense in the minds of Persians . His prowess w as
mainly displayed in the wars waged between Turan and
Iran,which began after the death of Manuchehr and the
accession of his unworthy son Nozar . The Turanianleader w as Afrasiab, w ho slew Nozar and ruled Persia fortwelve years , and this period of gloom saw the end of the
Pishdad ian dynasty .
g
The Keianian Dyna sty.—We now come to what is the
first historical , or perhaps semi-h1storical dynasty, knownas the Keianian . To—day there is a family of chiefs inSistan w ho claim descent from this illustrious sto ck ,although , as in the case of the probably all ied tribe inBaluchistan ,
it seems more l ikely that they are descendedfrom the Saffér dynasty .
1 In India some of the Parsifamilies make the same claim , which is generally conceded .
The first monarch of this dynasty w as Kei Kobad , al ineal descendant of Manuchehr
,who se retreat w as the
1 Vide Chapter LI . also Ten Thousand M iles, etc., p . 229 .
THE SLEEPING RUSTAM .
a Pers ian Shahnama . F . R . Martm'
s IMzn i a ture P a i nt ings of P ers i a , 19 1 2 ,
vol. i . fig . 2 3 . Bernard Quan tch . )
'
14 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
of Cyrus the Great identify him with Kei Khusru . Thisis not unnatural, inasmuch as he succeeded to a monarchw ho i s ident ified wi th Cyaxares of Media
,and the name
itse lf is ident i cal : but the theory , pleasing as it is,can
no t stand , for the simple reason that Kei Khusru is theKava Husrava of Indo-Iranian legend , and belongs to a
period before the dawn of histo ry . After several dramat icvicissitudes of fortune , Kei Khusru
, thanks mainly to
Rustam , conquered Afrasiab, w ho w as finally taken captiveand put to death in revenge for the death of Siaw ush.
Kei Khusru lived to a great age , and died full of years andhonours .
Lohrasp and Gustasp— Lohrasp , w ho succeeded Kei
Khusru,after ruling for some years
,resigned the throne
to Gustasp , w ho,
as has already been narrated,
w as
Zo roaster’s royal convert and patron . Again wars withTuran followed
,and again the Persian forces suffered great
reverses,in the course of which Lohrasp , the o ld king, and
Zoroaster were killed at Balkh .
I sfandiar .— On this occasion
,Isfandiar
,whom
fathe r Gustasp had imprisoned , came to the rescuerecovered not only the lost provinces of Persia butthe famous nat ional standard . Isfandiar had
promised the throne by Gustasp , w ho falsely proclahis intent ion of fo llowing the example of LohrWhen he claimed it
,he w as persuaded by his crafty
to accept the mission of bringing Rustam,w ho
alleged to have thrown off his allegiance , in bonds tofoot of the throne . Again hero i c combats ensued ,again the Champ ion of Persia slew his adversary,thereby his last great fight . A few years later heinto a p it prepared by his treacherous brother and t
ended his hero i c l ife .
Bahman or Ardeshir D iraz das t.— Gustasp w as
ceeded by his grandson Bahman, w ho is known to
tory as Artaxerxes Longimanus,the Latin equiv
of Ardeshir Dirazdast . According to Firdausi ,monarch made a special ity of keep ing
x1. THE HEROIC AGE OF PERSIA 14 7
conquero r . The historical Artaxerxes Longimanus isdealt with in Chapter XVIII .
The End of the Heroi c Per iod .— Here this description
o f early Persian history as known to and fully bel ieved mby Persians of every class may be concluded . Indeed
,
but for this intense belief 1n legends which contain , at
most,but a modicum of history
,and omit all mention of
the Great and Darius,they would have been
treated st ill more succinctly . As it is , they are so interwoven with the national history and the nat ional mind
shall have occasion to refer to them again and
aga1n .
PERSIAN KING F IGHTING BARBAR IANS .(Cylinder of chalcedony, BI itish Museum.)
CHAPTE R XIII
THE R I SE OF PER SIA
By d ivine decree destiny w as potent of old, and enjoined on Persiansengage in wars, and cavalry routs, and the overthrow of ci ties.
—A ESCHYLUS,The Persa e.
The Early Organiza tion of the Persians .—The hero i c
period of the histo ry of Iran described in the previouschapter is mainly legendary
,although towards its clo se
w e are dealing with historical personages obscured by themists of fantast ic myth . In the present chap ter w e havto do with historical figures only .
We have seen,in connexion with the empire of th
Medes , that the ancient inhabitants of the country w erto a considerable extent abso rbed
, and the sam
probably o ccurred in the case of the
rece ives support from Herodo tus,w ho ,
referringtribes into which the Persians were divided
,w
fo llows : “ The principal tribes , on which the o t
depend,
are the Pasargadae,the Maraphians and
M asp ians , of whom the Pasargadae are the noblest .Achaemenidae
,from which spring all the Persian kings ,
i s one of the i r clans . The rest o f the Persian tribes arethe following : the Panthialaeans , the Derus iaeans
,the
Germanians, w ho are engaged in husbandry the Daans,
the Mardiaxis , the Drop icans and the Sagartians, w ho are
150 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
of good family,indeed
,but of a quiet temper
,whom he
looked on as much inferior to a M ede of even middlecondit ion .
” Cambyses , the Persian ,took awayM andane
to his home . Shortly afterwards Astyages dreamedano ther dream ,
in which he saw a vine growing fromMandaue which overshadowed the whole of Asia.
Terrified at this second w armng, he summoned hisdaughter to the capital and
,when her son w as born
,
entrusted him to H arpagus ,“a man of his ow n house
and the most faithful of the Medes,
”with instruct ions toslay and bury the infant Cyrus . Harpagus , not caringfor many reasons to sully his ow n hands with such an
infamous deed,made the child over to one of the royal
herdsmen,with o rders to expose him in the wildest part
of the hills where he would be sure to die speedily .
”The
herdsman ’s wife, w ho had j ust given birth to a st ill-born
infant , persuaded her husband to make an exchange, andher child w as shown to Harpagus as the corpse of the
dead prince . Cyrus w as brought up by this woman,whose
name w as Spaco— signifying a bitch— and he w as ult imatelyiden t ified by his grandfather, w ho ,
recognizing the familyl ikeness
,made enquiries and w as glad to learn that his
grandson w as alive .
The Tragedy of Ha rpagus.-Harpagus , however, w as
cruelly pun ished . At a royal banquet he w as served withthe flesh of his ow n son
,whom Astyages had sent for and
killed,and the child ’s head
,hands and feet were pre
sented to him in a basket . H arpagus show ed himselfsubmissive at the t ime ; but a few years later he openedup co rrespondence with Cyrus , w ho had been sent hometo his parents
,and in the end he became the chief instru
ment in the overthrow of Astyages , by persuading Cyrusto revolt and by gaining him adherents among the Mediannobles . Astyages , when he sent an
’
army to cr
Persian rebellion,fatuously confided it to H arpagus , w
prevented it from opposing Cyrus and so finally sat isfihis vengeance and hatred .
It is surmised that the settlement of the familyH arpagus in Asia Minor gave rise to this story
,in w hi
he plays such a leading part . The legend is open
GOLD MODEL OF ACHAEMEN IAN CHARIOT.
(From Trea s zzre of the Ox us . )
xm THE RISE OF PERSIA 151
crit icism on several po ints . For one thing , Herodotus w asnot aware that Cyrus w as (as will be shown later) Kingof Anshan ; nor
,it is to be presumed , would Astyages
have wished to murder his only descendant . The sto ry,
too,of the woman Spaco obviously contains the Iranian
legend that their great king w as suckled by a bitch .
Herodotus would no t be likely to know that dogs wereheld in special honour by the tenets of Zoroastrian ism .
The sacred bitch of the real legend is transformed throughthe igno rance o f the Greek historian into a woman namedSpaco . But this very mistake is a striking test imony tohis honesty and shows how truthfiI l and accurate he stroveto be . Indeed , but for the “ Father of History ,
”there
would be many lacunae in our knowledge of this obscureperiod .
Fresh Light on Persian History— Unt il comparatively
recently the account j ust given w as generally acceptedbut the discovery of the famous cylinders of Nabon idusand of Cyrus has changed the who le situat ion ; and Inow propose to deal with the quest ion in the light of theseimportant documents . I t appears that
,j ust as in the case
of Media,a strong man arose and welded the loose con
geries of tribes into a nation ,although
,in the case of the
Persians,thei r remoteness from the civi lized powers o f
the Tigris and Euphrates hindered the process of organization and development .
Achaemenes, the Founder of the Roya l Family .-The
founder of the Persian monarchy w as Achaemenes,Prince
of the tribe of Pasargadae ; his capital w as the city bearing the same name
,ruins of which , dating from the era of
Cyrus the Great,st il l exist . No defin i te acts can be traced
to Achaemenes,after whom the dynasty w as named but
the fact that his memory w as highly revered , tends toprove that he did in truth mould the tribes of rudePersians into a nat ion before they stepped on to the stageof history .
1 His son Teispes took advantage of the de
fenceless condition o f Elam to o ccupy the district of
1 Achaemenes is held by some to be a sem i-legendary figure fed,l ike Zal
,by an
eagle during infancy : but I cannot help fee ling that w e are dea ling w ith an histori calpersonage, as Achaemenes headed no long line, but, on the contrary
,w as on ly four
generat ions removed from Cyrus.
152 HISTORY OF PERSIA
Anshan , referred to in Chapter IV .
,and assumed the t itle
of Great King,King of Anshan .
” Upon his death one
of his sons succeeded to Anshan and ano ther to Fars .The Double Line of Achaemenian M onarchs.
— Thisdivision started the double l ine
,a reference to which
by Darius in the Behistun inscript ion greatly puzzledits decipherers . This double l ine continued
,and ex
amination just ifies the statement of Darius : “ There are
e ight of my race w ho have been kings before me ; I amthe n inth . In a double l ine w e have been kings .”
To make this matter clear I append the fo llowinggenealogy
( I ) Achaemenes About 650 B .C .
Anshan line Persian line
(5) Ariaramnes,
about 600 B.C .
(4 ) Cambyses I . (6) Arsames
(7) CYRUS THE G REAT (Hystasp es)
( 8) Cambyses (9) Darius
The Defeat of Astyages hy Cyrus .— We now come to
the histo rical account,so far as it is known
,of the cam
paign against Astyages . The famous tablet of the Annalsof Nabonidus runs [His troops] he collected , and
against Cyrus,king of Anshan ,
he marched . AS
for Astyages , his troops revo lted against him and he w as
se ized (and) del ivered up to Cyrus . Cyrus (marched) toEcbatana
,the royal city . The s ilver
,go ld
,goods , and
substance o f Ecbatana he spo iled, and to the land of
Anshan he took the goods and substance that werego tten .
”1 No detai ls are given ; but w e learn from1 Lightfrom the Ea st, p. 2 19 .
154. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.’
The overthrow of Media must have deeply affectedw ho ,
instead of having an ally as his neighbour,
had now to face an ent irely altered state of affairs . In
these circumstances,inasmuch as he possessed a fine w ar
hardened army with superb cavalry, which he couldstrengthen with large numbers of Greek mercenaries
,and
might reasonably rely on the support of Babylonia and
of Egypt , it w as probably a sound decision to invadeCappadocia and fight the Persians before they had con
so lidated their power . The alternat ive would have beento allow them to develop the ir strength and attack at theirow n conven1ence .
We learn from Herodo tus that Croesus , whose fai l ingw as overween ing confidence, felt certain of success ; but,to fort ify his opinion ,
he sent ambassadors to the famousoracle of Delphi to enquire what would be the result if hecrossed the H alys and attacked the Persians . The replyw as that “ if Croesus attacked the Persians , he woulddestroy a mighty emp ire .
”H e w as moreover recom
mended to“see w ho were the mo st powerful of the
Greeks and to make all iance with them . Delighted withwhat he regarded as the favourable reply , he sen t again to
enquire whether his kingdom would endure . The oraclegave the fo llowing answer
Wait ti l l the t ime shal l come w hen a mul e i s monarch of M edia ;Th en, thou del icate Lydian, aw ay to the pebb les of Hermus
Haste,oh ! haste thee aw ay
,nor blush to behave l ike a cow ard .
The inj unct ions of the first oracle were careful lyfo llowed . Croesus sent an embassy with rich gifts tothe Spartans
, w ho readily agreed to his proposals and
prepared to despatch an expedition to jo in his fo rces .In addit ion ,
alliances were made with Amasis of Egyptand Nabonidus of Babylon ia
,bo th of whom were un
favourably affected by the overthrow of Media, whichhad ceased to be a predatory power and w as alliedBabylonia as well as to Lydia. Indeed , everyth
'
working for the real izat ion of the astute policyLydian monarch
,when an agent to whom
entrusted large sums of money for engaging
xm THE RISE OF PERSIA 155
mercenaries fled to Persia and revealed the secret of thisformidable coalit ion .
1
The Great Conqueror determined to forestall Croesusand to attack Lydia before the arrival of his allies . The
daring decision to quit Media and Persia for a longperiod , to march one thousand miles mainly across landswhich were e ither outlying provinces of Babylon ia or
independent,and then to surprise a powerful mil itary
state , marks out Cyrus as indeed worthy of the t i tle
The Perso-Lydian Camp a ign— The result just ified his
calculat ions . Upon entering Cappado cia he found Croesusunsupported by his all ies , and nego tiat ions were opened
,
Cyrus offering the Lydian monarch his life and kingdomon condition that he swore to become his loyal vassal .These terms were naturally refused
,and the first bat tle
proved to be a victory for the Lydians ? A truce of threemonths w as nego t iated
,and then
,upon the resumpt ion of
ho stil ities,the Lydians were apparently overpowered at
Pteria by the superior numbers of Cyrus . Croesus retiredunder cover o f night towards Sardes , laying waste the
country to impede the march of the Persians , and hop ingthat Cyrus would not dare to lengthen still further his lineof communications, with ho st i le Babylon in his rear and
the winter coming on. But Nabon idus deserted his allyand accepted terms of peace as soon as they were offered
,
without perhaps realizing that his ow n independence w as
just as much at stake as that of Lydia. Cyrus , freed fromanxiety as to his rear , again Showed his gen ius by makinga rapid march on Sardes . This unexpected advance utterlysurprised Croesus
,w ho ,
feel ing sure that the winter wouldcompletely stop all operations
,had with supreme folly
disbanded part of his ow n forces and arranged for hisallies to defer their arrival unt i l the spring . However ,nothing daunted
,he prepared to face the invader with his
cavalry on the open plain of the Hermus . But Cyrusemployed the now world- renowned ruse of covering the
1 Diodorus Siculus, ix. 32 . I t is, however, improbable that Cyrus w as a ltogetherignorant of the format ion of the coal ition .
2 Vide M aspero ’
s The Passing of the Emp ires, p . 6 16, note 3 , where igood reasons are
brought forward for not fo l lowing the account of the campaign as given by Herodotus.
156 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
front of his army with camels , the smell of which terrifiedthe ho rses 1 of the enemy and made them unmanageable .
The gallant Lydians dismounted and fought to the deathon foot ; but the Persians outnumbered them ,
and theirshattered remnant w as fo rced to retreat to Sardes .The Cap ture of Sa rdes; 54 6 B. C .
— In his impregnablecap ital Cr 'oesus , a ided by the winter, might have defiedthe Persians unt il his allies assembled but again fortunedeclared against him . The story in Herodotus is wellknown. When the city had been blo ckaded for fourteendays
.Cyrus offered a rich reward to the first man w ho
should enter It . A Mardian so ldier saw a member of the
garr1son descend what . looked from a distance l ike an
inaccessible cliff,
.p i ck up his lo st helmet,and return . He
noted the track , and , with as few comrades
,surprised the
careless garrison,which trusted to the strength of the ir
posit ion,and opened the gates to the Persian army . Thus
fell Sardes in B. C . and the campaign may fairly claimto be of Signal importance ; for , had Croesus w on,
as he
should have done but for his ow n folly , the course of the
wo rld ’s history would have been profoundly modified .
His defeat removed the only strong o rganized state whichcould fight on equal terms for the mastery of AnteriorAsia and it gave to Cyrus the Great an empire far
exceeding in extent any of its predecesso rs .The Fate of Croesus .
— Like his fellow-monarch at
Nineveh half a century before , Croesus , it would seem ,
disdain ing ,to fall into the hands of his enemy,erected a
funeral pyre in his palace and mounted it with his familyand cho icest possessions . Greek legend , as preserved byHerodo tus
,represents that the pyre w as indeed built and
set al ight,but by the o rders of Cyrus . The Lydian
monarch, w e are to ld
,sighed and repeated the name of
So lo n thrice , in reco llection of the warn ing he had
received from the sage that no man should be calledhappy until h is death . Cyrus , moved to pity , o rdered thepyre to ‘be ext inguished ; but in vain , unt il Apo llo came
1 I recol lect most v ividly that some twenty years ago a young Australian horse I w as
riding roared with fright and nearly co l lapsed under me upon seeing, or more probab lysme l ling, a came l for the first t ime.
2 For this date w ide Etudes, etc. p . 4 12 .
X I I I THE RISE OF PERSIA 157
to the rescue of his wo rshipper and saved him by a heavyfall of rain . Perhaps what actually o ccurred w as thatCroesus mounted the pyre of his ow n free will and w as
taken from it by the Persians In t1me to save his l ife .
The legend that he ended his days as1
a great noble at the
Court of Persia strengthens this V iew .
1
W W W-M ile s.— The geographical
posit ion ofHellas , turn ing towards the East , w as s ingularlyfavourable for development and progress
,in view of the
fact that none of the great states of Asia had everapproached the sea, or developed sea-power . The Greekcity-states bordered the Aegean Sea
, which w as studdedwith islands so clo se to one ano ther that the navigator w as
seldom out of sight of land . The great powers were toofar off to be feared , but one of them , Egypt , w as accessible .
Consequently the Greeks w ere bound to be navigators andpirate traders
,and as such they could benefit by the older
civilizat ion of Egypt and , in a lesser degree and mainlyindirectly
,by that of Babylon , without fear of be ing
conquered . On the o ther hand , the physical characterist icsof Greece, and perhaps this very security , gave rise to a
mul tiplication of small states and a spirit o f mutual rivalryand jealousy . Thus impeded , its inhabitant s never developed into a great nat ion ,
and it i s left to us to admirethe splendid concept ions and great deeds of i so latedstates
,whose energies
,for the mo st part
,were wasted in
fight ing petty rivals . As de Mo rgan puts it,
“the ir
dest iny would have been sublime if, by their divisions,
they had no t paralysed the soaring of the ir genius .”2Recent Progress in Know ledge of Greek History — A
generation ago our knowledge o f Greek history did not
extend farther back than the beginn ing of the seventhcentury B. C .
,Thucydides and Herodo tus being the limits
beyond which the student could not pass and Homer,
even to the select few w ho were not content to restsat isfied , w as separated by a fathomless gulf from the era
1 This quest ion is dealt w ith by E. Edwards under “ Human Sacrifi ce”(Iranian),Encyclop edia qf Religion and Ethics. In this art icle reference i s made to a recent lydiscovered poem of Bacchy lides (born 507 B .c .) and to a vase of the sixth or fi fth centurypreserved In the Louvre, both of wh ich tend to show that Croesus elected death rather thansubmit to capture .
2 Etudes, etc. p . 380.
158 HISTORY OF PERSIA 11111 1 .
of Herodo tus . The historical out look w as , in fact , so
narrow that the epo ch-making discoveries in Egypt and
the Near East were not supposed to bear upon Greece, and
were t reated with a conspicuous lack of interest . Now ,
however,all this is changed , and w e are able to connect the
classical age with the period of Homer, and even to
survey Greek civ ilizat ion before the Homeric era indeed,
almost as far back as its incept ion . In o ther words,
Greece i s now treated as part of a vast field of study inwhich the parts are not i so lated but to a great extentinfluence one ano ther .
The Azyamlnvagion o Greece — Al though there are stillmany pomts on w h1ch e author1t1es on H ellemc hIStoryare not agreed
,it i s generally accepted that the earliest
known inhabitants of Greece, and indeed of the countriesbordering the northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea
,
were a dark-haired group of tribes which were ne itherSemit i c nor Aryan
,and were somet imes known as
Pelasg i .” At dates which canno t be fixed w ith certaintythese were conquered by Aryans from the north
,and it is
believed that in Greece the invaders mixed with the o lderinhabitant s and imposed the Aryan tongue upon them ;but there i s l ittle doubt that the , latter cont inued to existand to form , at any rate, a very important section of the
populat ion .
The Greek Colonies in As ia M inor.—The Greek
colonies in Asia Minor were bel ieved by the Hellenesthemselves to have been founded as a consequence of the
Dorian invasion,which w as an event of first-rate
importance . The Dorians, w ho came from the north ,conquered a large part of the Peloponnesus and otherparts of Hellas . This great movement , which reacted onthe who le of Greece , is bel ieved to have o ccurred about1000 B. C . I ts result w as to set in mo tion a wave of
emigration ,which broke not only on the islands , but also
on the Asiat i c coast of the Aegean Sea . The process ofco lonization w as spread
,no doubt
,o ver a long period but
it is no t unreasonable to suppose that the Do rian invasionw as the chief cause of a departure which had far—reachingeffects . These colonies throve marvellously in Asia Minor,
160 HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
The Eastern Camp a igns of Cyrus.—Shortly after the
capture of Sardes,and before securing the submission of
the Greek cities of Asia Minor , Cyrus hastened due eastand for a period of five or s ix years
,from 54 5 B.C . to
53 9 B .c . ,he is almost lost to Sight
,waging distant wars
against almost unknown tribes .1 Perhaps some unrecordedinvasion threatened his Eastern provinces , or possibly hew as training an army needlessly great for the conquest ofBabylon
,being overawed by its ancient name and
reputat ion and unaware ‘
of its utter weakness . Suchinformation as w e possess concerning this period of hiscareer is of slight historical value bu t the legendaccording to which Bactria w as first attacked and peacew as made when i t w as known that Cyrus had wedded thedaughter of Astyages may contain some nucleus of fact .The Sakae
,too
,were subdued , and the greater part of
what is now Afghan istan. The tradition that the GreatKing lost an army in the wastes of Makran i s of litt leweight ; but this barren country w as added to the BersianEmp ire
,possibly after one or more successful exped i
t1ons .The Surrender of Bahylon, 53 8 B.C.
— We have seen thatthe last king of Babylon w as a tool of the priesthood .
His ruling passion w as the discovery of the cylinders ofthe ancient sanctuaries and the ir resto rat ion at the costof much levying of taxes . Such a man would tend toa mere cypher
,and it appears that the real power lay
in the hands o f his son,Belshazzar . The Babylon ians
seem to have been weary of the prevailing discord . We
know that the Jews were excited‘
by the ir prophets toexpect the downfall of Babylon ,
the oppressor,and w e can
imagine that this feel ing w as Shared by t housands of
exiles from o ther lands . Moreover , Nabonidus alienateda large section of the priests by bringing into Babylon the
gods of Ur,Uruk and Eridu
,which lay outside the
defended area of Nebuchadnezzar . This i s clearly shownin the so—called “ cylinder o f Cyrus .” In this , his proclamat ion to the people of Babylon
,he represents himself
1 How and Wel ls,In op . cit. i . p . 135, are of op inion that this expedit ion took p lace I
after the capture of Babylon .
X I I I THE RISE OF PERSIA 16 1
as the servant of Merodach , chosen to repair the evil deedswrought by Nabonidus .
To quo te a few lines “ In wrath because he broughtthem ( i .e. the gods ofUr
,etc .) to SHU-ANNA (Babylon),
Merodach showed compassion upon all the landstogether Yea he sought out an upright Prince , afterhis ow n heart , whom he took by the hand , Cyrus , king of
the city of ANSHAN ; H e named his name ; to the
kingdom of the who le world H e called him by name .
”1Had Cyrus been oppo sed by a united people ready to
rally to the support of the i r monarch,it seems improbable
that the Persians could have taken Babylon ,with its triple
lines of fort ificat ion and its .immense resources, without along siege ; but , as it happened
,everything played into
the hands of the invaders .Cyrus began operat ions by drain ing off the waters of
the Tigris and of the Diyala at a t ime when these riversw ere at their lowes t levels , and in this manner fo rced hisw ay into the pro tected area . H e himself then movednorth to attack the Babylonian army
,which
,through
supreme incompetency or treachery , had remained at Opisand w as thus cut off from Babylon . This force he
defeated with ease . Meanwhile, Gobryas marched southand
,driving Nabon idus from Sippar, entered Babylon ,
“ without skirmish or battle .
”The king
,as might have
been expected , tamely surrendered . In pursuance of the
strict o rders of Cyrus , the temples were protected and no
pillaging w as allowed ; and when the Great Conquero rfinally arrived in person
,he w as welcomed as a del iverer .
As the cylinder runs,
“ when I had entered TINTIR(Babylon) peacefully , with rejo icings and festal shouts inthe King ’s palace
,I occupied the Seat of Sovere ignty .
”Belshazzar
,w ho had not surrendered , w as surprised and
slain by Gobryas , w ho w as made Viceroy of Babylon ; and
this final success decided all those w ho were hesitat ingwhether they should proffer allegiance to the Conqueror .Seldom has a great prize been more easily w on than when
1 Bal l’s Lightfrom the Ea st,p . 224 . The almost ident ical language used in Isaiah
,
chapter xlv . , is of considerable interest for its parallel ism to this quotation . I t runs :“ Thus saith the Lord to h is ano inted, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have ho ldenI have even called thee by thy name.
”
VOL . I
162 H ISTORY OF PERSIA cus p .
Babylon, the ho ly city , whose gods and whose laws werethe o ldest and most highly respected throughout the
known world , surrendered without a fight to the power ofthe conquering Persians . With great diplomacy Cyrus 1took the hands of Bel
,which grat ified his new subjects
immensely . Furthermore , he restored to the cit ies thegods which Nabonidus had co llected at Babylon .
The Traditional Account. —There is no part of Persianhistory which has suffered such remarkable viciss itudes asthe fall of Babylon . Unti l the discovery of the
'
tablets ,the dramati c account given by Herodo tus and supplemented by the book of Daniel
,how Cyrus diverted the
waters of the Euphrates and marched along the dry bed ,in which the gates had been left open upon the o ccasionof a feast
,w as fully accepted? A massacre ensued , the
drunken Babylonian monarch,paralysed by the writ ing on
the wall , w as slain, and the city w as given over to fire andthe sword . The prophecies
,moreover
,were fulfilled
,the
finest of them be ing that given in the book of IsaiahHell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at
thy coming it stirreth up the dead for thee,even all the
chief ones of the earth it hath raised up from theirthrones all the kings of the nat ions . All they shall speakand say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as w e ? art
thou become l ike unto us 3
We now know that there w as no Siege of Babylon byCyrus
,that the famous account in Herodo tus is a legend ,
and that the awful vengeance pronounced against Babylon inHo ly Writ did no t come to pass on this occasion . Finally ,Belshazzar w as neither “ Son of Nebuchadnezzar”nor
King o f Babylon,
”nor w as Darius , the Mede w ho re
ceived the kingdom after Belshazzar ’s death , a historicalpersonage . In short
,as already stated with reference to
the madness of Nebuchadnezzar, the book of Daniel p ossesses l ittle , if any, historical value .
The Latter 2”ears of Cyrus.
— Lydia had fallen ,’
had fallen ,and Egypt alone
,among the power
1 Th is act ion has been used to show that Cyrus w as not a fo llobvious ly he w as not a fanatical monotheist ; yet w e have t
Napoleon, w ho posed as a M os lem in Egypt,to show
2 Fi v e M onarchies, i i i . 513 ff .
3 I saiah xiv . 9 , 10 .
164. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
ensued and w as fiercely contested,Cyrus w as defeated and
slain . The Queen, to avenge the death of her son,dipped
the hero ’s head in gore, exclaiming , “ I give thee thy fillof blood .
”This legend is to some extent discounted by
the fact that the Great King ’s body w as brought back toPasargadae
,where it w as interred in the tomb described
in Chapter XV . Accord ing to Berosus,Cyrus w as waging
w ar against the Dahae of Parthia.
His Character .— Cyr
,us
, w ho from be ing king of a pettystate ro se to be the Lo rd of the might iest empire the worldhad up to that t ime seen
,i s one of the most attractive
figures in history . As a general he excites our wonder byhis victories
,Lydia and Babylon each falling within a few
months after the campaign had Opened . His conquest ofCroesus w as perhaps his most magnificent achievement ;and he owed it to the lightning init iat ive by which
,in
the first stage,he surprised the Lydian monarch with half
his troops absent,and , in the second
,again surprised his
adversary and captured Sardes . His manly beauty , hisso ldierlike qual it ies of bravery and act ivity w ere apparently conspicuous throughout his l ife , and he never losthis viril ity through luxury and self- indulgence
,as so many
great men have done . As an administrator Cyrus w as no t
conspicuous , administrat ive genius being then almostthought of. But his sagaci ty w as great , and he sho
a moderat ion and kindliness which made his yokecomparably lighter than that of previousAs a man he w as admirable .
" He marrieddaughter ofP harnaspes , an Achaemenian
,an
died he lamented her deeply . His human ity w as
by his freedom from pride,which induced him to
people on a level,instead of affect ing the remo teness
aloofness which characterized the great monarchspreceded and fo llowed him . His sense of humourShown in his reply to the Ionian Greeks , w ho ,
after refuhis overtures to jo in him in his attack on Croesus , cafter the fall of Sardes , to proffer the ir submission .
them Cyrus replied , “ A fisherman wished the fis
dance , so he played on his flute ; but the fish keptThen he took his net an
l’
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Cune iform Inscrip tion.
CHAPTE R XIV
THE P ER S IAN EM P I RE AT ITS ZEN ITH
I am Darius,the Great K ing, the King of K ings, K ing of lands peop led
by all races, for long K ing of th is great earth , the son of Vishtasp (Hystaspes),the Achaemen ian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan of Aryan descent .
The Accession of Cambyses , 529 B .C .— Cambyses w as the
eldest son of Cyrus and Cassandane his queen . Being,
moreover , born in the purple,he w as the undoubted heir
to the vast empire created by his illustr ious s1re . Indeed,
during his father ’s l ifet ime he had been associated withhim as king of Babylon ? But Cyrus had expressly laiddown that his second son Bardiya, termed Smerdis hy theGreeks
,should retaln the rule of Khorasmia (Khiva)
Bac'
fria,Parthia, and Carman ia, the eastern provinces of
the empire,which
,cut off by the barren Lut , were even
more remo te from the centre of power than would appearfrom the many intervening degrees of longitude . This
,in
an Oriental monarchy,w as an almo st impossible arrange
ment in any case ; but the violent and jealous nature of
Cambyses made i t certain that,unless Bardiya rebelled , his
l ife would,sooner or later , be sacrificed to his bro ther’s
1 Several of the tablets of the Egibi fam i ly, the great Baby lon ian financiers , havebeen found showing Cambyses as King of Babe l .” I t may be added that the expression “
son of Egibi”m ay denote mere ly an inhabitant of Bit-Egibi, and not a l ineal
descendant of the founder of a fam ily of that name.
166
4
4
CHAP. x1v THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 167
fears and mistrust . These feel ings were accentuated by theknowledge that Bardiya w as popular and beloved
,whereas
Cambyses himself w as known by the harsh name o f the
Master . Of his severity the classical instance i s thestory given by Herodo tus , that , having proved corruptionin one of the seven supreme judges , he sentenced him to
be flayed and,no t content with this , had his j udicial seat
covered with his skin ,and ordered the son of the unj ust
judge , w ho succeeded him ,to sit in that seat when trying
cases ?
TheDea th of Bardiya , 526 B.C .— In the last chapter w e
saw reason to bel ieve that Cyrus had for years been working to o rganize the campaign
—
agalnstEgypt . Risings areknown to have taken place which occupied the attent ionand energies of his successor , and it w as no t until thefourth year of his reign that everything w as ready . But
to leave his huge emp ire with his popular bro ther Bardiyaruling the eastern ~
prov inces seemed unwise, and w e can
imagine how his court iers kept working upon his fearsuntil the jealous monarch gave the order for his supposedrival tObes
'
ecretly-
assassinated . Great as the crime seemsto us
,I t w as not so regarded at the t ime and the annals
of Persia and o ther Oriental states furnish freq uent examples of the who lesale ext irpat ion of all relat ives uponthe accession o f a new monarch .
The Egyp tian Camp a ign— Amasis of Egypt , l ike his
fellow—monarchs , had watched the rise of Persia withanxiety, which had deepened when he saw first Lydiaand then Babylon succumb to the irresist ible might of
the new power after short campaigns . Throughout the
period of grace he steadily o rgan ized his ofCes,and hestrepgthenei his making an all iance with the
Gr eek . islanders . .w ho h ad maintained their independence ,whose fleet 'would , he hoped , form a valuable counterpoiseto the navies of the Phoen i cians and subject Greeks .Owing
,however
,to internal troubles , this aid w as not only
withdrawn but given to the enemy,and Amasis
,when w ar
broke out , faced it without allies .Cambyses
,with a splendid army trained by Cyrus
,
1 Herodotus, v. 25.
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
marched to Gaza, the last city of any importance beforethe desert w as entered . Fortune favoured him throughoutthe campaign for
,while he w as considering how to cross
the waterless belt, he w as jo ined by Phanes of H alicar
nassus , w ho had deserted Amasis and induced the desertchiefs to co llect thousands of camels laden with skins ofwater, and thus create depo ts at the various stages .Finally
,to crown his good fortune , Amasis himself
,the
great soldier and admin istrato r , w ho would have proveda fo rmidable adversary
,died , and w as succeeded at this
crit ical moment by his untried son Psammet ichus I I I .The Battle of P elusium, 525 B.C .
— In these circumstances, it i s small wonder that the Egypt ians and the irGreek mercenaries were depressed . They fought desperately, but the Persian forces were superio r in numbers andoverwhelmed them . The pani c-stricken Psammetichus
,
instead of defending the passages of the canals , and thusgaining t ime to collect a second army
,fled with no thought
of anything but his ow n safety . Cambyses,after capturing
Pelusium ,from which the battle has taken its name ,
marched on Memphis,which held out for some time , but
finally surre .ndered Its fall completed the conquest of
EgyptThis campaign
,which w as fought m 525B.C ,
1 broughtabout the overthrow of the third great power of the old
world , which had , indeed, been weaker from the militarypo int of V iew than the great powers of the Tigris valley ,but had generally played a leading ro le
,thanks in part to
its remo teness and inaccessibil ity . With Egypt added tohis dominions
,Cambyses became the ruler of an empire
more co lossal than any known befo re . It stretched fromthe Nile to the Jaxartes
,from the Black Sea to the Persian
Gulf,and included countries l ike Lydia, on the one hand,
and Bactria,on the o ther, which had never been approached
by an Assyrian army .
The Sui cide of Cambyses , 52 1 B .C .— Cambyses had
suffered as a child from epileptic fits , and four years afterthe conquest of Egypt the failure of expeditions to Nubiaand to the Ammon oasis unhinged his mind . He quitted
1 Regarding this date, w ide The Passing of the Emp ires, p . 66 1, note 4 .
1111 THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 169
Egypt m 52 1 B . c .
,and w as marching through Syria when
he heard that a revo lu tion had broken ou t,headed by a
Magian . This man clo sely resembled the murderedBardiya, who se assassinat ion w as no t known to his mo therand sisters , much less to the common people . Cambysesw as on his w ay to meet the rebels when , hearing probablyof some important defect ion ,
he killed himself in despair .With him perished the last male scion of the family ofCyrus . A legend exists to the effect that he woundedhimself in the thigh when mount ing his horse , but the
manner of his death is clearly stated by Darius in the
Behistun inscription , and may be accepted with con
fidence .
Gaumata , the P seudo-Smerdis of the Greeks.—The re
cognition of Gaumata the M agian as Bardiya appears tohave been almost un iversal . Nor I S this surprising , since ,after the death of Cambyses , all claims would unite inBardiya
,whose murder w as a state secret known to very
few . As may be supposed , a diligent search w as made bythe emissaries o f the impostor for every one w ho e itherknew Bardiya or had been connected with his murder ;and those w ho possessed such dangerous knowledge weresecretly put to death . Moreover
,in order to w i n popu
larity, the usurper proclaimed fieedom from w ar-serviceand remission o f taxes ;
1and
,to further the imposture ,
he withdrew as far as po ssible from publi c life and o rderedthe members of his harem to break off all relat ions no tonly with the outside world
,but also with one ano ther .
It w as not possible to execute these orders,as any one with
a knowledge of the East w ill realize,and their only result
w as to increase the suspicion, already entertained by the
nobles, that this new monarch w as no descendant of Cyrus,but a usurper .As w e have already seen
,there w as a second royal line
ofAchaemen ian princes whose leading member w as Darius,
Hystaspes . With him were asso ciated the headso ther six great Pers ian tribes
,whose right it w as to
ccess to the king at all t imes,and w ho resolved to
0 his action in ext ingu ishing the pyres of the great fam i lies,v ide The Passing
170 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAR.
attempt the overthrow of the Magian by the exercise of
this privilege .
The D eath of Gauma ta , 52 1 B.C .— In pursuance of their
design,they presented themselves without the ir ret inues
at the castle gate,were admitted
,and immediately Slew
Gaumata and his attendants . The conspirators,after
striking this blow,rode post haste to the cap ital
,exhibited
the head of the impostor and organized a massacre of the
Magi w ho had aided and abet ted the late usurpat ion,
which w as perhaps an attempt to regain ascendancy forthe caste . But Darius w as not vindict ive, and the massacreceased at n ightfall .There is a well - known story connected with the
usurpat ion of the Magian. Gaumata had suffered the
lo ss of his ears , and one of his wives w as instructed byher father , a leading nobleman of Persia, to test the imposture by ascertain ing whether her husband ’s ears hadbeen cut o ff. This
,at infinite risk
,she did , and so con
v inced the conspirators that they had in truth been dece ivedby a clever impersonation . Ano ther equally famous storyis that the seven conspirators agreed to choose as king himwhose horse neighed first after sunrise . Darius , it is said ,had an ingenious groom
,w ho contrived that his master ’s
ho rse should neigh, and thus w on for him the throne of
Asia .
TheAccession of Darius, 52 1 B.C .— The claims ofDarius
to the throne did no t meet with u'
nquestionThe usurper
,by his remission of taxes and of w ar
had w on the populace to his side . Again, the Goof the distant provinces
,thinking po ssibly that the
of Persia would Share the fate of Media, desired to
out kingdoms for themselves . Darius , therefore , hconquer
,and in some cases to reconquer, the many
doms of which the Empire consisted ; and theretimes when only his army and a few of the provremained true to him .
The Eight R ehellions .— The provinces of Elam
Babylonia were the first to break into open revo lt , alas soon as the death of the usurper w as know n . In
Atrina,the rebel leader
,w as desc
172 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAR.
the garrison w as strong enough to quell this revo lt . With'
the capture of the second Pseudo—Smerdis , in 518 B .C . ,
these rebellions , which had served to exhibit Darius as a
master of men,came to an end and peace at length reigned
over the vast emp ire .
Darius the Administra tor.— The victor proceeded to
punish those governors who se behaviour had displeasedhim and to reward those w ho had helped him . Duringthe crisis
,Oroetes, Satrap of Lydia
,w ho w as suspected of
aiming at an independent monarchy , had been put to deathby his Pers ian guard , acting on secret o rders from Darius ;and this step had probably prevented a rebellion in thatJprov ince . The Great King visited Egypt in
,
person,and ,
having executed its Governor summarily,set to work to
w in over the priests to hi s Side by benefact ions of everydescrip tion .
Having thus pacified the outlying provinces , he beganto organize his immense emp ire under a uni form systemof administrat ion . The old method
,which the Assyrian
monarch Tiglath-p ileser I I I . had introduced, and whichhad ever s i nce remained In operat ion
,rested part ly on the
transportat ion of thousands of families to districts far fromtheir homes
,and the bringing in of o thers to take their
place . The newcomers were looked on as alien intrudersand naturally supported the Assyrian Governor. Eachcountry
,when conquered , w as e ither added to a neigh
bouring province o r made into a separate province and
assessed in a primit ive fashion for tribute . Babylon ,
however,w as never absorbed . The system
,indeed
,w as
very imperfect,owing to the almost complete independ
ence of the Governors , and w as possible only so long as
the emp ire w as of moderate dimensions . Constant re
hell ions and revo lts proved that the contro l of Assyriaw as extremely difficult to enfo rce .
r Darius,the principle div ide et
imp era w as adopted and strict ly appl ied ; any tendencytowards unificat ion w as avo ided . To prevent the con
centrat ion of power in one man’s hands , a Satrap ,1
General,and a Secretary of S tate were appo inted in each
1 Satrap is the contracted form of a Pers ian word sign ifying Lord of the Country.
F rom a p hotog raph hy K ing a nd Thomp s on .
DARIUS THE REBEL LEADERS .
174. H ISTORY OF PERSIA CHAR.
of silver . Babylon, on the other hand,w as assessed at .
1000 talents , and Egypt at 700 talents . The to tal revenuein money w as equivalent to in
the values of to-day— a large amount for the period and
populat ion .
Darius w as the first Persian monarch to co in money,and the “ Daric , a go ld coin weighing 130 grains ,
1w as
famous for its purity and soon became the only goldcurrency of the ancient world . Silyer co ins were alsostamped . The taxes in kind were M y, Babylon
of the army and of the court, and Egypt
providing corn for the army of men . The Medesfurn ished horses
,mules
,and sheep the Armenians foals
the Babylon ians eunuchs,and so forth . In addit ion
, the
provinces were called upon, after defraying these royaltaxes
, to support the Satrap , his court and army ; and,as
there w as no fixed salary for the offi cials, w ho , moreover ,
probably bought their posts,the burden laid on the pro
vinces w as great,if no t into lerable . On the o ther hand ,
there were the checks already ment ioned , which , so long asa capable monarch re igned
,made the Satrap careful not to
exceed the customary l imits , and forced him to be zealousin maintain ing order and improving commun i cat ions . It
must also be remembered that the lower classes in everycountry were accustomed to be taxed to the ir utmo stcapacity by thei r nat i ve rulers . Moreover
, the arrangementgave the monarch a regular budget
,and thus lessened ex
cessive demands on any one province ; and,finally
,the
new system w as much better than that which i t superseded .
AS M aspero po ints out , i t w as mainly defect ive from the
point of V iew of military organization . Darius main taineda bodyguard consisting of 2000 cavalry and 2000 infantry ,w hose lances bore gold or silver apples and under themranked the ten thousand “ Immo rtals , divided into ten
battalions, the first of which had its lances deco rated withgolden pomegranates . This guard w as the nucleus of animperial army
,supported by Persian and Median levies and
by garrisons placed at various important centres , constitut
1 Vide Head’s Coinage of Lydia and Persia (Numismata Oriental ia). ,Da
‘
ric is a
corruption of s ar i/t, or the little gold co in.
”
THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 175
ing imperial , as dist inct from local , troops . When a greatw ar broke out , untrained levies , differing from one ano therin language , in manner of fighting
,and in equipment ,
poured in by thousands ; and it w as this und isciplinedforce which w as ultimately the cause of the overthrow o f
the Persian Empire .
The Royal R oad.— Darius, like most great rulers ,
realized the importance of good communi cat ions , and w e
read of the Royal Road constructed between Sardesmeans of which offi cial s were kept in
the Court . The distance w as about 1500 miles,const ituted a three months’ journey for a man on foo t .It ran through ”the heart of Phrygia
,making a detour
acrossw
the Halys to Pteria,the anc ient Hi ttite capital
,
and thence southwards across the Taurus,reaching the
es at Samosata . The Tigris w as struck at
,and the road
, after fo llowing the course of the
some distance,crossed the Kassi te country to Susa .
influence of the Royal Road in widen ing the
of the provinces through which it ran must havensiderable , and its importance in the eyes of theis shown by the prominence given to i t in the
maps of the Ionian geographers .The Exp ansion of the Emp ire.
- Darius , even had hbeen content with his immense possessions , would haveknown that his name would no t be famous unless it couldbe reco rded of him that he had extended the PersianEmpire . To the north i ts l imits were fixed by defin itegeographical boundaries difli cult to overstep , such as the
Black Sea,the magnificent Caucasus range, which stil l
defies the Russian railway engineer,the Caspian Sea
,and
the steppes of Central Asia. To the south lay the desertsofAfrica and Arabia and the Indian Ocean. Consequentlythe directions in which expansion w as pract icable were‘limited .
The Object of the Scythi an Campa ign.— The obj ect of
Darius In undertaking the campaign against the Scythianshas been interpreted in var ious ways by different wri ters .Grote,1 for example
,terms it “
that insane exp edit ion ,
”1 History qf Greece, “
vol. I ii . p . 18 8 .
176 HISTORY OF PERSIA a p .
whereas Rawlinson held that it w as a well-thoug.
ht-outscheme to pro tect the line of communicat i ons i n the
advance on Greece— the great object which,in his opin ion
,
Darius kept befo re his mind throughout . lVlaspero entertains somewhat similar views , but thinks that Darius w as illinformed as to the distance of the country of the Scythiansfrom his intended line of march . Ho lm refers very brieflyto the campaign and considers that it strengthened the
supremacy of Persia 1n Western Asia.
1 Finally,Noldeke
sees in it merely the desire to conquer an unknowncountry .
Grote’
s V iew may, I think , be dismissed as entirely outof keeping bo th with the character of Darius and with themanner m which the campaign w as conducted . Let usturn next to the v iews of Rawlinson . The terrible raidsof the Scythians in Media and in Asia Minor a centurybefore must have given them a prest ige far above the i ractual military strength at this period . But for Dariusto have “
embarked on a campaign against these e lusivenomads simply from fear that they would cut his communications when he w as marching on Hellas
,would
show that he w as very badly informed , bo th as to theireffective power -and as to their distance from his lineof march . Moreover, w e learn that , although Dariustraversed Southern Russia for tw o months
,it w as no t
unt i l he heard that the Greek ci ties ofThrace had revoltedthat he detached against them a force of men
,
which incidentally conquered Thrace and rece ived the
submission of Macedon ia . Finally, after the Scythiancampaign
,Darius returned to Sardes , remained there abou t
a year, and then left Asia Minor for his capital .With these facts before us , it is diffi cult to bel ieve that
the Scythian campaign w as intended to be‘a prel iminary
to the conquest of Hellas . Had it been so,what w as
there to prevent the Great King from either marching on
Greece in person or doubling his army in Thrace for an
invasion of Greece ? In any case , why did he remain a
year at Sardes inactive , although his troops had paved theWaymost successfully for an advance on Hellas by annex
1 History of Greece,vol. i . p . 4 17 .
178 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
of boats w as constructed by the tyrants of the Ioniancit ies
,to whose care i t w as entrusted ; and Darius
,after
crossing it,launched into the unknown steppe . H ad the
campaign been made in connexion with a future ex
pedition to be undertaken against Greece,i t would seem
extraordinary that the distance already traversed and the
magn itude of the Danube should not have proved to the
Great King that the Scythians were extremely unlikely toraid down to the Hellespont in force . In the marchbeyond the Danube there w as apparently no adequateobject ive
,although many flocks and herds must have been
captured . The Scythians , whose mobility, l ike that of
all nomads , w as great , kept away from his l ine of marchas far as possible . H ad serious operations eastward beenintended , the fleet would obviously no t have been left inthe Danube .
Herodo tus,
1 whose delightful pages deal fully withthis campaign ,
states that Darius sent an emissary tScythian king with the fo llowing messagestrange man,
why dost thou keep on flying befwhen there are tw o things thou mightest do so
If thou deemest thyself able to resist my arms,
‘
( easewanderings and come , let us engage in a battle . 0
thou art conscious that my strength is greater than th
even so shouldest thou cease to run away thou hastto bring thy lord earth and water
,and to come at
“
to a conference To this message the Scythianrepl ied This is my w ay, Persian ,
I never fearflee from them . Earth and water I do not sendthou shalt soon receive more suitable gift s .” Thesesent by a herald
,and proved to be a bird
,a mouse
,a
and five arrows . The herald , questioned as to theirfication, replied that the Persians
,i f wise
, w o
themselves . At a council,Darius expressed t
that the Scythians intended to surrender,an
mouse and frog symbo l ized earth and waterHis father- in-law
,Gobryas , however , explained that
real mean ing w as as fo llows : “ Unless,Persians , ye
turn into birds and fly into the sky,or become mice
1 iv . 126.
THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 179
burrow underground,or make yourselves frogs and take
refuge in the fens , ye will never make your escape fromthis land , but d ie p ierced by our arrows .” The factappears to be that the expedit ion became a militarypromenade ,
1as the Persians were unable to secure a de
cisive engagement . After a march of some tw o months,
during the course of which its losses might have beenconsiderable from desultory attacks
,lack of supplies
,and
sickness,the army returned to the Danube
,where the
Scythians had tried to induce the Greeks to destroy thebridge . The “
tyrants”debated on this quest ion,but
came to the sapient conclusion that the i r ow n posit iondepended on the support of the Great King
, and theyconsequently remained loyal to their trust .
The Annexat ion of Thrace and the t mission of M ace
Darius recro ssed the Danube in safety . On
back to Sardes he detached a force of
service in Europe . These troops no t onlythe Greek cities of Thrace which had revolted
,
0 received the submission of Macedonia,
and
with little effo rt brought the boundariessian Empire into contact wi th northern Gre
of Thrace w as the main result of t
The Indian Camp a ign, 512 B .C .— In 512 B. C . the con
quering Persians,l ike the ir predecesso rs the Aryans of
India,looked down from the eastern edge of the Iranian
the vast plain of the Panjab and annexeddistricts of it and of Sind . Scylax,
the Greek admiral,
nded the Indus,conquering the tribes
,and , undis
mayed by the t ides , launched out on the Indian Oceanand explored the coasts o f Arabia and Makran . A
S carved out of these conquests , and immenseof go ld poured into Persia. It must be con
very little is known about this campaign , and
the authent i city of the great voyage of Scylax
this account w as written I have consu lted Scythians and Greeks by E . H .
he author writes (p. 1 I 6) Darius can hard ly have don e more than make a
ion against the northern barbarians, With a v iew to securing his front ier on the
M inns a lso gives instances of messages exchanged between q thians whichmble that quoted above from Herodotus.
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu». xxv
w as doubted .
1 To—day w e realize how well organizedwere these grand old monarchies , and can thus believethat the main facts of the narrat ive were correct
,even if
to some extent the glory of the expedition of Alexanderbe dimin ished by the fact that Scylax had navigated theIndus and the Indian Ocean some tw o centuries before hisillustrious fellow-countryman .
Summary.-We have now followed the fortunes of the
Persian Empire from the annexat ion of Egypt,the last
great power to be conquered,and through the period of
desperate revo lt brought about by the madness of Cambyses and the remarkably successful impo sture of the
xt w e have seen Darius refoundingmore so lid foundations than it had
ever before possessed,by welding the loose co llect ion of
provinces into a system which,if not in all respects a good
one , w as yet a great improvement on the organization itsuperseded ; and w e realize that
,but for this monarch
,
w ho mer its the t itle “ Great,
the huge empire would ,like that of Media
,have swiftly dissolved . Finally
,the
Panjab with Sind , to the east , and Thrace with Macedon ia
,to the west
,were annexed apparently without any
special difli culty. We thus see an empire which includedthe whole of the known wo rld and
territory t ill then unknown,which str
burning sands ofAfri ca to the ice—boundvast but obedient and w e maywell say tthe zenith of Persia, and indeed of
that the world had as yet seen . Nevertheless,
were to be found a few thousand warriors,
po sterons as it might appear,were destined to repel t
co llective might of this immense power,and in t ime
requi te tenfo ld the invasion of the ir territories .f
1 H erodotus, iv . 4 4 . Scylax published an account of the expedit ion, wh ichsti ll extant in the lifet ime of Alexander.
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
fine,virile race, ready as occasion may serve to raid , to fight ,
or to shoo t the ibex or wild sheep,and rendered by their
environment and circumstances absolutely hardy and tireless .
It i s reasonable to suppose that the Medes and Persiansto a great extent led a similar life and
,inasmuch as the
cl imat i c and so cial condit ions have not materially changed,
w e cannot go far wrong if w e assume that they were j ustsuch a free , warlike , manly race as are the nomads to—day,some of whom at any rate are their descendants . ThisV iew of the ir character w as held by the Greeks themselves ;and
,if the Greeks w on deathless fame in their defence of
Hellas,surely some share of it w as earned by the gallant
Persians , w ho ,in spite of inferior weapons and armour
,
attempted at Plataea to break the spear—shafts of the
Greeks and so force a w ay in , regardless of the ir l ives .Customs .
— Viril ity,expressed in valour and energy
,is
the best stock on which to graft o ther virtues,and the
ancient Persians were taught more especially to ride,to
draw the bow,and to speak the truth .
”They were
careful to avo id incurring debt and were generoushospitable . They regarded buying and selling in t
market-place as ignoble ; and even to -day no Persianposit ion will condescend to enter a shop .
Against these good qualities must be set off a lackself-control , whether in pro sperity or adversity, i
van ity,and a love of luxury
,which
,however
,i s c
to all prosperous nations al ike . As a race they were,
are , remarkable for keenness of perception, for smartpartee and for humour , somet imes of a very subtle kiPersians have apparently ever been lavish in the ir
penditure, part icularly upon their food and It 13 curito read in Herodotus that they ate various kinds ofbefo re the main meal w as served , for this is stil l thcustom at the present day. The magnificence of th
banquet s will be referred to in connexion with the l ifetheir monarchs .Like the Greeks and the Scythians , Persians
devo ted to the wine cup,and Herodotus states that
deliberated . on an important quest ion when intoxicat
xv THE ANCIENT PERSIANS 18 3
the evening , and then in the morn ing,if they saw no
reason to change their views,they decided the matter .
To be the father of many sons w as , and st i ll is , deemeda proof of good fortune , and in this the ir attitude is surelymore sane than that of the modern European w ho shirksthe duties of a family . A well-known example of philoprogen itiveness w as Fath Ali Shah
,w ho had three thousand
descendants when he died , a fac t which gave him extraordinary prest ige among his subjects .
Law 5. The law of the Medes and Persians whichaltereth not w as
,as may be supposed , extremely severe
but certainly not more so than that of the earlier empires .The King could do as he willed
, except that he could no tchange an order once given
,and the life and property of
his subj ects were at his mercy at the same t ime,abuse of
rights w as tempered by fear of assassinat ion . The criminalcode
,which
,rightly enough
,made death the penalty for
murder,rape
,treason and such serious crimes
,seems to have
visited minor offences with equal severity . But in a wildcountry , with a wild people to deal with and no organ izedprisons
,it is impossible to condemn death sentences or
mutilation in the case of brigands , thieves , and o ther badcharacters . To do so would be to ignore the severity ofour ow n code , by which sheep- stealing w as a capital offenceeven after the accession of Queen Victoria. Punishmentssuch as throwing into the ashes
,
1 burying al ive , flaying,
and crucifying are horrible enough to modern ideas , butequally ho rrible were punishments in medieval Europe .
The Pos ition ofWomen — As to the po sition of women,
polygamy w as encouraged, and then as now the upper
classes kept thei r wives secluded,litters with clo sely drawn
curtains be ing always employed.on journeys . Ne ither in
the inscriptions nor in the sculptures does a woman appear .On the other hand
,it i s unl ikely that the nomad women
were ever veiled,and their posit ion w as probably much
better than that of their jealously -guarded sisters,w ho
were no t even allowed to receive the ir fathers or brothers .2
.
1 Th is pun ishment cons isted in throwing the crim inal into a pit fi lled with ashes, inw h1ch he w as s lowly suffocated.
2 As a resu lt the nomad women are incomparably more capable and? thus bear morecapable and efficient chi ldren .
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
As this has apparent ly been the general rule in the East,
the Persians were no worse off than thei r neighbours but
the i r decay as a great empire can be traced in no smalldegree to the omen in the
ana’
emin, as the where to do
any work w as looked upon as’
degrading. Their idealsin this respect were noticeably lower than those of Greece
,
where the women,albe it secluded
,spent the ir days in
spinning and o ther domest i c tasks ; and unt i l Easternwomen come out into the world and learn to dist inguishbetween good and evil it i s hopeless to expect thei rchildren to compete on equal terms with the offs pringof a father and a mother w ho are both well educated .
This quest ion is fundamental .The King and his Court — In no country has the
nat ional l i fe centred mo re intensely round the King thanin Persia and consequently a description of the po sit ionand l ife of the monarch will show better than anythingelse the condit ions prevailing in Iran after the empirehad been established . There is no doubt that , j ust as
the Medes copied their ceremonies and their et iquettefrom Assyria
,which had itsel f copied from the o lder
emp ires,so w e may rightly regard Persia as the inheritor
of all the previous ages . Even to-day the Shah fo llowsthe etiquette and bears the high- sounding t itles which havedescended from the remo te past .
The sovereign w as the abso lute master,the so le
fountain of law and honour,blessed himself with infalli
bility, the one man on whose character and capacity theweal or w oe of the ent ire country depended . At the
same t ime there were some l imitat ions to his power .He w as expected to observe the customs of the country .
and w as bound to consult his great nobles . He w as
equally bound by his ow n decisions .The royal robe of purple worn by the Great King
w as the dignified flowing garment of the Medes,and on
his head w as set the high eya’ar is or t iara of bright co lour,
which the monarch alone might wear and which is figuredin the sculptures of Persepo l is . H e wore ear-rings
,brace
lets,chains
,and a girdle all of go ld
,and appears in the
186 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
dice but,as may be supposed, the kings w ho left every
thing to their ministers suffered from boredom,just as
much as the modern pleasure seeker and w e read of casesin which carving or even planing wood w as a royal distraction . Except for the l istening to
“the Book of the
Chronicles of the Kings of Persia and Media”reco rdedin the book of Esther
,no l iterature i s ment ioned
,and it
i s unl ikely that the monarchs could read or write . Since ,however , w e know that even Alfred the Great could not
write and perhaps could no t read,
”1this ignorance is not
extraordinary . Even to d ay in Persia I have known men
ho lding high posit ions w ho could neither read nor write ,and , as the i r letters were no t signed but sealed , theirignorance w as by no means easily discovered .
Below the King were the heads of the great families ,known as the “ Seven Princes ,
”Who se right it w as to
demand admission to the monarch’s presence at any
t ime , unless he were in the women ’s apartments . Theyfrequently filled the great offi ces and formed a permanentcouncil . Below them
,again
,were the younger scions and
adherents of the great families . The trading commun ityw as held in great contempt ; and consequent ly there w as
no intermediate class between the nobility and the com
monalty. A subject admitted to an audience prostratedhimself on entering the presence and his hands remainedhidden throughout . This custom stil l survives .2
The Queen w as supreme in the women ’s quarter .She had the right to wear the royal t iara and lo rded itover the other wives . She po ssessed large revenuesher ow n and a personal staff of ofli cials
When a woman of character filled the posit iinfluence w as necessarily great , and to thisbears full evidence . The inferio r wives, it w oul
had relat ively little influence,and the hundreds
cubines,unless they attracted the monarch ’s spec ial notice ,
shared the royal couch for only one night . The posit ionof the Queen herself w as liable to be overshadowed bythat of the Queen-Mother
,w ho took precedence ; and
1 The Br i ti sh Emp i re, by Professor A . F . Po llard, p . 23 .
2 When I first came to Pers ia I w as surprised to see servants all standing w ith theirarms crossed
,unt i l I learned that they were hiding their hands out of respect .
xv THE ANCIENT PERSIANS 18 7
the acts of Amestris show how great w as her power .Eunuchs swarmed in these huge establishments
,and when
the dynasty became luxurious and effete , their pern i ciousinfluence , which st ill persists , corrupted the young princesw ho were in their charge . The cost of a court such as
I have described must have been a serious drain on the
empire, as i t has been ever since . Even the late Nasiru-Din
,w ho ranks among the most enl ightened monarchs
of Persia,married some fifty wives, all of whom had to be
provided for on a more or less costly scale .
Such were the chief customs of the Persians . The
good in them far outwe ighed the bad,and when the ir
rel igion with its lofty and sane ideals is taken into con
siderat ion,it is l ittle wonder that these enlightened Aryans
founded an empire and held in subjec tion the lowerSemiti c and Turanian races whose civilizat ion they hadabsorbed .
TheLanguage oftheAncient Persians .— We have travelled
far rom the days of Hyde , whose work , published in 1700,
summed up the ent ire knowledge of the subj ect at thatperiod . In his History of the Religion of theAncient Persians
,
Parthians and M odes, he declared the Old Persian inscript ions to be hardly worthy of attention , and laid down withequal emphasis that they were no t written in the languageof ancient Iran . Thanks to the labours of Grotefend
,of
Lassen, and above all o f Rawlinson, the language of Cyrus
has been deciphered , and i t i s of special interest to learnthat many of the words , such as those for horse
,camel
,
etc .
,used by these o ld- t ime heroes st ill survive in modern
Persian ; in fact , the language w as Old Pers ian . The
theory of Oppert , that the writ ing w as derived from the
Assyrian ideograms , which is given in his Le Peup le et
[a Langne a’es M ea
’es
,seems quite in keeping wi th the
immense influence of Assyria on Media and Persia alreadyreferred to in Chapter X . This can be traced also In theirso cial o rganizat ion
,the ir laws , and the ir architecture .
The Tr ilingual Inser igti ons a t Behistun.— By w ay of
ustrat1ng the language of the Achaemen ians I proposeto describe briefly the great rock inscriptions of Behistunor Bisitun . The former name o ccurs in the pages of
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
Yakut , and w as adopted by Rawlinson ; the latter namei s that used by the Persians of to-day.
1
U pon leaving Kermanshah the traveller bound forHamadan sees a range broken up into a series of i so latedpeaks
,as is so common in Persia
,and at the foo t of the
last peak,which ri ses precip itously to a he ight of some
4 000 feet , are a number of springs which have made thisa favourite camping—ground for caravans , probably s from
times before the dawn of history . This w as the sitechosen by Darius for the commemorat ion of his greatexplo its , and indeed he chose well .
The earliest ment ion of the famous records is byDiodorus Siculus , w ho ,
writ ing in the first century of our
era,states that the sculptures were the work of Semiramis
,
and ident ifies the bearded figure of Darius as that of the
great mythical queen . Even European t ravellers of the
early n ineteenth century have no t been more illuminat ing,
and the figures have been described by Gardanne 2as tho se
of the twelve apostles,and by Sir Robert Ker Porter 3 as
celebrat ing the conquest of Israel . The credit both of
copying these inscript ions and of translat ing them correctlyis due to Rawlinson
,and i t w as not unt i l he had cop ied
the long trilingual record that any progress w as made indeciphering the cune i form script
,although Lassen and
o thers had succeeded in ident ifying correctly the values ofmany of the Persian characters .
1 The diffi culties surmounted by Rawlinson in copyingthe inscript ions on the almost perpendicular rock makethrilling reading , and i t is sat isfactory to know fromKing
,whose wo rk is the most recent and fullest , that his
tran slat ion holds good to - day. The sculptures,which
ow e thei r present good condit ion mainly to their inaccessibility, represent Darius
,attended by tw o of
great offi cers,one of whom is believed to be his father
law,Gobryas , triumphing over his enemies . The Gr
King stands with his left foo t firmly planted on Gaum
1 I am especial ly indeb ted to The Inscrip tion of Da r ius the Great at Behistun, by L. W.
King and R. C . Thompson .
27 0mm ]d
’
un Voyage, Paris, 1809 , p . 8 3 .
3 PersonalNa rra tiv e of a yourneyfrom Ind ia to England, 2nd edit ion,vol. 11. pp. 80 ff.,
London , 18 27 .
THE ANC IENT PERSIANS
the Magian,represented as lying on his back with his
arms raised in an att itude of entreaty . In front standn ine rebel leaders , roped together with the ir hands bound ,all of whom are named by epigraphs .1 Above hovers the
god Ahura Mazda, a bearded figure surrounded by a
circle of light,w ho emits lightning flashes— a symbo l
borrowed from Egyp t— and to him the r ight hand of
Darius is raised in adorat ion . The famous tril ingual inscript ions , in Pers ian , Susian , and Babylonian ,
give the t itlesof Darius and the extent of his empire . They then referto the murder of Bardiya or Smerd is by Cambyses and
the revo lt of the Pseudo-Smerdis, Gaumata the Magian ,
during the absence of Cambyses in Egypt . The deathof the pretender at the hands of Darius is described insome detail . Then the revo lts against Darius are
enumerated at length , and the inscriptions end with an
adjurat ion to future rulers to beware of liars and to the
reader to preserv e the sculptures . The curse on whoeve rdestroys the memo rial of the Great King runs : “ SaithDarius
,the king If thou shalt beho ld this tablet or these
sculptures,and shal t destroy them and shalt not preserve
them so long as thy line endureth , then may AhuraMazda slay thee
,and may thy race come to nought
, and
whatsoever thou doest may Ahura Mazda destroy !It is impossible to overest imate these trilingual inscript ions
,no t only for their extrao rdinary historical value bu t
also for the light they throw on this ancient language .
The R uins ofPasa rgadae — I now turn to the architectural g ories of the Achaemenians .2 Pasargadae w as o f
admittedly the ancient cap ital of Parsa,better known
1 Taken from left to right areI . Atrina, the fi rst Susian pretender.
I I . Nidintu-Bel, the first Baby lon ian pretender.
I I I . Phraortes, the M edian pretender.IV . Mart iya, the second Sus ian pretender.
V . Citrantakhma, the Sagartian pretender.
V I . Vahyazdata, the second Pseudo-Smerdis.
V I I . Arakha,the second Baby lonian pretender.
V I I I . Frada, the M argian pretender.
and IX . Skunkha, the Scythian leader, whose figure w as added at a later period.
2 I have especially consu lted Lord Curzon ’
s great work for this section . I havealso referred to Perrot and Chip iez , Histoi re de I’A r t , vol. v .
,and O . M . Dalton
’s Treasure
gf the Oxus. M r. Dalton has kindly helped m e to select i l lustrat ions from his work .
190 HISTORY OF PERSIA
under‘
the Greek form of Persis,when it w as a small
state,and can thus ' claim precedence in the brief account
I propose to give of the ruins of old-world Persia. In
dealing with them I shall imagine that, as happened inmy ow n case upon the o ccas ion of my first visi t
,the
traveller is coming from the north . The site of Pas
argadae differs from that of the later and more s plendid
capital . For the original city a si te secluded in a smallvalley w as cho sen, whereas splendid Persepo l is looksacross a wide plain . In o ther words
,Pasargadae w as
the chief city of -a small , weak state, and Persepolis thecapital of a mighty emp ire .
The first ruin to be v i sited consists of a platfo rmbuilt Out from the summit of a low ,
rounded hill, and i s
known locally as Takht— i-Sulayman,or the Throne of
Solomon ,
”that potentate o ccupying quite . as high a
position in the minds of Persians as in tho se of his ow ncountrymen . The terrace i s a parallelogram about 300feet in to tal length . It is bui lt of huge blo cks of whitestone
,originally fastened together by metal clamps
,all of
which apparently have been scooped out ; and,from the
absence of '
any staircase and of any ruins of buildings , itappears no t to have been finished . Passing on
,
'
w e cometo a limestone mono l ith
,on which , sculptured in low
relief,is the famous winged figure of Cyrus the Great ,
or of his fra 'vashi or gen ius . The inscription ,
“ I (am)Cyrus
,the King
, the Achaemenian ,
”w as copied
'
by earliertravellers
,but has been broken off
,and indeed the whole
figure is now becoming very indist inct . The bas—rel iefof the hero
,which is rather mo re than life- size , is in
profile , and the treatment is Assyrian in conception so far
as the wings and the fringed robe are concerned but the
triple crown is bel ieved to be Egyptian . The face,how
ever, i s d istinctly Aryan in type,and w e may therefo re
bel ieve it to have been a por trai t of the first great Aryanwhose features have been preserved to us down the ages .We come finally to the most famous monument of all,
the sepulchre of Cyrus the Great,which I have elsewhere
described as follows : “ The tomb,which has been . the
cause of so much discussion,and w as certainlydesigned
THE ANCIENT PERSIANS
by a Greek architect,w as o riginally surrounded by a
colonnade , of which Dieulafoy gives a restored plan,
indeed the bases of many of the columns are still visible .
Known for centuries as Mashhad- i M— adar- i-Sulayman, or
The Tomb of the Mo ther of So lomon,
’
the mauso leumstands on seven courses of white l imestone
,composed of
enormous blocks, the lower steps being hard to climb , butthe upper ones be ing shallower . The walls and roof are
built of great blocks , beautifully fitted together , and st illstanding , In sp ite of the fact that the metal clamps havebeen scooped out by the nomads . To effect an entrance
,
w e had to crawl through a very narrow doorway,which
has been graphically described by Arriam. The interio r,
which is blackened with smoke , w as found to be ten feetfi ve inches long by seven feet six inches wide and six feetten inches high . This chamber w as quite empty but for a
string of vot ive o fferings , and an Arabic inscript ion adornedthe wall. Arrian says that the following inscription w as
on the tomb; O Man,I am Cyrus
,the son of Cambyses,
w ho founded the Empire o f Persia, and w as King of
Asia. Grudge me not therefo re this monument .
’”1Twice have I visited this tomb
,and on each o ccasion I
have felt how great w as my privilege in seeing the actualtomb of “ Cyrus
,the King of the Wo rld , the Great
King .
” Indeed,I doubt whether there is any single
monument which for historical interest to us Aryans cansurpass the tomb of the founder of the Persian Empire
,
w ho w as buried some 24 4 0 years ago .
The Palaces of P ersegolis .— Pasargadae i s s ituated in
the upper va ey of the Po lvar, and separating it from the
later capital is a lofty range which is traversed by a mostromant i c go rge down which speeds the same river ; thisopens out and again closes in
,and throughout the who le
forty miles separating the tw o cap itals there is a belt of
mountainous country . The plain of Mervdasht,in which
Persepolis i s situated , has always been fert ile , and ,as it
w as v isited by the Great King more especially in the
spring,it w as well chosen . There is more than one set
of ruins to be described , including the grandiose rock1 Ten Thousand M iles, etc., p . 328 .
192 HISTORY OF PERSIA
sculptures of the Sasanian dynasty , which will be dealtwith later in this wo rk . But none of the relics of a
mighty past compare with the great platfo rm termedTakht—i-Jamshid , or The Throne of Jamshid
,
”alluded
to in the well - known l ines in FitzGerald’
s Omar
Th ey say the Lion and the Lizard keepThe Courts w here Jamshyd gloried and drank deep .
I have already referred to the platfo rm at Pasargadae ,which is on a much smaller scale
,but appears to greater
advantage inasmuch as It Is no t, l ike the platform of
Persepol is when seen from a distance,dwarfed by its
surroundings ; for, whereas Pasargadae i s built amid low ,
rounded hills , Persepolis 18 set agai nst a mountain range .
The mighty platfo rm , which r i ses 4 0 feet above the
plain,fo rms three sides of a parallelogram . Its main
length is 1500 feet , against the 300 feet of Pasargadae ;i ts breadth IS 900 feet . The workmanship resembles thatof its forerunner at Pasargadae
,the immense limestone
blo cks,quarried close by , excit ing wonder . At the same
time,had i t no t been directly inspired by the stupendous
art ificial platforms of Assyria, i t seems improbable that
this eno rmous platform would ever have been made,
although in the preparat ion and uti lizat ion of the hillsidean advance on the Assyrian pro totype is effected . The
labour w as , of course, considerably less than in the greatearthworks of Assyria ; for in the case of Koyunj1k,
to
give a single example,it i s est imated that the platform
alone must have employed men for six years .1
The steps of the main double staircase,
althoughcut out of blocks large enough to form step after step
,
are so shallow that I rode my Sixteen-hand horse up themwith ease . Gain ing the platfo rm oppo site the head of the
stai rcase,I saw the wonderful po rch of Xerxes
,with its
massive portal flanked by winged bulls which are Assyrianin character and most impressive . Above them are tri
l ingual inscript ions, which state, among other things “ Iam Xerxes , the Great King , the King of Kings , the King
1 Rawl inson’
s Fiv e M ona rchies, i . p . 3 17 .
xv THE ANCIENT PERSIANS I 93
of many—tongued countries , the King of this Great Uni
verse, the son of Darius
,the King
,the Achaemenian .
Xerxes,the Great King saith By the grace of Ormuzd
I have made this portal,whereon are dep icted all the
countries .Passing the first pair of co lossi w e find tw o co lumns
out of the four which originally supported the centralhall st ill standing , and at the entrance facing the mountainis ano ther pai r of colossi , keeping ceaseless watch and
ward . Here,in spite of the destroyer , it is evident that
these colossi were human-faced,the i r great beards be ing
still clearly visible .
This splendid po rch evidently consti tuted the entry tothe great palace which w as the chief glory of Persepo l is
,
and which w as also built by Xerxes . Leading up to
s a second staircase,most richly sculptured . The
wall of the terrace , some 12 feet in height,is
pied by three rows of bas-reliefs . Those upon the
with chariots and horses , represent armed men, the
d of the Great King,advancing in triumph to the
d of music . Those upon the right , divided intoby sculptured cypresses , represent the manyd peoples of the empire bearing gifts and tributequarter . Ascending this splendid staircase
, w e
of Xerxes . To-day but a dozen of the
umns,which terminated in tw o demi-bulls
support ing the architrave,are standing but it i s easy to
reconstruct the great hall,which had a roof of cedar and
lofty porticoes,the who le superb building being approxi
mately a square of 150 feet . Whether it had walls isdoubtful
,and it seems more l ikely that , as in the case of
the palace at Susa, described in the book of Esther,
1there
were curtains in front,with walls perhaps at the sides and
This w as the style adopted in Persia down the
as witness the halls of audience described in thisand to-day the huge ta lar or archway , open to
ont but clo sed behind and at the sides,is the most
ble feature of Persian architecture .
er i . 6,Where were white
,green,
and blue hangings, fastened with cords
si lver rings and pi l lars of marble.
”
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
The palace of Darius,although smaller
,is still of
importance,and probably included only the living-rooms
of the monarch . But at the back of the platform is themagnificent Hall of a Hundred Columns
,the largest of
all the structures , whose roof w as sustained,as the name
impl ies,by one hundred columns
,with a great port i co on
the northern side . This portico w as guarded by co lossi,
and tw o great doorways led to the interior of the hall .The bas- reliefs are the finest on the platform
,and repre
sent the Great King seated on his throne supported by rowsof his subjects , while above hovers the god . Perhaps whatmakes this , the magnificent audience—chamber ofDarius , ofgreater interest than all the other buildings
,is that it ‘w as
in all probabil ity in this very hall that Alexander feasted .
We read how,in o rder to avenge the wrongs of Hellas
,
‘
he
burnt it to the ground 1and some confirmation of the
story may be found in the discovery of a thick layer of
cedar ash when excavat ions were made .
The R oeh Tombs .— The palaces of Persepolis pro- n
claimed the grandeur and power of the Great King but
the rock- tombs , situated farther west , which drew theirl
inspiration from Egypt,strike a mo re so lemn no te . From
a distance four cruciform cutt ings are sighted high up inthe face o f the perpendicular mountain ,
with a blackgaping aperture in each
,where the entrance stone has
been destroyed . Externally the tombs are identi cal andrepresent ,
the facade of a palace with four semi -detachedco lumns
,between which is the entrance . Above is an
entablature which sustains a throne consisting of tw o
stages,each supported by figures in the style of the Hall
of a Hundred Co lumns . The King stands ho lding a
bow in his left hand,while his right is raised in adorat ion
to the god Ahura Mazda, w ho hovers above . One of them
is proved by inscr iptions to have been the tomb of Darius ;and certainly these rock-sepulchres
,which maybe compared
with the i r prototypes in Egypt , are most impressive . The
actual manner of burial is shown in the illustrat ion .
Below the tombs are carved the Sasan ian rock-sctures
,which will be referred to in thei r proper place ,
1 Vide Chapter XXI I .
THE ANCIENT PERSIANS 195
opposite i s a building which is obviously a copy o f a
Lycian tomb . The list of ruins i s completed by tw o
undoubted fire—altars,situated side by side and hewn out
of the l iv ing ro ck . These speaking rel ics of a hoaryreligion are perhaps the o ldest of all.
At my first visit I found these ruins bewildering,
although I had carefully studied the detailed descript iongiven in Lord Curzon ’
s monumental work . It w as not
until,some years later, I w as able to spend tw o or three
days on the spot that I grasped the greatness of the
privilege I w as enj oying .
Enamellea’
Brick—w ork,eta — We now come to the
splendid brick-work excavated by Dieulafoy in the palaceof Artaxerxes Mnemon at Susa . D ieulafoy ’s most interesting discovery consisted of tw o superb friezes . The
Frieze of the Archers,which const itutes by far the finest
known specimen of enamelling in po lychrome on brick,
is some 5 feet in he ight , and represent s a pro cession of
warriors in relief and almost of l ife- size . The men are of
different complexions , varying from white to black ; and
their go ld-knobbed spears identify them as The Immortals,
w ho,in the eyes of the then civilized world
,represented
the glory,the magn ificence
,and the might of the Great
King . The Frieze of the Lions , also in many colours ,represents these beasts as advancing with open jaw to the
attack . I have seen both these friezes in Paris but,much
as I admired them, I felt that they must have appeared tost ill greater advantage when they decorated the facadeof an Achaemenian palace under a cloudless sky . I t isdoubtful whether these enamelled bricks can be consideredto belong to Persian art , or whether they should be at tri
buted to Babylon . But in the glypt ic art it is remarkableto note to what height artisti c execution w as carried inseals
,specimens of which are reproduced as head-pieces to
some of the chapters . This art is Persian and is st i llflourishing to-day, thanks in part to a cont inued use of
seals in Iran .
The Bronze Imglements of Khinaman.— Several years
ago , when I w as stat ioned at Kerman,one of my Persian
friends informed me that while trenching land he had
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
discovered a number of bronze weapons and implements,
and invited me to visit him .
1 The discovery w as made ina district termed Khinaman , to the west of Kerman
,which
w as totally unexplored , and included tw o bronze axe-heads,vessels
,p ins
,j avelins and spear-heads
,and tw o implements
the use of which remains a mystery. Great jars contain ingyellow dust were also found , and had been thrown awaybefore -my arrival tw o small jars were secured .
-The
most striking objects are the tw o axe-heads,which were
undoubtedly ceremonial , their shape proving that theywere not designed for warfare . The vessels included a
lamp and a l ittle vessel , which resembled that which the
Pers ian still carries for drinking purposes . CanonGreenwell wro te a paper 2 on this interest ing find , whichI read before the Brit ish Associat ion in 1906 . The collec
t ion,which I have presented to the British Museum , w as
also examined by Sir Hercules Read and other leadingarchaeologists, none of whom w as able to assign a defini tedate to the various obj ects , partly owing to the fact that ,inasmuch as they were the first to be discovered on the
Iranian plateau,it w as impossible to make any comparisons .
Since that date , however, a Bactrian bronze ceremonial axe'
of singular design has been obtained for the Brit ishMuseum . This axe is ent irely composed of the figures ofa bear
,a t iger
,and an ibex
,and Sir Hercules Read thinks
it highly probable that i t is a specimen of the art of Bactriaof about the time ofAlexander the Great .
3 Consequently,
although I do no t presume to date my co llection ,it seemed
desirable to refer to it in this chapter .x Sammary.
— In concluding this brief survey , in which Ihave . for the most part limited myself to describing theprincipal Achaemenian ruins , w hich I have visited morethan Once , I would sum up my impress ions still morebriefly . Persia borrowed , and borrowed freely, from the
great nat ions with which she w as brought into contact ,fiom Babylon,
from Assyria, from Egypt, and from Hellas,
1 Ten Thousand M iles, etc.,p . 4 4 1. The second axe-head w as secured tw o years
later.
2 Notes on a Collection, etc., publ ished by Royal Anthrop. Instit . Vide also Archaea
logia, vol. 58 , p. 1, for paper by Sir Hercu les Read.
3 M an,vol. x iv ., No. 2, February, 19 14 .
BRONZE AXE -HEADS , ETC FROM KHINAMAN .
EARLY DAR IC.
CHAPTER XVI
PERSIA AND H ELLAS DUR ING THE REIGN OF DAR IUS
They were the first of the Greeks w ho dared to look upon the M edian garb,and to face men clad in that fash ion . Unti l th is time the very name of the
M edes had been a terror to the Greeks to hear.— HERODOTUS, vi . 1 12 .
The I ssues at Stake — The invasion of Hellas by themyriads of the Persian Empi re and their ultimate repulseconstitute an event in the history of the world which is unsurpassed alike in importance and in dramatic grandeur .It w as
,indeed
, the first attempt of the o rganizedEast to conquer the less organized West , and in its laterphase not only did the Persian Empire invade Hellas
,
but through Persian influence Carthage made an equallydeadly assault on the Greek colon ies of Sicily . Fortunatelyfor the cause of mankind
,bo th invasions failed signal ly .
1
The Greek t jects of Persia — By the conquest of the
Greek cities and i slands of Asia Minor , and the laterannexat ion of Thrace and Macedonia, the Persians hadacquired contro l over at least one- third of the entire raceof the Greeks . These
,from their training and equipment
,
were a formidable military force,and they possessed a
navy equal to that of the Phoenicians . At the same time,
the intense love of l iberty and o ther qual it ies which gavethe Greeks the i r strength also made them extremelyd ifl'i cult to control ; and it i s certain that none o f the
1 I t must never be forgotten that our knowledge of the Pers ian campaigns againstH e l las is drawn ent irely from Greek sources. Herodotus , indeed, used Pers ian sources
to a l im ited extent but the point of view is invariably that of the Greek. The authori
t ies consu lted in this and the fo l lowing chapter are Macau’
s Herodotus, Grundy’s Great
Persian War,and Bury ’s History of Greece. These works const itute a notable advance
in our knowledge of the subj ect .
CHAP. XVI PERSIA AND HELLAS 199
early Persian monarchs understood their value or the bestmethods of dealing with a race which differed so pro
foundly from any o ther which had been subdued by the
might of Iran . Moreover,as the Greeks lived on the
extreme confines of the Persian Emp ire,i t i s not probable
that they attracted much attention .
The Intercourse hetw een Hellas ana’ri sia M inor.
Intercourse of every kind with Hellas,especially in such
matters as commerce , travel , and marriage , had no t beenaffected by the subst itut ion o f a len ient Persian Satrap fora Lydian monarch at Sardes . Refugees from Asia Minorstill found support in Hellas
,just as they had done in the
reign of Croesus , and deposed Greek rulers appealed to
the ir brethren in Asia Mino r or to the Persian Satrap .
This state ofaffai rs,foreshadowed in the message of Sparta
to Cyrus,grew more and more intolerable to a world
empire l ike Persia, t ill it culminated in the Ion i c RevOlt .
At the same time,the constant appeals from Hellas would
naturally tempt an ambitious Satrap to earn dist inct ion byaugmenting no t only the prest ige
,but the territories ,
the Great King . It seems probable that the SatrapsSardes
,i f not Darius himself
,had contemplated such an
expansion of the empire for some years .The Position in Greece.
— Before w e approach the eventswhich actually caused the invasion of Greece
,the posit ion
of affairs 1n Hellas itself demands our attent ion . Athens,which w as the object ive of the campaign and the key of
Hellas,had been in a state of disunion for many years .
Hippias, the tyrant of the family of Pisistratus , w ho had
been expelled in 510 B . C . by the Spartans, had takenrefuge at Sigeium in the Troad . There he sought the aid
of the Persian Satrap at Sardes and intrigued againstAthens in every po ssible manner .
After the downfall of the tyranny , Clei sthenes , a
member of the noble Alcmaeonid fami ly, reformed the
const itution of Athens on democrat ic l ines . This arousedthe resentment and antagon ism of the aristocrati c party ,which appealed to Sparta as the leading state of Hellas .Sparta responded by an invasion and Cle isthenes had to
yield to force . The Athenians , enraged , rose against the
ii
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
Spartans garrisoning Athens; w ho surrendered the irAthen ian allies and quitted Att ica. But they soon returnedwith a still greater force ofPeloponnesian allies
,and Athens
in despai r despatched ambassadors to the Satrap of Sardes,
w ho demanded earth and water in recognition of Persiansuzerainty . These terms the ambassadors accepted
,but ,
on their return in 508 B .C . , the Athenians repudiated the iract ion . Meanwhile Attica w as ravaged by the Peloponnesians unt il the coal it ion dissolved upon the withdrawalof Cor inth . In 506 B. c . the Athenians again sent am
bassadors to Sardes,begging that Artaphernes , the Satrap,
would cease from support ing Hippias . In reply theywere sternly summoned to recall Hippias
,and the ir refusal
to do this made an ultimate invasion almo st certain for the
permanent temptat ion towards expansion w as strengthenedby the fact that the Persians could now reasonably counton act ive assistance from the adherents of the Pisistrat idae .
Sp ies apparently were despatched at this period to reporton the fortifications
,harbours
,and armaments of Hellas .
The attempt on Naxo s which will be referred to presentlyformed part of a scheme for seizing various islands in the
Aegean to serve as naval stations in connexion with the
projected invasion .
The Ionic Revolt, 4 99
—
4 94 B. C .— There is no doubt that
the Ion i c Revolt w as the direct cause which set the
Persian forces in mot ion against Hellas . It w as startedthe personal ambitions of tw o Greek tyrants . The
more important figure w as H istiaeus of Miletus , who hadbeen in charge of the Danube bridge , and had beenrewarded by Darius with the gift of a city in Thrace .
Having aroused the suspicions of the Persian representative by fort ifying this town
,he w as summoned to Susa by
Darius , and there interned, although treated with honour .Miletus w as ruled by his son—in-law ,
Aristagoras . To himH ist iaeus despatched a slave
, w ho stated that his head w as
to be shaved In secret , and when this w as done a message
1“
linstigating a revolt against the Persians w as found tattooedlon his scalp . The communicat ion thus ingen iously con
Veyed arrived at an opportune moment . An attack whichAristagoras had induced the Persian Satrap to make on
HISTORY OF PERSIA cxxp .
Miletus,the leader of the revo lt and the foremost city in
the Hellenic wo rld, w as taken by the Persians , its males
were almost all killed,and its women and children were
transported to Ampe at the mouth of the Tigris . Thusthe revo lt w as broken s I ts immediate result w as to rivetthe Persian yoke still more firmly on the Ionian Greeksof Asia Mino r
,w ho had given a display of disunion
,of
incapacity, and of treachery which would justify Dariusand his advisers in the belief that the conquest of Hellas
present any extraordinary difficulty .
’
On the
the revolt allowed Athens time to construct afleet which w as dest ined to be the decisive factor
'
in the
great w ar and thus to save Hellas . Moreover, Thraceand Macedonia had benefited by the withdrawal of thePersians
,and had regained their l iberty .
The Camp a ign of M ardonius in Thrace, 4 93 B .0.
-Afterthe successful i ssue of the operations against the IonianGreeks ,Darius decided to reconquerThrace and Macedoniaand apparently to punish Athens and Eretria . Tw o
routes lay open to the Persian forces . The most directlay across the Aegean Sea
,which w as studded with islands
all the w ay to Athens , distant some tw o hundred miles'
from the ports of Asia Minor . It w as undoubtedly themost convenient route ; but , with the fleets of Hellasundefeated
,the risk of transport ing a huge force of men
,
horses,equipment , and stores by sea
,w as considerable .
The land route , on the other hand , w as already known .
Persians,then as now
,had no ap titude for the sea and
they were j ust ified in l considering the forces of the GreatKing invincible on land . For these reasons the land rou tew as selected . The first stage in the pro ceedings w as the
despatch to Thrace of Mardonius , the nephew of Darius,
w ho reasserted Persian authority and forced Alexanderof Macedon to renew the pledges made by his fatherAmyntas . Mardonius had intended to march into Hellas,but a great storm caused the loss of half of the fleet whichsupplied his army
,and no further advance w as possible .
In pursuance of the invariable po licy of Darius, w ho
allowed no general to remain in permanent command ,Mardonius w as recalled in 4 9 2 B .c . and the further
204 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHI P.
Att i ca about twenty-four miles to the no rth—east ofAthens .The suggest ion w as sound for it w as a good stat ion forthe fleet and w as also within reach of the Acropo lis
,where
Hippias hoped that his adherents would gain the upperhand . It possessed the further advantage that the groundw as not unsui table for cavalry . But at this moment of
supreme crisis no rising in favour of Hippias o ccurred ;and the Athenian force of n ine thousand men
,re inforced
before the battle by a thousand Plataeans , w as able to
mobilize without distract ion.
The Athen ian army marched to meet the invader, andan excellent posit ion w as taken up on broken groundacross the tracks leading into the interior
,pending expected
help from Sparta. This,however,
’
w as delayed on the
contempt ible excuse that the Spartan army must await thefull moon before taking the field . Never w as a situat ionmet with greater fo lly than this cris is by the Spartans ,whose one- sided system of training apparent ly deprivedthem of all sense of proport ion .
For several days the tw o armies faced one another, andw e learn from the pages of Herodo tus how
,in V iew of the
numeri cal superiority of the invaders,whose force w as
perhaps betw een forty and fifty thousand strong, a councilof w ar w as held by the Greeks to decide whether an attackshould be made . The ten generals were evenly div ided on
the subject . But Milt iades, w ho knew the Persians well,
persuaded the Po lemarch , orWar Lord , and his colleaguesthat the offensive w as all- important
,and he w as apparent ly
given the command in order to execute his ow n scheme .
His tactical d ispositions included tw o strong wings ,and to prevent outflanking by the superi o r numbers ofthe Persians his centre w as extended .
The attack w as made at the double,
1 down the valleyof the Vrana
,and as the distance separating the tw o hosts
w as just a mile,the interval must have been covered in
about eight or n ine minutes . Befo re the Persian host hadrecovered from its surprise
,not unmixed with contempt,
that a Greek force unsupported by cavalry Should attacka Persian army drawn up in battle array
,the Athenians
1 Grundy translates the word dphucp as qu ick-step.”
xvr PERSIA AND HELLAS 205
were among them . The fight w as not long drawn . The
Persians and Sakae in the centre at first mo re than heldthe i r ow n but the Athenians were victorious on both wingsand wheeled inwards on the centre . They infl i cted heavylosses , est imated at six thousand
,on the army of the Great
King,whereas on their s ide but tw o hundred fe ll . When
the Persians fled , the Greeks pursued them to thei r Ships .AS Byron writes
The flying M ede, hi s shaftless broken bowThe fiery Greek
,his red pursuing sp ear ;
M ountains above, Earth’s, Ocean’
s p lain be low,
Deat h in the fron t,Destruct ion in the rear 1
Such w as the scene .
The Persian cavalry and part of the o ther troopsappear to have been already on board
,if not on their w ay
to Phaleron ,and the fleet made off with a loss of but seven
galleys . Dat is, w ho w as possibly caught when preparingto transfer his base to Phaleron ,
anchored that night offthe coast , and the watchful Athen ians sighted a shieldbeing used for Signalling to the enemy on MountPentel icus . In the mo rn ing the Persian armada sailedsouth and , doubling Cape Sunion, made for Phaleron but
to their chagrin, upon their arrival , they found the
victorious army draw n up in grim array— and they fearedto face it. After all, the losses of the Persians had barelyexceeded ten per cent , and , if they had been caught at a
disadvantage at Marathon ,as at least seems poss ible
, theirmoral should no t have been greatly affected but
, to the
eternal discredit of Persia, her general w as cowed and set
sail for Asia Mino r .Perhaps no battle in the world has had a moral
importance so great as that of Marathon , even if therehas been exaggerat ion in the versions handed down to us .Unt il then the might of Persia had been irresist ible
,and
Greek troops had invariably in the last resort suffereddefeat . Let us then pay due homage to the hero ismwhich animated the Athen ians , w ho , basely deserted bySparta
,might well have abandoned their homes and
retreated into the interior before a force estimated at four
206 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
orfive times the ir number . Even now,after a lapse ofmore
than tw o thousand years , it is impossible not to be deeplymoved when reading in the pages of Herodotus howthe heroes charged down on the hitherto invincible foe .
The intensity of their exultat ion can scarcely have beenmatched in the annals of warfare as desperation gave w ayto triumph , and they realized that, alone and unsupportedexcept by Plataea, they had battled dow n
'
the Great King ’swarriors in fair fight, and made them afraid
, although st illvast ly superior in numbers
,to face again the Athen ian
hopl ites . Such w as the superb achievement of Marathon,
as w e clearly see , looking back across the centuries . But
to Darius it would seem nothing more than a regrettablecheck which need have no effect upon his policy .
The R ehellion in Egyp t, 4 86 B . C .— Po ssibly one of the
first fruits of the defeat at Marathon w as a rebellion inf
Under Darius this ancient kingdom had
flourished , and its trade had increased enormously sincethe whole Persian Empire w as open to it . Moreover
,
Darius completed or reopened the canal connecting the
Nile with the Gulf of Suez and he also encouraged tradewith the interio r of Africa. But heavy w ar- taxes were
impo sed,at a moment when Persian prestige had
suffered severely ; and in 4 86 B.C . , a serious rebellionbroke out under a certain Khabbisha
, w ho claimed to
belong to the family of Psammetichus , and w as pro claimedking
The Death of Darius, 4 85 B . C .— Darius
,w ho w as great'
to the end,prepared to del iver a st i ll more serious attack
on Hellas , and at the same t ime to quell the rebell ion inEgypt. H ad he l ived five years longer, it would have
agone hard with Greece : but in 4 85 B . C . ,In the thirty
sixth year of his reign , the Great King died .
5 His Character.—Happy indeed w as Persia to have
been blessed with tw o great kings in successive generations Cyrus the Great w as the conqueror and founder ofthe Persian Emp ire . Darius
, equally deserving the t itlenstantly against desperate odds , but ,
His
PERSIA AND HELLAS 207
umane and even his bitter enemIes,the Greeks
,wro te
f him with the utmost respect . The Persian grandees,
hose extortions he limited and checked,sneeringly
termed him the “ huckster but this epithet w as in
in reality high prai se . Indeed,but for his organizing
genius,superadded to signal capacity for w ar
,the emp ire
would not have lasted , as i t did , through generat ion aftergenerat ion ,
unt il Alexander the Great defeated the cravenDarius w ho then occup ied the throne of his mighty forbear .The number of great kings w ho have ruled over Persiai s no t small but , due weight being given to the condit ionsof the time
,Darius is among the greatest of them all ;
indeed,he ranks very high among the greatest Aryans of
history .
COMBAT OF GREEKS WITH PE RSIANS.(From the Temp le ofAthenae— Nike Frieze . )
CHAPTER XVII
REPULSE OF P ERS IA BY H ELLA S
A King sate on the rocky browWhich looks o ’
er sea-born SalamisAnd sh ips
,by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations— all were hisHe counted them at break of dayAnd
,when the sun set, where were they
BYRON.
The Accession of Xerxes, 4 85B.C .— According to PersIan
custom,Darius had many wives . Among them w as the
daughter of Gobryas , one of his fellow—conspirators in theattack on the false Gaumata . By her he had three children
,
the eldest of whom,Artabazanes
,had long been regarded
as heir to the throne . But Atossa,daughter o f Cyrus
,
ranked supreme , and her influence on the old king w as sostrong that j ust before his death he nominated as hissuccessor her son Khshayarsha, better known by his Greekname Xerxes , and he ascended the throne without opposit ion . The new monarch , the Ahasuerus of the book of
Esther, w as famous for his radiant beauty and superb
physique , but he w as indolent , weak, and easily swayed byhis advisers . Vo luptuous and fond of luxury, he had no
desire for glory,and to these defects in his character
Greece , in all probability,owed her salvat ion . From the
first he w as incl ined to treat the fai lure in Hellas as of noimportance ; but M ardonius insisted that the prestige of
Persia would suffer, and remonstrated with such effect that
2 10 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
bow ,and sword ; the Ciss ians and the Hyrcanians are
ment ioned next,as being armed like the Persians ; the
Assyrians with bronze helmets fo llow ; the Bactrians,
Arians,Parthians
,and ne ighbouring tribes with javelins
and spears the Sakae , no ted warriors with curious po intedcaps and battle-axes the Indians with the ir co tton coatsthe Ethiopians of Africa with painted bodies , and armedwith long bows and stone- t ipped arrows the Ethiop iansof Asia— probably the
'
aborigines of Southern Persia and
Makran— with extraordinary helmets made of horses’
heads ; and o thers,down to the remo te islanders of the
Persian Gulf. Over each levy w as set a Persian,and the
army w as divided roughly into divisions,regiments
,com
panics,
and sections . The supreme command of the
infantry w as vested 1n M ardonius , but the“ Immortals”
had a separate commander .The mounted troops
,including in this category the
tribes which fought from chariots,consisted mainly of
Persians and Medes,and included some 8000 Sagartians
from Northern Persia,armed with lasso s . There were
also Ciss ians and Indians , the latter with chariots drawn bywild asses , which could hardly have been of much militaryvalue Bactrians
,Caspians , and Libyans w ho fought from
chariots and there w as besides a force of Arabs mountedon dromedaries .The twelve hundred and seven warships , with crews
averaging 200 men,were supplied by the Phoeni cians
,
Egypt ians,and subject Greeks , and each vessel carried a
few Persians o r Sakae,w ho acted as marines and supportedthe Persian commanders . There were 3000 transports .Herodotus gives the composit ion of the grand army
as fo llows
(a) Infantry(h) Mounted troops
(c) Sailors and marines
Re inforcements in Europe and servants bring up the
figures to over five millions, a total which it is impOss
xvn REPULSE OF PERSIA BY HELLAS 2 1 1
to accept. In V iew of the rel iance the Persians placed on
numbers and the size of the emp ire , w e are perhaps just ifiedin assuming that the land and sea forces combined , inclusiveof followers, aggregated perhaps tw o mill ions . In anycase, no invas ion on such a scale had ever before beenattempted , and its immensity const ituted the highest com
pliment to the valour of Hellas . But in its very numberslay its weakness for such an army could no t be used forany lengthy turning movement , owing to the ever—presentdifli culty of supplies
,nor could it be separated from the
fleet for more than a few days at a t ime .
The M ilitary P osi tion in Greece — As in the case of
the former invasion,Athens w as the object ive
,and upon
Athens the brunt of the attack w as intended to fall . On
the other hand,the Persians
,unless opposed at sea
,could
with the utmost ease turn the flank of the defence of the
Co rinthian Isthmus or anyo ther l ine consequent ly, in thelast resort
,Sparta’s fate w as wrapped up in that of Athens ,
although this w as not generally grasped by the obtuseSpartans and their confederates , w ho were committed to
the defence of the Isthmus . Through the exertions o fThemistocles , the Athenians during the last decade haddeveloped their sea—power to a remarkable degree
,no t
only by building triremes,but also by the creat ion of the
fort ified base of the Piraeus . They were thus able, whenthe invaders came
,to remove the populat ion to the
neighbouring islands,and in the last resort they could
have sailed away to found a new Attica in Italy, as indeedThemistocles at one time threatened to do .
An attempt had been made to heal all internal feudsand to form a grand league of the entire Hellenic worldagainst the invader . In the first place
,Argos w as
approached,but the nego tiations failed owing to the claim
of the Argives that the ir state should be placed on an
equal foo ting with Sparta so far as the command w as
concerned . Argos,however , did not declare openly in
favour of Persia,
although her att itude caused graveanxiety . Gelon
,tyrant of Syracuse , w as also approached ,
but i t appears that , owing to an impending invasion of
Sicily by the Carthaginians,he w as unable to gi ve any aid .
HISTORY OF PERSIA cxxp .
Finally , ne ither Crete nor Co rfu rendered any assistanceto the common cause .
The M arch of the Great Army.—The departure from
Sardes of the great army, as described by Herodo tus,must
have been a wonderful sight . Intervals were maintainedonly by the picked troops the rest were armed mobs andmarched in no set order . But the mere fact that such a
fo rce could be successfully moved and fed proves that thePersian Empire w as highly organized . Its power
,too
,in
o ther direct ions w as great for no t only were tw o solidbridges of vessels constructed across the Hellespont
,but
the Strymon w as bridged and a canal w as cut through thepromonto ry of Athos - no slight engineering task at sucha distance from the heart of the emp ire . In addit ion
,vast
supply depo ts were formed at the various stages, and the
only vital point on which there w as o ccasional fai lure w as
the supply of water for such a host .The crossing of the Hellespont w as a great feat . The
tw o bridges of boats , across which a solid causeway w as
made,were constructed with cables of except ional strength
,
and the passage w as made under the eye of the Great King,
w ho sat in state upon a marble throne erected on a hillnear Abydos . At sunrise
,Xerxes poured a l ibat ion into
the sea from a golden cup and prayed that he mightconquer Europe . The golden cup
,a go lden bowl
,and a
Persian sword were thrown into the sea,and the Immor
tals,
”wearing garlands ou the ir heads,led the w ay across
the bridge, which w as strewn with myrtle branches . The
eno rmous host crossed into Europe, contingent by cont ingent
,under the ever-present lash , and In the plain of
Doriscus the army w as numbered . From Doriscus it
marched to Acanthus , where it broke up temporarily intothree divisions
,to unite again at Therma.
In reply to an appeal from Thessaly for help to defendthe passage of Mount Olympus
,the Greeks had in the first
place despatched a fo rce of ten thousand men to Tempebut according to Herodo tus they found that the posit ioncould be outflanked , and they consequently retreated ,leaving the Thessalians to make thei r ow n terms withXerxes
,which they promptly did . The Persian army
HISTORY OF PERSIA cxx p .
apparently in the expectation that his fleet would force thepassage of the Euripus , finally ordered the Medes and
Cissians,and then the “ Immortals
,
”to attack . Their
short spears and indifferent armour,in spite of their
courage,made no impression on the heavily armoured
Greeks,w ho slaughtered them by hundreds . The follow
ing day the combat w as resumed , with the same result , andXerxes w as in despair . The situat ion w as saved for the
Persians by a track acro ss the mountains , which w as
revealed by a traitor to Hel las . The “ Immortals weresent along it , and the Phocian cont ingent which had beenstat ioned to guard it betrayed the ir trust
,offering no re
sistance and re treat ing off the track . Warn ing w as givenof this disaster, and all the contingents ret ired 1 except theSpartans
, w ho numbered three hundred, the Thespians , and
the Thebans,the last named , according to Herodo tus
,
be ing detained by force . Then the band of heroes,no t
wait ing to be surrounded , advanced on the Persians and
fought,against hopeless odds, that fight to the death
which has earned them deathless fame .
The Naval Engagements of Artemisium — Meanwhileat sea much had been happening . The Persian fleetwaited at Therma for twelve days after the departure of
the army,as there w as no harbour between this port and
the Pagasaian Gulf. The fleet then advanced,preceded
by ten fast- sailing vessel s which came upon three Greekships engaged in reconno itring dut ies off the mouth of
the River Peneius . Tw o of these were destroyed . The
Squadrons of the invaders arrived on the Magnesian coastin safety
,but owing to its numbers the armada had to lie
in e ight lines parallel to the coast,and while it w as at
ancho r in this dangerous pos it ion a sudden storm aroseand wrecked four hundred Ships . After the storm had
subsided,the battered Persian fleet moved across to
Aphetae , situated on the mainland opposite Artemisium .
The Persians,w ho were by no means lacking in
1 Grundy suggests that Leon idas detached a strong force to deal with the Immor
tals and faced the main Pers ian army w ith the reduced force Th is theory has muchto recommend it
,and wou ld exp lain the presence of the Thesp Ians and Boeot ians . As
,however,Leon idas abandoned the defensive for the offensive, which he wou ld surely not
have done had his p lans been those suggested by Grundy, I prefer to keep to the old
story and think that the personal ity of Leon idas fi red the Thesp ians to share his fate .
xvu REPULSE OF PERSIA BY HELLAS 2 15
initiat ive , and w ho never dreamed of defeat,detached tw o
hundred ships to sai l round Euboea with a view to scalingup the straits that separated that island from the mainland
,
hoping thereby to capture the who le of the Greek fleet .
This move having been reported , the Greeks , under thecommand of the Spartan Admiral Eurybiades , attackedthe main fleet and captured thirty vessels the battle w as
,
however , indecisive . On the following n igh t, the elements
again warred in the ir favour and ann ihilated the Persiansquadron which had been sent round Euboea . Thiswelcome intelligence w as brought by a strong re inforcement of fifty
-three Athenian ships,which had probably
been guarding the strait at Chalcis . In the final encounterthe Persians , w ho were presumably receiving repeatedo rders from Xerxes to break through the Greek fleet and
regain touch with the army , engaged the enemy all alongthe l ine
,and a desperate struggle ensued . The battle w as
go ing against the Greeks , half of whose Ships weredamaged , when news came of the forcing of Thermopylae .
This disaster changed the situat ion and at n ight an o rderto ret ire w as given . H ad the Persian fleet pursued inforce, many of the damaged Greek ships would have beencaptured ; but the Persians were igno rant ,
of the ret irement , although they should surely have anti cipated it
,and
the Greeks sai led leisurely along the coast of Euboea,the
Athenians act ing as rearguard .
The Adv ance of the Persian Army and the Cap ture ofAthens.
— So far the campaign had gone well for the
Persians . The most formidable pass had been forced,the
Greek fleet,after tw o engagements
,had retreated , and
Central Hellas lay open and unpro tected before the
invaders . Xerxes marched into Phocis, which w as
devastated , and then the great ho st turned towards Att ica.
The Athenians , w ho had hoped for success at Thermopylae ,had not vacated Athens but this operation w as now
hurriedly effected,the women and chi ldren be ing sent to
Tro izen,Aegina
,and Salamis . A few misguided indi
v iduals,relying on an ambiguous Delphic oracle that
Athens should trust to its wooden w alls,held theAcropoli s ;
but after a desperate defence they were ov ercome and
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
massacred . Athens w as at last in the hands of the invaders ,and in revenge for the destruct ion of Sardes its shrineswere burnt . The Great King
,having carried through
with success the devastation of Att ica and the captureof Athens
,no doubt felt that the who le campaign would
soon be crowned with victory but he reckoned from falsepremises .
The Battle of Salamis, 4 80 B .C .
— The Greek fleet ,upon the urgent representat ions of Themisto cles , whoseabil i ty to persuade the Spartans by arguments that wouldappeal to them w as remarkable
, after leaving Artemisiummade for Salamis , on the plea of allowing the Atheniansto save thei r famil ies . At this island it received its lastre inforcements , which brought the numerical strength of
the fleet , on which depended the salvation of Hellas, upto about four hundred vessels the number of the enemy’sships w as considerably greater .
The capture of Athens and the advance of the Persianfleet to Phaleron caused such a panic that the Peloponnesiancontingents urgently insisted on a retreat of the fleet to theI sthmus Of Co rinth
,regardless Of the fate of the Athenians ,
whose families would have been thereby exposed to capture .
The argument w as that , i f defeated at Salamis , they couldno t hope to escape the Persians
,whereas at the Isthmus they
would be protected by the un ited forces of Hellas . So
general w as this feel ing that Themistocles w as in despairbut at the council of w ar, held under the presidency of
Eurybiades , his personal ity again triumphed,
and he
secured an unwill ing adhesion to his views by po int ingout that the only hope for Hellas w as to fight in narrowwaters , and that off Corinth the numerical superiorityof the Persian fleet would unquest ionably tell . The
Corinthian admiral tried to force a quarrel on Themistoclesby declaring that
,s ince the Athenians had lost the ir
country,they were no longer in the po sition to give an
Opin ion . This attack w as skilfully parried by a tell ingthreat that , if the Athenians sai led off to found a new
At t ica 1n Italy,they would be missed at thisjuncture.
Mat ters were in this state and the defect ion of one or
more cont ingents seemed probable when Themistocles
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
than a help in the narrow fai rways , and , although theygained ground on the i r left wing , their right wing w as
finally defeated by the valour and skill of the Atheniansand Aeginetans
,to whom , by common consent , the
honours of the day belonged . At last the Persians gavew ay all along the line and retreated to Phaleron with a
loss of tw o hundred ships , not count ing those which werecaptured with the ir crews ; the Greeks lost forty ships .There w as no pursuit by the victors .
Thus ended the great naval battle,which is one Of the
decisive bat tles of the world ; for I ho ld , with Grundy,that its claims to be so classed exceed those of Marathon ,
admitted by the historian Creasy .
The account of the battle given by Aeschylus,w ho
fought in one o f the ships , deserves to be quo ted
At first the Persian navy’s torren t-floodWi t h stood t h em but w hen our vast flee t w as crampedI n strai t space— fri end could lend no aid to friend
,
Th en ours by fangs of al lies’ beaks of bronzeWere struck, and shattered all t h eir oar-arrayWh i le w i th shrew d strategy the Hel l ene sh ip sSw ep t round
,and rammed us
,and up turned w ere hul ls
Of sh ips — no more could one discern the sea,
Clogged all w i th w recks and l imb s of s laugh tered men
The shores,the rock-reefs
,w ere w i t h corpses strew n
,
Then row ed each bark in fl eeing disarray ,Yea
,every keel of our barbarian host .
They w i th oar-fragments and w it h shards of w recksSmo te
,h acked, as men smi te tunn ies, or a draught
Of fishes and a moaning, all confused
Wi th shrieking, hovered w ide o’
er t hat sea-brineTi l l n ight
’
s dark presence b lo tted out the horror.
1
The Greeks , w ho under-estimated the i r victory,had
spent the n ight on the beach of Salamis,prepared to
renew the struggle in the mo rning but when day dawnedthe Persian fleet w as nowhere in s ight
,and Hellas w as
saved .
The Retreat of Xerxes .— Towards the end of the battle ,
Xerxes had hast ily summoned a council of w ar and,
heedless of Persian honour and prestige,had readily
allowed himself to be persuaded by M ardonius to return1 The Persae
, trans lated by A. S. Way. A Pers ian is represen ted as speak ing.
xvu REPULSE OF PERSIA BY HELLAS 2 19
to Sardes and to leave Mardonius with troopsto complete the subj ugat ion of Greece . The unworthymonarch withdrew unmo lested from At tica
,as the Spartans
took advantage of an eclipse of the sun,which occurred
on 2nd October 4 80 B . C .
,as an excuse for no t quitting
their po sit ion at the Isthmus .After halting in Thessaly
,Xerxes cont inued the re
treat,lo sing thousands of men on the road from hunger
and disease . Finding the bridge at the Hellespontdestroyed by a storm
,he w as glad to escape in a ship
to the safe Shores of Asia, where it is stated that thousandsmore of his famished so ldiers died from surfe it . The
Greeks pursued the Persian fleet, but in vain . Uponreaching Andros they held a council of w ar
,at which
Themisto cles urged that they should sail north and destroythe Hellespont bridge . Eurybiades, however, as mighthave been expected
,strongly obj ected
,and on the defeat
of his proposal the crafty Athenian made capital out of
it and sent his servant to Xerxes with the info rmat ion .
It w as actions like these which tarnished the lustre of the
great Athenian’s glory.
The Carthaginian Invasion of Sicily, 4 80 B .C .— Ano ther
act in the great drama w as played in Sicily . The Car
thaginians, probably inst igated by Persian diplomacy ,organized a powerful force to attack Hellas
,in Sicily, and
after losing its cavalry and chariots in a storm the expedit ion reached Panormus . From this port Hamilcar theleader marched along the sea- coast to his obj ective
,Himera,
which he besieged . Gelon , tyrant of Syracuse,promptly
came to the rescue of Theron of Himera with a force of
infantry and 5000 cavalry . The decisive batt lew as prefaced by the destruct ion of the Carthaginian sea
camp and the death of Hamilcar . This operat ion w as
carried out by Syracusan cavalry,w ho were admitted under
the mistaken bel ief that they were all ies . Gelon thenattacked the panic - stricken Carthaginians, w ho offeredlittle resistance and were cut down or captured almost toa man . The battle of Himera thus resulted in anotherdecisive victory for Hellas .
The Campa ign of M ardonius .— The curtain w as now
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
raised on the third and final act of the long, hero ic strugglebetween the numbers of Asia and the highly disciplinedand patrio ti c valour of the Greeks . While halting inThessaly , Xerxes had entrusted to Mardonius the pickedtroops through whose instrumental ity the gallant Persianhoped to add Hellas to the long list of the provinces ofthe Great King . H e w as at last freed from the encum
brance of the undiscipl ined cont ingents , and ,more importantst i ll
,from the presence of the monarch and his court iers
,
whose large ret inues,while no t adding materially to the
fighting line , had to be fed before the warriors rece ivedtheir rations . Moreover
,no thing is more true in w ar
than that disaster almost certainly attends military operat ions when the ir conduct is interfered with by a court .
Before making any movement , M ardonius,whose ex
perience of the Greeks w as now considerable, no t onlyconsulted various o racles
,but opened nego t iations with the
Athenians through KingAlexander of Macedon,offering
them the honoured pos i t ion of allies of the Great King .
The Spartans,hearing of this , despatched a special embassy
to Athens , and although in the past the leading land powerhad played but a sorry role, the solemn oaths of the
ambassado rs were accepted by the sorely tried Athenians ,w ho nobly refused the tempting offer
,in the following
terms : “ 80 long as the sun runs his course in the
heavens , w e will never make terms with Xerxes .” M ar
donius , upon realizing that he could no t detach the
Athenians , marched south from Thessaly and reoccup iedAthens ten months after its first capture and once againthe Athenians
,unsupported by thei r allies
,transported
their families to Salamis , w here,this t ime , they were
absolutely safe . At this po int M ardonius again Openednegot iat ions bo th with the Argives and with the Athenians ,but without result . The Spartans , in face of these facts
,
cont inued to fort ify the Isthmus before the necessity foraction dawned on the ir dull minds . They had
,indeed ,
strained the loyalty of the Athen ians very nearly to breakingpo int . At last
,possibly owing to the death of Cleombrotus
and the accession of Pausanias to the command , an act ivepo l i cy w as adopted , and the army of the Peloponnesus ,
HISTORY OF PERSIA am p .
t ion from Herodotus indicates that the posit ion of affairsw as most favourable to the Persians . The Greek leaders
,
abandoning the offensive,decided to effect a night retreat
to a better po sit ion near Plataea. This,the most diffi cult
of all the operations of w ar,nearly proved disastrous for
one of the Spartan generals refused to retire for severalhours
,and the centre, composed of small cont ingents
,lost
touch with the wings . Consequently , daybreak foundthe main bodies of Spartan and Athen ian troops out ofeffectual supporting distance of one ano ther
,the former
be ing much nearer the foe ; while the o ther all ies'
werenowhere to be seen .
,
M ardonius must have. believed the battle already w on
for he had about Persians and someGreeks , to attack at mo st Greeks
,w ho were
split up into at least three divisions , none _of which w as
able to support the other . Eager to close,he launched
the cavalry , and fo llowed with the “ Immo rtals to attackthe Spartans
,Who
,finding the omens unfavourable
,at first
supported passively the showers of arrows . At last theomens changed , and they fiercely charged the i r: lightlyarmed enemy
,with whom at last they came to close
quarters . The Persians exhibited splendid courage, butthe ir lack of armour made all their efforts fruitless . The
battle w as finally(decided by the death of t he gallant
Mardonius,killed at
‘
ffi e head of the “ Immortals,”w ho
fell in thousands around his corpse . The loss of the
commander,as so Often happens with Asiatic armies , pro
duced a panic and the Persians fled in confusion back totheir entrenched camp . Meanwhile the Athenians , w howere marching to the help of the Spartans , were attackedby the formidable Helleni c cont ingent of M ardonius
,
which,however, with the except ion of the Boeot ians , dis
played little zeal in thei r assault . Upon its retreat , theAthen ians led the w ay in the successful assault on the
sto ckade,for they were regarded as the engineers of
Hellas,and the Spartans were awaiting thei r arrival .
In the Persian camp the slaughter w as prodigious .The unnerved Asiati cs offered little resistance
,and Hero
dotus relates that only 3000 Persians escaped . He states,
FALLEN PERS IAN STANDARD-BEARER.
(Louvre Cup from Pow er Douris . )
224. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
capture of Sestos ended the great PersianWar,and is thus
the final act of the stupendous drama.
The Final Results.— These t itani c campaigns
,in which
the leading Aryan nat ion in Asia attacked its distant kinsmen in Europe , merit some retro spect, and the first question to be asked is w hy the Greeks w on . Apart fromthe ir wonderful moral, they had the advantage of fight ingon rugged ground with which they were familiar
,and
which suited the i r training and constitution,whereas the
Persians were accustomed to the vast open plains of Asia,
where infantry unsupported by cavalry is hopelesslyinferior to a mobile mounted force . In addition to this ,there w as the difference in armament . The Greeks weretrained to carry heavy armour with relat ive ease
,and also
to wield heavier weapons than the i r adversaries,w ho
trusted to quant ity rather than quality . Finally,although
the o rganization of the Persian army w as i n itself remarkably effi cient
,the remo teness of Hellas from the Persian
base stood her in good stead . I t IS poss ible to exaggeratethe impo rtance of the military results of these campaigns
,
inasmuch as,even if Xerxes had conquered Hellas
,such a
distant province could not have been held effect ively forvery long . As Grundy well puts it
,
“ I t w as the w ar
i tself rather than its issue which proved the salvat ion of
Greece .
”In o ther words , the bitter host il ity aroused by
the invasion saved the civil izat ion of Hellas from be ingoriental ized .
Many writers have assumed that the Persian Emp irew as doomed because of its repulse by the Greeks and
there Is no doubt that the miserable survivors of the GreatArmy carried the tale of defeat to every corner of the
empire . Ye t w e see Persia play the leading rOle on the
world’s stage for ano ther century and a half,and this
proves that her race w as by no means run . IndeedGreece
,split up into small and generally rival states
,w as
no t,even after Marathon , Salamis , and Plataea, an equal
opponent of the Lo rd of Asia ; and it w as no t unti l therise of Macedonia and its paramountcy that Hellas
,repre
sented by a great genius for w ar, perhaps the greatest of
all t ime, w as strong enough to throw down the gauntlet
xv 11 REPULSE OF PERSIA BY HELLAS 225
of the challenger with success . Until then it w as only thefringe of Asia Minor that w as operated against by the
Greeks,and the populat ions of the interior continued to
obey the Satrap Of Sardes .But, i f writers on Greek history have exaggerated the
force and weigh t of the blows infl icted on Persia in the
repulse of the Great King , it is almo st impossible to
the importance of the victories to Hellas andcivilization . Persia
,after the defeat of Croesus
,
annexed with conspi cuous ease the Greek co lon ies oncoast of Asia Mino r and the adj acent islands
,and
ius after the ScythianWar had de tached a force whichextended Persian suzerainty to the borders ofNorthern
when the great expedit ion w as launched,
Central Hellas submitted,and prac
t ically o nly hero i c At tica and the Peloponnesus (where ,however
,Argo s w as in favour of the Persians) w ere left
and the enemy ravaged even Att ica at will,and twice
destroyed Athens . The victories of the Greeks at oncefreed the who le Of Hellas and almo st all her colonies inEurope and Asia Minor ; the i slands simultaneously re~
gained the ir l iberty,and many Of the cit ies on the main
land also . Indeed,thanks to the feebleness of character
displayed by Xerxes,w ho
,during the remainder of his
inglorious reign,refused to face the Greek problem ,
Hellas ceased to act on the defensive and w as able to
assume the ofiensive . This rOle she maintained unt ilAlexander burned the capital of Iran and became Lo rd of
Asia. But there i s the wider aspect of the case, the worldaspect ; and
,from this po int of view, Marathon , Salamis,
and Plataea were victories not only for Greece but formankind . It w as the triumph o f the higher ideal , and
even to-dayw e canno t est imate fully what w e ow e to thoseintrepid heroes
,w ho wrought and fought as few have done
abefore o r since .
VOL . I
ACHAEMENIAN EAGLE .
(From Gold Meda llion, British Museum.)
'
CHAPTE R XVI I I
TH E PERS IAN EMP I RE A FTER THE REPULSE FROM H ELLAS
Th is 18 Ahasuerus wh ich reigned, from Ind ia even unto Eth iopia,over an
hundred and seven and twenty provinces .-Esther
Xerxes after the Retreat from Hellas.—Herodo tus is
our so le trustworthy authori ty for this period,and after
the conclusion of his great work with the capture of
uSestos the history of Persia becomes for a t ime somewhatObscure ; for, although in the pages of Thucydides important events connected with Persia are referred to
,no
detai ls are given . Xerxes spent more than a year at Sardesafter his ignoble retreat
,and apparently there were plans
,
which came to nothing , of leading a new expedition to
overcome the Greeks . Meanwhile the l icentious monarchbecame passionately enamoured o f the wife of his brotM asistes ; but , meeting with a rebuff, be transferredaffect ions to her daughter , and endeavou
his evil ends by marrying the latter toAmestris
,hi s royal consort , mad with
in gett ing her rival’s mother into her power,and infl i
upon her horrible mut ilati 'ons . Her fiendish actionMasistes to attempt a revolt in Bactria but he w as 0
226
HISTORY OF PERSIA cu s p .
according to one probable account , had as an accomplicethe chief eunuch , w ho , after the murder of his master
,
roused Artaxerxes,then a mere boy, accused his elder
bro ther Darius o f the crime , and extracted an order forthe execut ion of the latter, which w as instantly carriedout . Under such sin ister condit ions d id Artaxerxes Iknown to history by the epithet of Long hand
,
”1ascend
o/ the throne . For seven months Artabanus w as the realking
,and his name even appears in some chrono logies ;
but his triumph w as short- l ived . No t content with themurder of his master and of his master ’s son ,
he aimed atthe assassinat ion of the young King also . On this o ccas ion, however , he overreached himself and paid the penaltywith his ow n l ife
,the avenger being M egabyzus , w ho w as
dest ined to play a leading part during the long reign of
Artaxerxes .The Rehellion of Hystasp es , 4 62 B. C .
— Persia w as by no
means breaking up,in spite of these domestic convulsions
,
and when Hystaspes , an elder brother of the young King,rose in distant Bactria
,he w as attacked by the royal forces ,
wi th whom w as Artaxerxes himself,and defeated in tw o
,
battles about 4 62 B . C . These defeats evident ly ruined his'
cause for no thing more is heard of him .
The Revolt of Egyp t, 4 60—
4 54 B .C .— We have seen
that,after the last revo lt in Egypt
, the hereditary princeswere not deprived of thei r power ; and in consequence,when the province of Libya rose under Inarus , son ofyPsammet ichus
,he w as able to collect a considerable force .
The Delta declared for him,but the Nile valley, in which ,
the Persian garrison held all the important posit ions , didno t rise . So far as can be j udged , the revo lt would havebeen crushed by the regent Achaemenes
,but for the fact
that the Athenians came to the assistance of the Egyptians .At this period Athens w as at the zeni th of her greatness ,and a remarkable record st i ll exists in the shape of a
monument erected to the cit izens of one division of the
city, which bears 120 names of Athenian heroes, all of
whom fe ll in battle in 4 59 B . C . ( the year that the fleet1 Noldeke contends that the ep ithet expressed
.his great power : but it seems
reasonable to connect it with a physical peculiarity. Instances of such ep ithets are
common throughout history .
xvm AFTER REPULSE FROM HELLAS 229
went to Egypt), in Cyprus , Egypt , Phoenicia, H alieis ( inthe Argive Peninsula) and Aegina. Yet ano ther navalbattle
,that of Cecryphalea, w as fought in the same year .
Surely such a record has seldom been equalled in the
annals of any nat ion .
The fleet of 200 triremes now despatched to Egyptconst ituted a formidable force , capable of fight ing by landas well as by sea and the allies met the Persian army at
Papremis in the Delta,with the result that Achaemenes
w as slain and his army exterminated . At this juncture a
second division of the Athen ians fell in by chance withthe Phoen i cian fleet
,and the latter lost fifty ships sunk
and captured . The Athen ians, w ho were naturally elated
V
by these victories , attacked Memphis,which they speedily
took ; but the Persians held its fortress,known as the
White Wall,and defied the assailants, w ho were fo rced
to undertake a regular siege .
In the following year , 4 56 B.C . ,a Persian army
numbering men,supported by a fleet of 300
'
Phoeni cian Ships,appeared on the scene under the capable
leadership of Megabyzus . The allies rai sed the siege of
the White Wall and met the enemy but,as almost
invariably happened when they fought in the open,the
Egypt ian army suffered defeat,the pretender Inarus be ings
wounded and captured . The Greek cont ingent retreatedto the ne ighbouring island of Prosopitis and withstoodall assaults .for a year and a half after the beginning of
4 5 B. C .5The Persian army
,meanwhile, had laboured to divert
a branch of the Nile,and one day the fleet w as left high
and dry and w as burned by the desperate Greeks , most ofwhom perished in the subsequen t Persian assault . The
survivo rs,some six thousand strong, capitulated on honour
able terms and were taken to Susa pending rat ificat ion of
the agreement by the Great King . The Phoeni cians nowhad their revenge for former defeats by sinking half of a
y and qu i te inadequate re inforcement of fifty Greekwhich had entered one of the mouths of the
defeat of the Greeks brought the rebellion to an
230 HISTORY OF PERSIA
end ; but a guerilla warfare w as successfully maintainedby a band of patriots w ho took refuge in the marshes andthere proclaimed a reputed scion of the house of Amas is
,
by name Amyrtaeus , as their king . Looked at from the
military po int of view ,this campaign shows that even
large bodies of Greek troops were not necessarily able todefeat the armies of Persia
,and makes i t probable that
,
had Artaxerxes been a man of character,the Greek
co lon ies in Asia Mino r would again have become subjectto Persia
,and the independence of Hellas would have
been seriously menaced .
The Peace of Callias, circa 4 4 9 B .C .— The heavy blow
dealt to the power of Athens in Egypt , w as,indeed ,
followed up to a certain extent by the attempt of the
Persians to recapture Cyprus . The Athenians ro seroccas ion, and in 4 4 9 B . C .
,after concluding a five
peace with Sparta, despatched Cimon,Command
of the League , with a flee t of 200 triremesable leader died before any decisiclaimed . The fleet w as apparentlysupplies to raise the blockade of Ci t ium in Cwhen passing Salamis in the same island , it fellPhoenician fleet
,three hundred strong
,which
disembarking troops . AS on tw o previous occasio
the Greeks no t only defeated the fleet,capturing 1
triremes and sinking o thers,but completed the ir succ
by a victory gained against the'
forces on land .
The A thenians promp tly took advantage Of t
brilliant achievement to come to terms with the GKing . Callias
,a leading statesman
,proceeded to
agreement w as effected,by the terms of w
xes recogn ized the independence of all the Grwere members of the League of Delo s
,and at the
same t ime agreed that no warships but only merchantmen should enter Helleni c waters . The Greeks , on thei rpart
,renounced all ideas of free ing the remain ing Greeks
from the Persian yoke , and,hardest of all
,they gave
up their claims to Cyprus .1 But they showed extreme1 Holm (11. p. 176) den ies that there w as such a treaty and advances various
reasons . I t would appear possible that there w as no formal treaty, but that the GreatKing sea led an order embody ing these terms and thereby saved his face.
xvm AFTER REPULSE FROM HELLAS 23 1
prudence 1n rat ifying the treaty for they ran the greatestrisk of exhaust ing Att ica’s scanty population, on whichheavy calls were constantly be ing made to maintain the
power of Athens at home . Moreover,Cyprus w as too
far from Attica and too near Phoenicia for a continuanceof the struggle to be profitable . Thanks to this peace
,
Athens suffered no apprehension of attack from Persiauntil the fear Of that empire as an aggressive power hadent irely passed away .
Sp a in and England comp a red w ith P ersia and Athens
If w e look down the ages and subst itute Spain for Persia,
which in some respects it closely resembles from the
physical po int of view,and England for Athens
, w e see
a powerful emp ire,which included many rich countries
of Europe and drained the wealth of the New World ,assailing a country which w as relat ively as poor as Athens
,
though numerically stronger . As in the earl ier case , theoverw helming might of the great empire w as repulsedat sea by the daunt less valour and seamanship of our
ancestors,and although , as in the w ar with Persia
,after
the defeat of the Great Armada other battles were foughtwith varying success
,the defensive w as then exchanged
for the Offensive . Like the Athen ians after Salamis , theEnglish sailors after 158 8 were always ready to attackthe ir foemen even in the face of apparent ly hopeless odds .
TheRehellion ofM egahyzus .—The career ofM egabyzus
throws considerable light on the state of Persia under oneof its most incompetent monarchs. He had grantedhonourable terms o f cap itulat ion to the remnant of the
Greek fo rces In Egypt and had promised to spare the l ifeof Inarus . Amestris
,however , had to be reckoned with ,
and after five years ’ incessant importun ity on her part,
Inarus w as impaled to avenge Achaemenes, and somefifty Greeks were at the same t1me beheaded to sat isfythis fiendish woman . This w as a deadly offence in the
eyes ofM egabyzus , w ho revo lted and defeated successivelytw o arm i es that were sent against him . He w as thereupon pardoned and reappeared at Court . Having , however, been invited to take part in a l ion hunt
,he came
between the monarch and his quarry, and for this high
23 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
offence w as sentenced to death but the doom w as com
muted into banishment to the shores of the Persian Gulf.After spending five years in this deso late part of the
empire,he gave out that he w as suffering from leprosyl
and returned to Persia,no one taking the risk of stopping
him . Finally he w as again pardoned by the Great King,
and lived to a green Old age as his trusted adviser .A Per iod of Anarchy, 4 25 B.C .
— Artaxerxes,in spite
of his incompetency and the evil influence Of the QueenMother , reigned for many years without any seriousbreach of the peace . Indeed , during this period the
Athenians were fight ing against Sparta for their veryexistence as a state
,and this effectually prevented them
from attempt ing any distant adventure . When he diedin 4 25B . C . he w as succeeded by his son
,Xerxes I I . , w ho
w as quickly murdered when drunk by his bro ther Secudianus . This prince in turn w as attacked by Ochus , ano therson of Artaxerxes
, the husband Of Parysatis,daughter of
Xerxes . The Persian nobles flocked to his standard,and
Secud ianus,to whom a proposal w as made to rule in
common,w as treacherously se ized
,and suffered capital
pun ishment in the Persian mode by being thrown intothe ashes.
The R eign of Darius Nothus, 4 24—4 04 B . c .
- After theoverthrow of his bro ther
,Ochus ascended the throne under
the t it le of Darius As Parysat is and three eunuchswere his chief advisers
,it is not surprising that his re ign
w as a constant series of insurrections . The first of thesew as raised by his bro ther Arsites
,w ho w as jo ined by a son
of M egabyzus and with the co-operat ion of Greek mer
cenaries he w on tw o victories . The Greeks were thenco rrupted by the go ld of the Great King, which w as
destined thenceforward to be Persia’s most powerfulweapon . The rebels foo l ishly surrendered on promiseof good treatment, but oaths were no longer binding inPersia
,and they too l ike Secudianus were thrown i nto
the ashes . Yet another rebel , the Satrap of Lydia, w as
deserted by his Athenian mercenaries , w ho could no t
1 The ep ithet “ Nothus , s ignifying a bastard, w as bestowed in reference to the fact
that his mother w as a concubine.
23 4. HISTORY OF PERS IA CHAP . XVI I I
to plunge the ir swo rds into a sack in which the haplessAmestris w as to be fastened , in o rder that they mightrealize that there w as no possibil ity of go ing back . But
the plot fai led and Terituchmes w as killed . This revoltgave Parysat is full scope for her cruelty . First of all
Roxana w as cut in p ieces,and then all the relat ions of
the rebel,including his mo ther and sister, were buried
alive . Such w as the Persian Court under this degradedmonarch .
DOUBLE S I LVER S IGLos —COIN OF S IDON.
CHAPTER XIX
TH E DECLINE OF THE PERS IAN EMP IRE
A man, of all the Persians w ho ex isted after the ancient Cyrus, the most
kingly and worthy to command, as is acknow ledged by all those w ho seem
ever to have had an opportuni ty of judging .— XENOPHON, on Cyrus the
Y ounger .
Cyrus the Younger .— There i s no Single campaign in
Asia which has excited greater interest than that of Cyrusthe Younger
,mainly owing to the famous explo its of the
Greek force which served under him and the genius of
Xenophon ; but there i s also the sympathy excited bythe refreshingly virile and energet i c nature of the GreatAdventurer, which contrasts so favourably with that of
the effete Persian monarchs‘
and strikes the reader as
gratefully as a coo l breeze does the dweller in the trop ics .Cyrus the Younger w as the second son of Darius
,his
elder bro ther be ing Arsaces, w ho afterwards re igned as
Artaxerxes I I . ; but whereas Arsaces had been born whilehis father w as holding the post of Satrap of Hyrcania,Cyrus w as born in the purple . H e w as also the favouriteof his terrible mo ther
,by who se influence he w as appo inted
Viceroy ofAsia Minor with pract ically independent powers ,and assured that during his absence from Court she w as
working in his interests .His R ela tions w ith Sp arta
— The youthful ruler w as
resolved from the first to strengthen his posit ion ,and
as he real ized the immense superiority of Greek troops,he determined to make full use Of his Offi cial po sit ion
235
23 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
to collect and organize a formidable army . After studying the situat ion with care
,he came to the conclusion
that the Spartan confederacy w as more l ikely to serve hisends than a sea power like Athens ; and he accordingly .
favoured the Spartans . The financial support which hegave to the ir extremely clever leader Lysander helpedthe lat ter to w in the decisive battle of Aego spo tami in4 05 B . c .
Tissaphernes , whose posit ion w as weakened,and w ho
realized that Cyrus w as preparing to rebel,conveyed a '
t imely warn ing to the Great King . The ambit ious princew as summoned to Susa to j ust ify his conduct ; but hearrived just in t ime to be present at the death of hisfather , in 4 04 B .C .
The Access i on of Artaxerxes Mnemon, 4 04 B . C .
Arsaces,In sp1te of the influence of Parysatis
,w as ac
knowledged heir,and ascended the throne as Artaxerxes I I .
with the sobriquet of Mnemon or“ The Thought ful .
H e w as crowned at Pasargadae,1and Cyrus , it is stated ,
determined to murder his brother at the altar during theceremony but Tissaphernes w as warned and the wouldbe assass i n w as se ized . The King , enraged, ordered hisinstant execut ion ; but the Queen-Mother shielded himwith her arms and finally obtained his pardon . The
foolish Artaxerxes,with true Persian magnanimity, allowed
his madly ambitious bro ther to return to Asia Minor ,where, as w as to be expected , he immediately prepared tofight for the throne .
His Greek general w as Clearchus , a Spart iate of
character and experience,
and he speedily enro lled a
fo rmidable force of Greek mercenaries . Cyrus alsoapplied to Sparta and , although open suppo rt w as no t
granted , a body o f 700 hoplites w as despatched to serveunder him . His army ult imate ly attained the considerable to tal of Greeks and Asiat ics ; and
in 4 0 1 B . C . the Great Adventurer started from his headquarters to fight for the lordship of Asia .
The M arch of Cyrus on Bahylon.—Upon quitt ing
1 Vide P lutarch’s L ifi qf A rtaxerxes, where an interesting account is given of
the occurrence.
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
run all risks ; and this w as readily granted by Cyrus,
w ho w as a gambler, staking everything on success .The unusually low state o f the Euphrates favoured the
invaders, w ho forded it and pressed on rapidly
,marching
at the rate of nearly twenty miles a day and ne ither see ingno r hearing anything of the enemy . As Xenophonpo ints out
,the object w as to prevent the Great King
from mustering his full strength .
The Ba ttle of Cunaxa , 4 0 1 B . C .
— Upon entering the
rich province of Babylon they met some l ight cavalry ;but found no signs of the Persian army as they cont inuedthe i r march steadily southwards . After advancing in
battle array for three days Cyrus, w ho does no t seem to
have been well served by his spies , came to the somewhatnatural conclusion that Artaxerxes had abandoned Babylonand retreated to the uplands of Persia. But he w as
mistaken,and on the fourth day, when his troops were
marching in somewhat careless order,there suddenly
appeared a horseman with the warning that the hugearmy of the Great King would be upon them in a few
hours . Thanks to this t imely no tice,Cyrus w as able
to form line of battle . The Greek cont ingent underClearchus he posted on the right
,resting on the Euphrates .
Cyrus,fo llowing the invariable Persian custom ,
took posthimself in the centre , surrounded by a mounted guard of
Six hundred heavily armed men . Ariaeus commandedthe left , where the greater part of the cavalry w as massed .
The immense army of Artaxerxes,numbering perhaps
half a million ,overlapped that of Cyrus but he
,realizing
that everything depended on defeat ing the centre , wherethe Great King w as to be found , o rdered Clearchus tolead the Greeks at the heart of the enemy . Clearchusdid no t rise to the o ccasion
,but
,fearing to leave bo th his
flanks unpro tected, replied evasively that “ it would behis care that all should be well ,
”and kept close to the
Euphrates .The battle Opened by an advance of the Greeks at the
double against the scythed chario ts that faced them,and
of which great things were expected . The result w as
most extraordinary , for the drivers of the famous chario ts
DECLINE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 23 9
and the whole of the line turned and fled,pursued by the
Greek hoplites for tw o or three miles .Cyrus saw the rout of the Persian left wing ; but
realized that unt il the centre w as broken the action couldnot be decis ive . Great general that he w as
,he curbed
his natural impetuosity unt i l he saw the Persian centrebear down on the rear of the Greeks , and then made hisgrand charge , leading his gallant six hundred against thesix thousand Cadus ians of the Great King . With hisow n hand he slew the leader o f the opposing fo rce
,and
the drama he ightened in intensity as they wavered and
the w ay lay Open to where Artaxerxes w as stationed .
M ad with hatred and the lust of battle,Cyrus shouted
out,
“ I see the man,
and, hurling a j avelin
,struck his
brother full on the breast , pierced his cuirass , and
unhorsed him . The lordship of Asia must have seemedto him already gained , when he w as suddenly wounded bya javelin near the eye , and in the mélée w hich ensued hew as slain . Artaxerxes
,but Sl ightly wounded
,hearing of
the death of his bro ther , advanced against the Asiat ictroops . They , learning that Cyrus w as dead
,retreated
northwards .Tissaphernes , on the extreme left of the Persian line
,
had charged through the lightly armed cont ingent of theGreeks wi thout infl icting loss , and had attacked theircamp
,from which he w as repulsed . Clearchus returned
from the pursuit on hearing that his camp w as in danger,
and in ant i cipation of an enveloping attack the Greeksformed up with the ir back to the river and charged a
second t ime . Again the craven Persian host,unlike the ir
brave forefathers, refused to face the terrible hopl ites .Consequently the Greeks , after pursuing their cowardlyopponents , returned to camp V ictorious so far as theyknew though actually the day w as lost , owing mainly tothe bad generalship of Clearchus .
The result of Cunaxa, by which name the battle w as
known, w as stupendous , as the Greeks now learned that
they could drive a Persian host before them like a flo ckof sheep
,and although advantage w as no t taken of thei r
immeasurable superiority for many years, it is certain that
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Alexander based his calculat ions on the experience of
Cunaxa. For Persia the death of Cyrus the Youngerw as a great misfortune , as
, with his great capacity , hisenergy
,and his varied experience , he would have been
'
an
ideal Great King, and might even have restored the empireto the po sit ion i t held under Cyrus the Great and Darius .In any case , he would have revitalized Persia and
,with
his knowledge of the Greeks and skill to play off one
state against ano ther,migh t have destroyed the inde
pendence of Hellas . Sea'dis aliter v isum.
The R etreat of the Ten Thousand — Few of the explo itsof mankind challenge our admirat ion more than the retreatOf the immortal Ten Thousand . The morning after thebattle the Greeks were on the po int of advanc ing to efiect
a junctIOn with Cyrus , when they were informed of hisdeath and of the fl ight of his Persian adherents . No thingdaunted
,Clearchus sent to offer the throne to Ariaeus :
but he prudently decl ined it on the ground that the
Persian nobil ity would no t accept him . Later in the dayheralds arrived from Tissaphernes summoning the Greeksto del iver up their arms and to proceed to the King’sporte,1 to obtain any favourable terms they could .
”This
summons provoked intense indignation, but after discussing the situat ion and rece iving the refusal of Ariaeus
, the
Greeks decided that to advance farther would be unwise .
Their celebrated retreat began by a n ight march whichbrought them back to the spot they had left the daybefo re the battle , and here they rejo ined the troops of
Ariaeus . A council w as held , at which the"
Persian generalpert inent ly po in ted Out that the quest ion of supplies madea retreat along the route which they had come impo ssible
,
and he recommended a longer route to the north . H e
added that tw o or three forced marches would make themsafe from the Great King
,whose vast army moved slowly
,
while he would no t dare to attack with a small fo rce .
In the morning , accordingly, the united fo rces marchednorth , but to their surprise fell in with the Great King ’sarmy . The Persians were more alarmed than the Greeks
,
1 I t is extraordinary how w idespread is this idea of the Subl ime Porte. The termsPharaoh and M ikado both convey a s im i lar mean ing.
DECLINE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 24 1
however, were in a state of panic all n ight . The
day negot iat ions for a truce were opened by
phernes , and after much discussion it w as agreedthe Greeks should be allowed to return home
Finally they marched off, the forces of
and Ariaeus,
w ho had meanwhile madeh the Great King
,accompanying them
,
the Median wall,the Ten Thousand
gris , which they crossed by a bridge of
ty- seven boats .Four more stages brought them to Op is, the site of
ch is well known,and passing it they reached the
ser Zab . Here Tissaphernes enticed Clearchus and
o ther generals to a meet ing at which they wereSly seized . This trial
,perhaps the severest that
men in their S ituat ion could undergo,did not
the hero ic Greeks to surrender , as mo st troopshave done . They chose the leader of the Spartangent as thei r commander , with Xenophon as hisof Staff
,and the march w as resumed , with the
n ho st now openly ho stile . The l ittle army,
and marvelling at, the ancient cities of Assyria,
rmit tentlyharassed by Tissaphernes , who se attacks ,eble and half-hearted , and whose fo rceearly, in order to camp at a distanceHellenes .were finally shaken off but the diffi
s experienced in the mountains o f the Carduchi or
s and in the highlands of Armenia were greater thanfrom which they were rel ieved . The attacks of thetribesmen were invariably defeated by a display of
the Greek highlanders were pastpl ies were generally obtainable , but theyphysical d ifli culties , such as heavy snow
and intense co ld , and it Speaks highly both for thel of the troops and for the influence of Xenophonthe ir losses were so Small . Onward they marched
,
passing to the west ofLake Van and across the backbone of
Asia Minor,unt il at last , on a happy day, they climbed a
pass from which the sea w as visible and arrived at Trapezus,
VOL . 1 R
24 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
the modern Trebizond,after accomplishing a feat which
has never been surpassed .
It is now mo re than twenty years since I first visitedTrebizond
,but never shall I forget the thrill. I experienced
when there w as po inted out to me the distant pass fromwhich resounded the joyous shouts of The Sea ! “ The
Sea ! or when I visited Campo s,who se name st i ll
recalls the historical camp in which those heroes of all
time rested , after their unparalleled hardships and magnificent feats of valour .
Persia and Hellas after Cunaxa .— It w as a natural
result of the defeat of Cyrus that the all iance of Persiawith the leading power of Hellas w as
~
broken off,on
account of the assistance given to the Pretender . Far
from craving . pardon,Sparta, after the experience gained
at Cunaxa, ult imately engaged the Ten Thousand to
pro tect the Hellenes of Asia against the Satraps Tissa
phernes and Pharnabazus , w ho were so jealous of one
ano ther that each w as ready to payheavily for the assistanceof Greek arms against his rival . Again
,however
,Persian
go ld w as the supreme factor . At one t1me It seemedpossible that no t only the Greek co lon ies
,but the who le
of Asia Minor,would shake off the Persian yoke but
Persian go ld aga in prevailed . Agesilaus , w ho w as con
ducting the operat ions with great ski ll , and w ho gained a
decis ive victo ry on the Pacto lus which led to the execu
t ion of 'Tissaphernes , w as summoned home to meet a
league which had been formed by Thebes , .Argo s , Co rinth ,and Athens , against Sparta, as a result of Persian intriguesupported by Persian money .
1
Athens i n her turn became the ally of Persia ,Conon ,
w ho after the disast er at Aego spotami.
had fled
to Cyprus and had entered the Persian serv i ce underPharnabazus , defeated the Spartan fleet at Cn idus in 3 94B. C .
, and thereby indirectly restored to Athens the com
mand of the sea .
'As a sequel to this vi ctory a Persianfleet under Pharnabazus and his Athenian admiral ravaged
1 Ages ilaus made the w i tty remark that a thousand Pers ian archers had driven himout of As ia
, referring to the daric, which w as stamped with the figure of an archer, asfigured in the headp iece to Chapter XV I .
x1x DECLINE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 24 3
the coast of the Peloponnesus,and the long walls of
Athens were rebuilt under i ts protect ion and by means ofthe all-pervading gold of Persia. How completely thesituat ion had altered is shown by the fact that Thebes
,the
erstwhile deadly foe of Athens,in common wi th o ther
states , helped o n the work .
The P eace of Antalcidas , 3 8 7 B. C .— In this manner the
Persian Viceroy,by skilful diplomacy which consisted
mainly in playing off the weak states of Hellas againstSparta
,re- established the balance of power in Greece .
The prest ige of Persia w as restored most of all by the
man ifestat ion of the Great King’s sea power in Peloponnes ian waters
,to which it had never previously penetrated ,
and in the end Sparta appealed for peace . For some yearsnego t iat ions dragged on ,
partly at any rate , in order toenhance the dignity of the Persian monarch , and finally
,
after the Spartan ambassado r Antalcidas had spent sometime at Susa
,peace w as made , no t by a treaty but by an
edict of the Great King , w ho proclaimed that all the
cont inent of Asia Minor,together with Cyprus and
Claz omene,formed part of the Persian Empire, but that
every state of Hellas should be autonomous . This peace,to which the leading states subscribed , w as very favourable to Persia
,inasmuch as it resto red her lo st possessions ,
and prevented future interference by Hellas in Asia Minor .In short , the peace of Callias w as annulled . The prestigeof the Great King must have been immensely augmentedand the constant drain of defending Asia Mino r ceased .
To Hellas this edict w as humiliat ing , but to Spartaindividually it w as favourable
,for she retained all her
territory and w as thus enabled to play the leading rOle in
Hellas unt il’
the cup of her tyranny being full , her arrogance rece ived a humbling lesson at the bat tle of Leuctrain 37 1 B . C .
,through the instrumentality of Thebes .
The Egyp tian Camp a igns.— The weakening of the
central government naturally reacted on the posit ion inEgypt
,where the descendants of the ruling families had
retained their powers , and when about 4 05B . C . a secondAmyrtaeus , grandson of the first
,headed a revolt in the
Delta,his cause w as strongly suppo rted . As Egyptians
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
figure prominently on the rol l of troops that fought atCunaxa
,i t would appear that Amyrtaeus ruled only a
port ion of Egypt but his short reign of six years w as so
much of a reali ty that his name w as inscribed by the
chrono logists of the sacred colleges in the l ist of the
Pharaohs . Upon his death aM endesian dynasty, foundedby Nephorites , completed his wo rk and succeeded in regaining liberty for Egypt . Direct ing their pol icy with . greatcapacity
,they encouraged with money and troops every
conspiracy and every rebellion that might o ccupy Persiaand alliances were formed with Cyprus
,Caria
,and even
with distant Hellas . Nor were preparat ions for w ar
omitted . Large numbers of Greek mercenaries wereengaged , and the most experienced generals of the age , theEgyptians realizing as fully as the Persians thei r markedinferiori ty to the warlike and well disciplined Hellenes .Fortunately for Egyp t
,the after - effects of Cunaxa
included rebellions among most of thewarlike tribes ofAsia Minor. Cyprus, too
,under Evagoras , with the
support of both Greece and Egypt , became a centre of
hostil ity to Persia, and in a sense an outwork of the
kingdom of the Nile . Hakoris, the successor of Nepho r
i tes , had between 3 90 and 3 8 6 B. C . repulsed a Persianattack ,
of which the details are no t known . Instead of
resting on his laurels,he strengthened the King of Cyprus
with consignments of corn and money,while Athens sent a
strong force under Chabrias , one of her leading generals .So strong did Evagoras consider his pos i tion that heraided the mainland and actually captured Tyre .
The po sit ion of affairs appeared to be growing steadilybrighter fo r Egypt when the peace of Antalcidas changedthe ent ire situat ion . Cyprus w as the first to suffer,Artaxerxes collect ing a huge force for its recapture as a
preliminary to the:attack on Egypt ; and Evagoras , aftero ccupying the armies of the Great King for some six yearsand thereby rendering great service to Egypt
,obtained
most favourable terms and w as permitted to retain Salamisand the t itle of King .
Artaxerxes w as at last free to deal with Egypt,and for
three years preparations on an immense scale were made"
DECLINE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 24 5
at Acre , which w as selected as the base . Nectanebo, w ho
now ruled Egypt, did all he could to meet the comingstorm by hiring Greek troops and by building fortificat ions with the Skill Egypt ians have always shown . The
Athenian general Chabrias w as engaged as his Commanderin-Chief and the Delta w as transformed into an entrenchedcamp . In the spring of 374 B . C . the expedit ion w as
ready . It consisted of Asiatic t roops andGreeks , supported by 300 triremes
,under the supreme
command of Pharnabazus . The influence of the GreatKing w as strong enough to secure the recall of Chabriasand to obtain for Persia the services of Iphicrates , the mostfamous general of Athens .
The fo rt ifications of Pelusium,strengthened by inun
dations,were found too formidable to attack
,and conse
quent ly, on the advice of Iphicrates , a force w as secretlylanded at the mouth of the M endes ian branch of the Nile .
The enemy made a sort ie from their fort,and upon their
retreat the Persian troops gained an entrance with them .
By this init ial success, the l ine of defences w as p ierced , and
if the advice of Iphicrates had been fo llowed to press onto Memphis , which had been denuded of its garrison,
Egypt would in all probabil ity have been conquered .
Pharnabazus,however , w as too old to take great risks ,
and in consequence of his pro crast ination,the Egyp tians
resumed the o ffensive . Iphicrates , indignant , returned to
Greece , and when the Nile began to rise , the Persian armyretreated and Egypt w as saved .
The Exp edi tion aga inst the Cadusians .-During this
period the Cadusians were in revo lt , and Artaxerxes inperson took command against them with the usualunwieldy army . This tribe inhabited the modernprovince of Gilan
,which is almost impassable from its
dense fo rests,its rugged ranges
,and its many rivers .
The Cadusians , w ho confined themselves to a guerillawarfare
,cut Off the supplies of the Persians and redfiCed
them to serious straits . But the tw o leading chiefs wereplayed off against one ano ther and terms were arranged .
The Persian army returned to the Iranian plateau safebut unsuccessful .
24 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
The Latter Days of Artaxerxes M nemon.— In spite of
the entire failure of the expedit ion against Egypt , theGreeks
,blinded by mutual jealousies , sent Antalcidas
again to Susa in 3 72 B . C . to obtain a fresh edict forputting an end to the exist ing host i lit ies in Hellas . In
3 67 B. C . envoys from Thebes approached the Great King,
and in the fo llowing year o thers from Athens , for insp ite of his real weakness
,he w as un iversally accepted as
arbiter in the quarrels of the Greeks— so low had
Hellas fallen .
- In remarkable contrast with the estimat ion in whichhe w as held by the Greek states w as the posit ion of
Artaxerxes at home during the closing years of his reign .
First one'
and then ano ther Satrap revo lted , from fear of
royal disfavour or from personal ambit ion . Tacho s , the .
new Pharaoh,took advantage of the general disquiet to
invade Syria ; but during his absence a revo lution,aided
by the aged Agesilaus , w ho appears at his worst in Egypt ,fo rced Tachos to flee to Susa, and local disturbancesparalysed Egypt for some years . At one time it
seemed as though the break -up of the Persian empirewere imminent ; but bribery and treachery and the
good fortune which caused the enemies Of Artaxerxesto fight among themselves saved the situat ion .
'
Artaxerxes died '
at a great age , in 358 B.C ., after a
reign Of fo rty- six years . H e appears to have been a
mild monarch,very generous and always ready to pardon
but he w as entirely dominated by the terrible Parysatis,
w ho maintained her ho ld upon him even after po isoninghis wife
,Statira, to whom he w as fondly attached . It
w as on her evil advice that her weak son married hisow n daughter Ato ssa, an act which led to futurecalamities . I t remains to add that Artaxerxes set upimages to Anahita
,goddess of fecundity
,and thereby
introduced a new element into the nat ional religion . Ofi
st i ll greater importance w as the revival by this monarchof the worship of M ithra . After a long eclipse duringthe period of the Gathas and Achaemenian inscriptions ,w e find the god of compact developing into the greatwarrior god . As Moulton writes
,Whatever the origin
DECLINE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 24 7
of the dual ity , he w as also on the w ay to the sol inv ictus
of Mithraism 1
The Accession of Artaxerxes I I I ., 358 B .C .
— The old
King is bel ieved to have had more than one hundred sonsby the hundreds of concubines in his harem but most ofthem died befo re their father
,and only the three sons
of Statira, Darius, Ariaspes and Ochus,were regarded as
legitimate arid eligible for the succession . Darius hadbeen nominated heir - apparent some years before
,but
Ochus , an arch - intriguer and a worthy descendant ofParysat is , induced him to attempt the murder of the old
King , w ho ,Ochus alleged , intended to pass him over in
the succession . Darius fell into the trap , fai led, and w as
executed . Ochus also terrified Ariaspes by declaring thathe w as to be executed for complicity in the plo t, and theunhappy prince committed suicide to avo id this d isgrace .
By these acts of treachery Ochus,assisted by Ato ssa, to
whom he had promised marriage,became the he ir-apparent
,
and upon the death of the King , whose end w as hastenedby these domest ic tragedies , he ascended the throne withthe t itle of Artaxerxes I I I . He inaugurated his reign bymassacring all the princes of the blood ; and even
,it is
said,the princesses were not spared .
The Cap ture of Sidon and the Reconquest of Egyp t,
34 2 B . C .— The throne of the new monarch w as by no
means secure . The failure of his father to reconquerEgypt had turned that country into an ant i - Pers iancentre
,from which aid of every kind poured out to
rebellious Satraps or to states attempting to shake Off theirallegiance . It w as clear to Ochus that he could no t hopeto deal successfully with o ther rebell ions unt i l Egypt w asonce more conquered . The first attempt w as a completefailure . The army ofNectanebo under Greek commandersinfl icted a cru shing defeat on the Persian forces , and
drove them to a precipitate retreat . At no period hadEgypt been so strongly fort ified
,and the moral of even
her nat i ve troops must have been excellent . In consequenceof this disaster no t only Syria, Asia M inor, and Cyprus ,
1 Early Zoroastr ianism,p . 13 8 . An inscript ion found in the palace of Artaxerxes
Mnemon at Susa runs,
“ By the grace of Ahura M azda, Anahita and M ithra, I bui ltthis palace.
”
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
but even the Phoenicians rebelled and under Tennes,
King of Sidon,burned the royal palace on the Lebanon
and the depots of supplies co llected for the Egypt iancampaign . The Athen ian general of Ochus w as
successful in Cyprus ; but in Asia Minor the rebelliousSatrap of Phrygia
,suppo rted by both Athens and Thebes ,
held h is ow n ; and Tennes gained a victory in Syriawhich secured the support of Nectanebo , w ho placedfour thousand Greek mercenaries at his dispo sal .
Ochus w as no t a weakling like his father . Rais inganother huge fo rce , he advanced in person on Sidon,
which w as defended by high walls and a triple t rench .
Tennes,hoping to save himself thereby
,basely betrayed the
leading cit izens into his hand , and the Greek mercenariessent from Egypt were corrupted by the all-powerful daric .The Sidonians thereupon gave up all thought of defence .
Thei r representat ives to the number of five hundred wereslain by the bloodthirsty monarch , and the rest of the
townsmen resolved to make one holo caust of themselves ,‘
the ir families , and their homes . They carried out thei rdreadful purpose
,and when Ochus entered the city he
found only a heap of ruins . These he so ld for a largesum to treasure - hunters . The infamous Tennes w as
executed as soon as Sidon had been captured,and the
o ther Phoen i cian cit ies submittedThe Persian army
,having suffered little delay at
Sidon,resumed its southward march along the ancient
route to Egypt . Pelusium w as reached,and the invaders
drew off the water in the protect ing canal and erectedbattering- rams ; but the Egypt ians saved the Situationby construct ing a second wall behind that which w as
threatened . As before,the invasion made no headway
,
and it seemed probable that the floods would again bafflethe Persian army . But a Greek general in the Persianservice with much daring made his w ay up a canal to the
rear of the Egypt ian army,where he w as attacked but
repulsed his assailants . Nectanebo , realizing that his communications were threatened
,retreated upon Memphis
,and
the garrisons of Pelusium and o ther important cen tres,
bel ieving that they were deserted,capitulated . In couse
250 HISTORY OF PERSIA. CHAP. x1x
excites a certain amount of sympathy . He had gaineda reputat ion for bravery in the Cadusian campaign bySlaying a g igant i c tribesman in s ingle combat
,and had
been appo inted Satrap of Armenia as a reward . He
appears to have been in character more generous and lessvicious than any of his immediate predecessors , and hadthe circumstances of his re ign been normal
,he m ight
have ruled with credit . Unfortunately for him,a new
power, led by the greatest so ldier of all t ime,had arisen
in the West,and Darius
,although backed by all the
resources of the Persian Empire,quailed and fell before
the fiery onset of Alexander the Great .
TARSUS MEDALI . ION OF PH ILI P OF MACEDON.
(Cab inet de France.)
HAPTER XX
TH E R ISE OF MACEDON IA UNDER PH ILIP AND
ALEXANDER
What a man had w e to figh t ! For the sake of power and dominion he
had an eye thrust out, a shoulder broken , an arm and a leg mortified . Wh ichever member fortune demanded , that he cast away, so that the rest might bein glory and honour .
—DEMOSTHENES on Phi lip ofM acedon .
1
The Geography of M acedonid — To tho se w ho , like myself,believe that the influence of geography on history is profound
,it i s of interest to observe that Nature , by breaking
up the Peloponnesus and Central Greece into small iso latedtracts of country with very indifferent land communicat ions ,prevented Greece from be ing the home of a un ited people ,but fashioned i t into a congeries of petty states , lookingmainly to the sea for a living . A reference to the map ,
however,shows that the pos it ion is d ifferent in the case of
Macedonia with its great valley of the Vardar, which isrich
,is easily traversed
,and ends in a very fertile delta,
formed by its ow n and o ther waters . That these advantagesare real ized to-day i s shown by the situat ion of Saloni ca,2
the chief port of this part of Europe, which lies at a po intwhere commun icat ions with the interior up the Vardar arebest, and where it can tap the agricultural wealth of the
region . In sho rt,Macedonia po ssessed what the o ther
1 De Corona, 67 .
2 Salon ica w as founded in 3 15 B .C. on the s ite of the an cient Therma and w as
named after Thessalonica,half-sister of Alexander the Great and wife of Cassander.
252 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
states of Greece lacked— the physical configurat ion and the
wide area of fert ile land required for the support of a largepopulat ion and it succeeded to the Greek inheritance forsomewhat the same reason that Portugal
,in the sphere of
marit ime explorat ion and co lon izat ion,succeeded to Veni ce ,
Genoa, and other small republics .The Peop le.
- It i s probable that there were tw o strainsamong the Macedonians . The first and dominat ingelement w as Hellen ic , and consisted , according to Greek ‘
belief,
1 mainly of a band of immigrants from Argos . The‘
o lder population w as Aryan,but to the Greeks “ barbarian
,
”
and w as driven away from the fert i le lands to the ruggedhills . In course of t ime there w as fusion,but this w as no tcomplete .
Valour and virility were the leading characterist ics of
the people as a whole . A man w ho had no t proved hismanhood by slaying an enemy w as forced by custom to
Wear a co rd round his waist, and he could no t even s it at
table with men unt il he had killed a boar with his ow n
hands . Alexander,the typical Macedon ian ,
held that thechase w as the finest po ssible preparat ion for w ar and muchto be preferred to training for athlet ic contest s and thereis no doubt that he w as right . AS a set—off to thesesplendid virtues w as a great love of drinking
,which led to '
deplorable tragedies,as will be seen in Alexander ’s career .
Polygamy,too
,prevailed
,with i ts attendant family hatreds
and murders .The Macedon ians
,in their isolat ion and rusti c sur
roundings,were far removed from the highly po lished
and t ravelled Athenians . But they were not classed as
barbarous ; and both Philip -and -Alexander were so de
vo ted tO' “
art and l iteraturestandard-bearer of ,Greek culture . in -Asia . Again
,j ust as
the geographical format ion of Greece,react ing on the
people , made for separate states with the highly developedindividual ism of its cit izens
,w ho were , moreover, sea rovers
perforce,so the larger area of Macedon ia, its distance from
the sea,i ts relat ively good communi cat ions , and its greater
1 I would acknowledge my indebtedness to Hogarth’
s Philip and Alexander qfM acedon
,a most suggest ive work .
254 HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
three years of his youth as a hostage at Thebes , then the ?!leading military power of Hellas
,and the lessons he there
learned , in clo se intercourse with Epaminondas, were neverforgo tten . His genius w as shown no t only in his statesmanship
,but in the creat ion of the famous phalanx ,1 which ,
although requiring protect ion on the flanks,could pierce
through every o ther fo rmat ion of the period . Mo reover,he improved his cavalry unt il it became irresist ible , and
created an efficient siege train and also a fleet . Nor didthis extrao rdinary man neglect the arts of peace ; for heco ined staters which penetrated as far as distant Britain .
2
His r i se to power w as oppo sed by various states of Greece,
especially Thebes and Athens , the latter be ing swayed bythe eloquence of Demosthenes . Who in his schoo l dayshas no t read the famous Philippics and formed the opin ionthat the dexterous orato r
,though supremely eloquent , w as
lacking in a sense of proport ion,and failed to realize that
po lished,ease- loving Athens
,even when allied to military
Thebes,w as a most unequal match for Philip
,the so ldier
and man of act ionThe wars of this great captain were extraordinarily
successful . Campaign after campaign w as waged againstIllyrian tribesmen whom he massacred
,against Amphipolis
which he captured,against Thessaly which he absorbed ,
and against the Pho cians whom he defeated . H e thenconquered Thrace up to the Propontis though he failedsignally to capture Perinthus , a strongly situated city to
the west of Byzant ium . No t only did all Greece seem to
be arming against him,but the Great King had to be
reckoned with , and Phil ip , seeing that his dream of con
tro lling the Dardanelles could not be realized , withdrew toconquer Hellas .
The Ba ttle of Chaeronea , 3 3 8 B. c .—Thebes and Athens,
in alliance,faced him at Chaeronea
,and found their day
of reckon ing . But it w as more than this for it w as the
first o ccasion on which a veteran national army met
old system of civic milit ia and hired mercenaries . A1 The phalanx w as composed of a column s ixteen deep . I ts weapon w as
a p ike about s ixteen feet in length ; this, when level led by the first five rankand protected the front of the format ion .
2 Philip and A lexander qfMacedon,p . 4 9 .
xx THE RISE OF MACEDONIA 255
a stubborn contest, Philip gained a complete victory,the
batt le be ing finally decided by the youthful Alexander,
w ho led a charge of the heavy cavalry and broke the rightwing of the enemy , where the stubborn Thebans fought .
The losses of the allies were crushing . The Athen iansalone had three thousand killed or captured and the
Thebans at least as many . The victo r treated Thebes .
with severity . No t only w as She deprived of the leadership of the Boeo t ian towns
,but her ow n autonomy w as
destroyed,and a body Of exiles
,supported by a Mace
donian garrison ,w as put into offi ce . On the other
hand,with Athens at his mercy
,Philip no t only released
her cit izens,but concluded an all iance with the Theatre
of Glory,
”as he termed her. H e then marched into
the Peloponnesus where Sparta alone resisted him,and
as a consequence had her territory reduced to the o riginalLaconia.
The Election of Philip as Cap ta in-General of Hellas ,
3 37 B . C .— A year a fter the battle of Chaeronea
,a meet ing
of all the states except Sparta w as convened at the Isthmusof Co rinth . Philip explained to the assembled delegatesthat he wished to form a new Hellen ic League on the
terms that all the states should retain the ir autonomy and
jo in in a w ar on Persia under his leadership , to avengethe impious wrongs infl icted on them by the barbarousinvader . The Greek states felt no special bitterness againstthe Great King, w ho w as now l ittle feared . But theywere obliged to elect Phil ip Captain-General
,and perhaps
they preferred to have his energies diverted to Asia ratherthan concentrated on Hellas . The ir ho st ility to him w as
necessarily masked,but Philip w as probably aware of it .
What he wanted w as to be chosen the offi cial CaptainGeneral of Hellas and , this done , he returned In triumphto Macedon ia to prepare for the invasion of the PersianEmpire .
Olymp ias.-The first wife of Philip w as Olympias , the
daughter of an Ep iro t prince , a woman of striking beautyand of primi t ive passions which occasionally drove her todeeds of abhorrent cruelty ; yet a great woman,
and
famous in history as the mother of Alexander. He w as
256 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
her only son ‘
,and to his interests she devo ted herself with
fervour . AS t ime passed Philip came to detest his wife,
and upon his return from Greece married a fellowcountrywoman . At the wedding banquet Attalus
,the
bride ’s uncle,insulted Alexander by cast ing doubts on his
legit imacy . The young Prince threw his cup in the faceof Attalus , and Philip , under the influence of wine
,drew
his sword on his son , w ho sneered at his father and thenleft the court with his mother . This quarrel w as madeup
,but a second began when Alexander wished to marry
the daughter of the Satrap of Caria. Philip w as veryangry
,and not only broke off the match but exiled four
friend s f o f”Alexander ’s, w ho , he believed , were working
against him . Tw o of these were Harpalus and Ptolemy,
the latter dest ined to play a large part on the stage of
histo ry and to die a king .
The Assass ination of Philip , 3 3 6 B. C .— The po lit ical
s ituat ion w as at its brightest and Philip w as making hisfinal preparations for the great campaign when ,
in 3 3 6 B. C .,
he w as assassinated by a cert ain Pausanias, w ho had also
been insulted by At talus , and to whom Philip had refusedredress . Assassination w as common in Macedon ia and ,although Alexander w as charged with parricide
,it i s
improbable that he instigated the crime . Olympias , on
the o ther hand , may well have wished for vengeance on
her faithless husband , and may have felt that the successionof her son would be hopelessly imperilled unless she cut
the kno t by a bold stroke .
Thus in the prime of life died Philip , w ho not onlyo riginated the grand scheme of conquering Asia
,but
forged the weapon with which the battles were w on . Had
he l ived longer he might have been known to history as
the Conqueror of Asia but,even though fate w as unkind
to him and contemporary evidence 13 lacking,the fact that
“ he evolved the first European power In the modernsense of the wo rd
,an armed nation with a common
nat ional ideal,
”1 const itutes a claim to greatness whichcannot be disregarded . His ep itaph maywell be, Europehad borne no such man,
take him for all in all,as the son
1 Philip and Alexander qfMacedon,p. 3 .
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
TheAlexander R omances.- It IS necessary here to po int
out that the Great Macedonian’s career w as in time overlaid with myths . So far has this pro cess gone
,that the
Alexander known to the East is , for the most part , an u
almost legendary be ing . The earliest form of the manyromances is in Greek
,and can be traced to the second
century A .D . According to this , Alexander w as the son of
a King of Egyp t . But for us the most important workdeal ing with Alexander from the Persian po int of view isthe famous epic of Firdausi . In it the poet describesIskandar as a scion of the Persian royal family
, and he
describes how Dara or Darius married the daughter of
Filigus of Rum ,
1or Phil ip of Greece . H e divorced his
wife, w ho became the mother of Alexander,and Darius
Codomannus w as his son by a second wife . Thus the '1
Macedonian w as half-brother to the Great King,and his
campaigns in Asia were undertaken to wrest the thronefrom his kinsman . I would add that this version of
histo ry is devout ly believed by most Persians, w ho delight
above all things in the improbable . These fascinat ingromances must have been the joy of European 2
and
Asiat ic alike,and they were incorporated into literature
both sacred and profane,including the Ko ran .
His Youth and Accession.— It is un iversally agreed that
Alexander Showed brilliant natural gifts even as a boy.
Plutarch tells the sto ry how he entertained ambassadorsfrom Persia in his father’s absence and how deeply heimpressed them ,
with the result that they “ looked uponthe abil ity so much famed of Philip to be nothing incomparison with the forw ardness and high purpose thatappeared thus early in his son .
” Ano ther celebratedsto ry is that
,when Bucephalus w as brough t for sale
,
Phi l ip refused to buy it,on the ground that it w as v
and unmanageable . His '
son, however , w ho had
that the horse w as really only afraid of its ow n shturned its head towards the sun and , leaping lightly
1 Rum is Rome, and to the Asiatic Constant inop le w as the cap i tal ofRome.
2 In Ten Thousand M iles, etc., p . 336, the story is told of how ,w h
succeeded to the throne,he w as sent a po lo st ick and a bal l by
intended to imp ly that he w as only a boy. The message of
Kynges,”is given from the Engl ish vers ion of the romance.
THE RISE OF MACEDONIA 259
back , completely mastered i t , to the joy of Philip, w ho
exclaimed , “ O my son , look thee out a kingdom equal toand worthy of thyself, for Macedonia 13 too small for thee .
So much for sto ries of the famous youth . To cometo firmer ground , w e know that Alexander had the extraordinary good fo rtune to be taught by Aristotle
,and it
w as he w ho implanted the passion for knowledge whichnever weakened throughout his strenuous life . Mo reover
,
he w as for the most part kept away from the undesirableatmosphere of the Court and w as encouraged and enabledto devote his energies to study and to sport .
The young Prince obtained his first experience,
of w ar
at Perinthus . At the age of sixteen he w as appo intedRegent during the absence of Philip and led a successfulexpedit ion against the rebell ious Maedi . When eighteenyears old
,as already ment ioned
,he commanded a w i ng at
Chaeronea, and is said to have been the first man to chargethe famous Sacred Band . Thus when he succeeded hisfather no t only had he considerable experience in w ar and
admini stration,but owing to the fact that Olympias w as
out of favour he had known for some years that he mighthave to fight for the throne . Consequently
,although
but twenty, he bore an old head on his young shoulders .His R ecognit ion by Hellas .
—Naturally enough,his
capacity w as not fully realized by the ho stile factions inhis ow n country or by the enemies of Macedonia abroad ,but it did no t take long to teach them the necessarylesson . After the usual murders of relat ives , probablydue to the influence of Olympias
,Alexander marched to
Thermopylae,where his succession to the chief command
against Persia w as acknowledged by all the impo rtant statesof Hellas with the except ion of Sparta, which , as before ,remained aloof but un important . This matter having beensat isfactorily settled
,the young monarch turned his atten
t ion to his host ile ne ighbours in the north and in the yearfo llowing his succession he led his army into the Balkans .It is related that during this campaign he averted a disasterin a narrow gorge by a display of extraordinary resourcefulness . The tribesmen started the ir heavy waggonsdown the pass with a View to crushing the invaders
,but
260 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP . xx
with lightn ing- l ike decision Alexander ordered his men to
lie down in thei r ranks covered by their shields , and overthis improvised roadway the waggons passed withoutdo ing any harm . His Obj ective the Danube w as cro ssedwithou t loss in the face of the enemy , and having by theexplo it impressed the neighbouring t ribes with a senseof his power , he marched through Illyria and finally returned to Macedon ia, fo llowed by numerous ambassadorsw ho sued for peace .
The Destruction of Thebes, 3 35 B . c .— The next cam
paign.
w as of value no t only in exercising Alexander ’scapac i ty and valour but also as showing how l i ttle he
could rely on the support of Hellas . A rumour of hisdeath had reached Greece
,and without wait ing for its
confirmat ion the Thebans, w ho in common with the
Athenians and o ther Greeks had rece ived subsidies fromSardes
,revo lted and blo ckaded the Macedonian garrison .
The o ther Greeks sent messages of sympathy and
Demosthenes went as far as to supply arms ; but before “
any alliance w as organ ized,Alexander had reached
Boeo tia with a victorious army . Lenient terms w ereOffered , but foo lishly refused ; and the Macedonianarmy
,supported by the garrison in the Cadmea
,attacked
the Thebans,killing 6000 and taking prisoners
,
pract ically the whole male populat ion . The fate of
Thebes w as similar to that meted out by her in the daysof her power to other cit ies of Boeot ia . The city w as
destroyed with the except ion of the temples and Pindar’shouse
,the population w as enslaved
, and Thebes ceasedto exist . Throughou t Alexander showed statesmanlikemoderat ion and self-contro l .
,
H e gave a severe lessonwhich resounded in Hellas like a thunder - clap and
thereby strengthened his posit ion ; at the same t ime heavo ided all cruelty or outrage . such as would have shockedthe sent iment of Hellas . These campaigns
,which were
necessary for a young monarch w ho had recent ly ascendedthe throne and w ho wished to quit his dominions
,had the
intended effect ; fo r during the long absence of Alexanderfrom Europe the Regent w as able to cope with all localrisings and never required help from the army in Asia .
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
underrated the diffi culties that lay before him ,although
in face of the enemy his youth and the lust of battletempted him to run the greatest risks . It is
,I think
,
a mistake to look upon the Persian Emp ire as utterlyro tten and an easy prey to the first bo ld adventurer .Darius Codomannus
,whose rule w as unchallenged inside
the empire , w as a man of experience and had gained a
reputat ion for bravery . H e w as certainly more capablethan many of his predecessors . It must also be
remembered that the resources at the disposal of the
Satraps of Asia Minor were quite as great as thoseof Alexander, and included large numbers of Greekmercenaries
,w ho fought w ith the utmost bravery against
the Macedonians . Indeed,from the military po int of
V iew,not the mercenaries alone , but the entire Greek
populat ion of Asia Minor const ituted the backbone of
resistance , and , as will be seen later on, the death of
Memnon , w ho commanded for the Great King,w as a
stroke of extraord inary good fortune for the invaders .The Persian fleet w as supreme at sea
,as w as very clearly
shown at the siege of Miletus,and thus even the crossing
of the Hellespont must have been an operation invo lvingimmense r isk . Again
,it w as the Macedonian King ’s
good fo rtune that the straits were no t guarded by a
Phoen ician squadron . Alexander , moreover , unt il afterthe conquest of Phoenicia
,must always have borne in
mind the possibil ity that a s trong Persian expedit ionmight be despatched to Hellas
,where hatred of Macedonia
and greed for Persian go ld would at any t ime havecreated a serious situat ion . No ordinary leader wouldhave risked taking almost his ent ire army to Asia
,with a
ho stile Greece in his rear and a Persian fleet commanding the sea . The Persians might reasonably suppose thatthe expedit ion of Alexander
,w ho w as unknown and
very young , would no t be more serious than .that of
the veteran Agesilaus . They would recall the fact thatPhil ip’s generals Parmenio and Attalus
,w ho had invaded
Asia Minor with men in 3 36 B . C . ,had at first
met with success ; but that when Memnon took the
field against them , they had not been able to make good
BATTLES OF GRANICUS AND ISSUS 263
the ir posit ion ,and had finally retreated to Europe upon
hearing of the assassination of their master . In short,if
w e eliminate the gen ius of Alexander,the chance o f the
Macedonian army do ing more than conquering and
holding some of the coast provinces of Asia Mino r wouldappear to have been remote ; it would have been wornaway by the distances and by attrit ion . It w as Alexander ’sgenius alone
,using the splendid weapon forged by
Philip , that w on the lordship of Asia.
The Start of the Exp edition, 3 34 B.C .— It w as spring
time in 3 34 B.C . when the great expedit ion started fromMacedon ia. Perhaps the most striking fact about it w as
the pauci ty of its numbers for the magn itude of the
enterprise . The to tal force consisted of butinfantry and 5000 cavalry , and of these only abou t one
half were Macedonians . Thessaly and the surrounding /
tribes provided large contingents , but few Greeks servedin the ranks, although ment ion is made of a cont ingent ofPeloponnesians and other Greek allies . On the otherhand , it w as an army trained by warfare bo th againstregular troops and against hill tribes
,its moral w as high
owing to its almost uninterrupted record of victories,and
its confidence in its leaders w as strong and well founded .
Finally , its train ing and equipment were in advance of
anything that the world had hitherto seen . As to its
small numbers , Alexander counted on success to bringhim recruits who se enro lment would more than compensatefor losses in action and by Si ckness . He w as
,moreover ,
unable to provide the pay of a larger fo rce until he hadconquered some wealthy provinces . We know that his w archest w as very light
,as he stated himself that he started on
the expedit ion some 1300 talents, or ,g in debt
a very large sum .
The road as far as the Hellespont w as well knownand had been recent ly trodden by M acedon ian troops .The march w as made rap idly , probably to prevent the
news from reaching the Persians ; and much anxietymust have been felt for the safety of the fleet of 160
triremes and attendant transports on which the forcedepended for crossing to Asia. On the tvfentieth day
264 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Sestos w as reached,
and,
as Abydos on the oppositeShore had been retained by the Macedon ians after theirlast campaign
,the army w as speedily transported to Asia,
where it landed unopposed . It may be imagined withwhat fervour the Macedon ian monarch sacrificed to Zeus ,to Athene
,and to his supposed ancesto r Hercules .
The Ba ttle of the Granicus, 3 34 B.C .— After performing
a pilgrimage to the tomb of Achilles at l l ium,Alexander
marched northwards along the coast from Abydo s and
fought his first great battle at the Granicus , a river flowinginto the Sea of M armo ra near the then important city of
Cyzicus . It is stated by Arrian that Memnon, w ho com
manded the large force of Greek mercenaries , propo sed tothe Persian generals a po l icy of devastat ion and retreat ;but this w as overruled by the proud Iranians
, w ho nevershowed a finer spirit than in this battle . Had their dispo sit ions been as good
,it might have gone hardly with
Alexander . The Persians were posted on the right bankof the river
,which w as d ifli cult to cross
,and although
fordable had deep holes and high banks . They placedthe who le Of their cavalry, to the number of in
the fight ing line,and kept the formidable body o f
Greek mercenaries ent irely in reserve . In fact , they weredetermined to w 1n the fight themselves , and were too proudto employ the ir infantry
,which possibly in their hearts
they despised .
On the Macedon ian side full use w as made of all,
arms . The heavy infantry,divided into tw o phalanxes
and carefully flanked by Thessal ian cavalry,formed the
left wing under Parmenio . Alexander massed the heavycavalry on the right wing
,and by threatening to outflank
the Persian l ine induced the enemy to pro long it at the
expense of the left centre . H e led the main attack to thispo int , taking care no t to lo se touch with the phalanx .
At first the advantage w as with the Persians , w ho hurledjavelins at the light cavalry
,struggling below them through
the river in face of superior numbers ; but the heavycavalry w as brought up in suppo rt
,and a fierce struggle
ensued between the Persians with their javel ins and .the
M acedonians with their long spears . In the mélée Alex
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
moving eastwards . Ephesus surrendered and a democracyw as established in place of an o ligarchy ; but Miletusresisted
,its garrison being encouraged by the proximity of
the Pers ian fleet . This powerful squadron , however, w asbadly handled
,i ts commander allowing the Macedonian
ships to forestall it and shut it out from the port . Everyeffort w as made to induce the Macedon ian fleet to givebatt le
,and Parmenio advised the acceptance of the chal
lenge . But Alexander prudently declined to run the risk ,and in the end he disbanded his navy owing to its heavyco st and its inferiority to the squadrons in the Persianserv1ce .
Miletus w as captured by assault after a short siege .
The inhabitants and mercenaries w ho escaped were welltreated , and the latter enlisted in the Macedonian army .
Hali carnassus w as the next object ive . The headquartersof Memnon
,it w as strongly fo rt ified and well garrisoned
its capture w as therefore of the utmost importance and
l ikely to call for great efforts . The ditch w as filled inand a powerful siege train w as brought up . Sall ies madeby the garrison resulted in heavy losses , and Memnonfinally set fire to the city and evacuated it
,retreat ing with
the garrison to tw o strongholds . Alexander, whose losseshad also been considerable
,did no t follow them up , but
they were reduced in '
the following year by Ant ipater .From Halicarnassus Alexander sent back those of his men
w ho were newly married with orders to rejo in in the
spring,bringing as many recruits as possible ; he also
despatched a recruit ing party to the Peloponnesus . He
then cont inued his march along the coast, subduing the
various cit ies of Lycia and Pamphylia , in order to deprivethe Persian fleet of possible bases . Indeed , it w as thisproblem which must have called for the mo st seriouscons iderat ion .
The army next marched northward across Pisidia,where it encountered the fierce mountaineers and repulsedthe i r attack wi th heavy loss . Thence it entered Phrygia,which w as occupied and admin istered
,and at Gordium,
the capital of the ancient Phrygian kings , the newlymarried men and recruits rejo ined the main army , to the
BATTLES OF GRANICUS AND ISSUS 267
number of 4 000 men,not enough one would think to
make good the lo sses caused by casualties , s ickness , and
the garrisons that had to be provided .
Alexander ’s principal mot ive in leaving the coast withthe Persian fleet supreme and advancing into the heart of
Asia Minor appears to have been to follow the greatroute to Persia which ran through it ; but he w as no
doubt at tracted also by the prophecy that the lordship ofAsia would fall to him w ho unt ied the knot o f the waggonof Gordius
,the first ruler of the land . There w as some
thing fantastic in his charac ter,and this drew him to
Gordium,where
,as every schoolboy knows
,he cut the
kno t, while heaven sign ified i ts assent by thunder and
lightn ing .
The Dea th of M emnon, 3 3 3 B .C .— Meanwhile
Memnon,in pursuance of his plan o f carrying the w ar
j into Macedon ia and Greece,had Obtained possession of
Chio s . He had then turned his attention to Mitylene ,but during the operat ions fell ill and died . This w as
a great blow to the cause of the Great King . AfterI his death a Persian squadron which w as sent to the
Cyclades suffered defeat ; and it w as mainly from lackof Persian support that a Spartan revo lt , which beganin 3 3 2 never assumed serious proportions but w as
crushed at Megalopo lis in 3 30 B .C . by Ant ipater, the
Regent .The Battle of I ssus, 3 3 3 B.C .
— The second stage in the V
campaign began with Alexander ’s departure from Gordiumto encounter the Great King . Hitherto he had cro ssedswo rds only with distant Satraps but his advance wouldnow ,
he well knew,be opposed by the united fo rces of the
Persian Empire . The passage through Cappadocia w as
uneventful ; but upon reaching the famous Cilician Gatesafter a forced march he
,l ike Cyrus the Younger , found
trongly held . H e prepared to at tack the almostnable posit ion by night
,hop ing thereby to effect a
In this hope he w as disappo inted , but the movethan achieved .its purpose for the guard , upone advance
,withdrew rap idly, and Alexander ,
at his good fortune when he saw how easily the
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
pass could have been blocked ,1 descended into Cilicia andJ
o ccupied Tarsus by yet another forced march . Here he
w as delayed by a dangerous illness caused by bathing In
the co ld waters of the Cydnus ° but,soon recoveri ng
,he
despatched Parmen io to seize the Syrian Gates,already
ment ioned in connexion with Cyrus the Younger,while he
himself marched slowly after him,consolidating his posit ion
as he advanced . Hearing on his w ay that Darius w as 1
awaiting him tw o days ’ march to the east of the Gates , heprepared for batt le and march ed confidently forward .
Meanwhile the Great King,concluding from the delays
Of the -Macedon ian army that Alexander would decline a
battle , had broken up camp and crossed the same range bya pass farther north known as the Amanic Gate . He
suddenly appeared in the rear of the Macedonians and ,advancing on Issus
,captured and cruelly tortured to death
the sick w ho had been left there . Alexander, w ho had
passed the Syrian Gates,at first refused to believe the report
of this movement . When it w as confirmed he assembledhis o ffi cers and explained to them that the de ity w as
evidently fight ing on the ir side by persuading Darius todraw up his vast ho st in a narrow plain between mountains and the sea
,where there w as . enough room for the
Macedon ian army to manoeuvre,but where the Persian
advantage in numbers would be wholly thrown away . H e
also recalled the.glorious explo its of the Ten Thousand
which were well known to all.
The battle o f Issus,one of the decisive battles of
the world,w as fought near the city of that name
,on a
plain less than tw o miles broad 2 lying between the hillson the north-east and the Gulf of Iskanderun to the.
south-west . A little r iver ran down to the sea,and , pro
tected by it, the Persians had drawn up the ir vast , hetero
geneous host , est imated at men, which included
Greek mercenaries , a fo rce by itself nearly equal1 Unt i l the rocks were blasted in the m iddle of the n ineteenth century, camels had
to be un loaded and their loads carried by hand owing to the narrowness of the famousdefi le .
2 Ho lm,i i i . 23 9, states that the p lain w as about three m iles broad but Callisthenes,
w ho accompanied A lexander, makes it fourteen stadia, or say rather° more than a m ile
and a half,and
,a lthough the distance varied, it w as probably at that period less than tw o
m iles.
BATTLES OF GRANICUS AND ISSUS 269
to that of Alexander . Sixty thousand Cardaces, a people
w ho have no t been iden t ified , formed the left wing and
the Greek mercenaries the right wing,where the cavalry
also w as massed . The lower hills were strongly held bya body of men
,and had any ini t iat ive been shown
by the leader of this force,the M acedon ian rear would
have been seriously embarrassed . The remainder of thePersian fo rce w as ranged in suppo rt and took no part inthe bat tle . Darius , according to invariable custom
, tookpost in the centre .
Alexander , upon debauching from the Syrian Gates,
formed up his fo rce as soon as the ground permitted,with
the heavy cavalry headed by himself on the right wing andParmen io with the phalanx and the rest of the infantry onthe left . Seeing the Persian cavalry massed on the rightof its line , Alexander modified his dispo sit ions to the extentof de taching the Thessalian cavalry to pro tect the flanksof the phalanx . His anxiety as to his rear w as soon set
at rest by the supineness of the Persian outflanking force ,and w e read in the pages of Arrian that he first rested hismen and then led them forward very slowly to the riverbank where the Persian host passively awaited the attack .
As at Cunaxa, the Persian t roops would not stand the
Greek charge and fled l ike sheep ; but the Greek mer
cenaries stood firm , and as the ranks of the phalanx werethrown into disorder by cro ssing the river the contest w as
desperate . The deciding factor w as the cowardice of
Darius, w ho when the t ide of battle surged towards him
w as se ized with pan ic and fled , throwing away his shield tol ighten his chariot . It i s stated that in his fear he hadcaused mares whose foals were left behind to be postedalong the route , and that quitt ing his chariot he rode forhis life . Meanwhile the victo rious Macedonian right cameto the help of Parmen io , on the left , where as at the
Granicus the steady Greek mercenaries , deserted by the irPersian comrades
,fought magnificently , but in vain ,
unlessindeed they helped to save the worthless Great King , whomAlexander did not pursue unt il he saw that the battle w as
w on . The slaughter of the Persian troops , fleeing in pan icalong the hill tracts , w as enormous , and is said to have
270 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
exceeded The camp of Darius,with his family
,
became the spo il of the victor, w ho showed his magnanimityby treating his prisoners wi th respect and courtesy . Lessthan a million sterling w as captured
,but the main treasury
w as subsequently seized at Damascus by Parmenio .
J
The results of the bat tle of Issus were s tupendous .No t only had the Macedonians defeated with ease an armymore than ten t imes the i r ow n number
,but they real ized
that no Persian fo rce,however great
,would face them
reso lu tely in battle . The t ide of Asiat ic conquest hadindeed been turned when the Great King fled panic- stri ckenbefore Alexander , leaving the western prov inces of hishuge emp ire e ither to resist ent irely unsupported or to
submit to the invader .The Siege of Tyre and i ts Cap ture, 3 3 2 B . C .
— FromIssus Alexander advanced towards Phoen i cia, which w as hisnext object ive , rece iving as he pro ceeded the submission of
the Arvad of Ezekiel , of Sidon, which had to some extentrecovered from it s annihilation by Ochus
,and of o ther
cit ies . The conquest of Phoeni cia meant for him the
destruction of Persian sea power , and the consequentremoval of danger to his rear . It also meant the fo rmat ionof a new base from which he could operate . It wouldresult in the submission of Cyprus , which w as also an
impo rtant naval centre , and finally i t w as a necessary p reliminary to the annexat ion of Egypt .
Tyre w as now the chief city of Phoenicia,the destruc
t ion of Sidon having considerably increased its power andwealth . The crowning city 1 stood on an island distanthalf a mile from the shore , and w as defended by very highwalls . Relying on their strength , as they had successfullydone in the case of Persia, its rulers , after first agree ing tosubmit , declined to al low Alexander to enter the city withhis army in order to sacrifice to M elkarth
,the Tyri
Hercules , w ho w as recognized as a separate hero from the
Hercules wo rshipped in Hellas . This refusal w as not to
be borne, and Alexander reso lved to deprive the city of itsinaccessibility by constructing a mole from the mainland
,
no easy task in the face of a desperate enemy . At first1 I saiah xxi i i . 8 .
272 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHA P. xxx
most successful of the many cities planned by him , w as
founded and impelled by the fantast i c strain in his bloodhe visited the mysterious oasis of Ammon. Afterappo int ing Egyptian rulers to govern in his name
,
Alexander retraced his s teps to Tyre,where he met his
fleet and immediately began preparat ions for the advanceinto the heart of Asia.
SILVER COIN OF S IDON 374-62
CHAPTER XXII
CAREER OF ALEXANDER THE GR EAT TO THE DEATHOF DAR IUS CODOMANNU S
H is ci ty there thou seest, and Bactra thereEcbatana her structure vast there shows
,
And Hecatompylos her hundred gates ,
There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream
The drink of none but kings .
M I LTON, Para dise Rega ined .
The Battle of Arhela , 3 3 1 B.0.— Upon quitting Tyre
exander made for Thapsacus on the Euphrates,j ust
Cyrus the Younger had done . There he found tw o
had been constructed by his o rders .force of 3000 cavalry which had been
without support to defend the passage had withIndeed it i s an extraordinary feature of this
ign that Darius,w ho had large bodies of light horse
disposal,made no attempt whatever to harass the
troops , w ho were heavily armed and po ssessed onlyrce of light cavalry . In these vast open plains
ho st should have been constant ly assailed,
mplete success a few centuries later byin this w ay brought down the pride
crossing the Euphrates, Alexander marchedthe fert i le district ofM esopotamia past Carrhae
, to
is,which Darius with fatuous negligence made no
to defend,although owing to its swiftness it w as
T
274 HISTORY OF PERSIA
no t crossed without great difli culty. He then pro ceededdow n the left bank
,traversing ancient Assyria, which at
that period w as ternied Athuria. At Gaugamela, close tothe ru i ns of Nineveh and some seventy miles north westof Arbela
,which has given its name to the batt le
,he
found Darius awai ting him on a plain specially levelledfor the evo lut ions of the cavalry and chario ts on whichhe placed his chief rel iance . H e had learned the follyof meet ing the Macedon ians in a cramped area wherehis numbers could no t tell . His army is said to haveexceeded a million
,drawn from every corner of his
empire . There w as a body of Greek mercenaries,but
no t as numerous as at Issus . Fifteen elephantsmarshalled in the fight ing line
,their first appearan
an historical battle .
The Macedon ians,whose only formidable oppo
at Issus had been Greek mercenaries, must have felt sereconfidence In the i r ow n valour
,their long train ing, and t
superb leading of the ir general . This confidenceexempl ified by the le isurely though careful movementsAlexander, w ho after receiving informat ionposit ion of the Great King , restedand fo rt ified his camp , in which he left his heavy baggthe sick , and a small garrison . H e thus prepareposition to fall back on if necessary , and ensuredabso lute freedom of his fight ing force .
The tw o armies were encamped some sevenapart
,separated by a low range of b ills and when
had been cro ssed by Alexander and the huge Persianlay before him ,
a council of w ar w as held to dec ide w hbattle should be jo ined immediately . Parmen io ,opin ion had mo st weight , advised a cof the battlefield in case of pitfallsstudy of the disposi tions of the enemycamp w as pitched and Alexander made a detailed e
t ion of the who le ground , apparently without interfefrom the enemy . Parmen io furthermo re suggestedin view of the overwhelming numbers of the Persiana night at tack should be made . -Alexander repliedthe famous remark
,
“ I do no t steal a victory .
”
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
grooms in rear . The charge of the Persian left wing and
the re info rcements sent to i t had caused a gap in the l inenear Darius
,and towards this Alexander charged at the
head of the Compan ion Cavalry,supported by part of
the phalanx . A short hand-to-hand fight ensued,which
w as ended by the fl ight of the dastardly Darius , w ho ,
craven as he w as , turned to flee while the i ssue stillhung in the balance .
The field of battle w as so enormous that the news didno t spread at once . Parmen io w as enveloped by massesOf the enemy , and be ing hard pressed sent a message to
Alexander,
1w ho returned to his aid , meet ing on the w ay
bodies o f Parthian ,Indian
,and Persian cavalry now in full
flight . Their desperate efforts to break through causedthe heaviest losses of the day to the Macedonians . Uponreaching the phalanx , Alexander found that Parwith the assistance of the Thessal ian cfeated the Persian right wing
,which w as in full fl
‘H e therefore started again in pursuit of Darius,
reached the Great Zab that n ight , where he bivouafor a few hours to rest his men and horses . The
day he cont inued the pursuit as far as Arbela,
miles from the field of battle ; but he fai led toDarius
,and men and horses being wo rn out
,he
the defeated monarch to retreat towards Ecbatanafurther molestat ion .
The issue of the battle of Arbela,though
chosen by the Great King,w ho w as supp
force of his empire, w as,from a
almost a foregone conclusion,
Alexander might be struck down in the mélthe armed fesistance of Darius w as a thingthe capitals of the Empire
,part i cularly Susa and great
Babylon,with all the ir hoarded wealth and material
resources , lay at the V ictor ’s mercy . Darius thenceforward w as a fugitive
,and could not hope to do more than
maintain a guerilla warfare on the outskirts of the empire.
Even this w as denied to the last of the Achaemen ian line,
1 Perhaps Parmen io sent these messages to prevent pursuit unti l the v ictory w afw on. Forgetfu lness of th is precaution lost the Greeks Cunaxa.
xxu ALEXANDER THE GREAT 277
owing to treachery of the basest kind .
“
Creasy,in his
account of this battle , quotes the following remark madeby Napo leon “ Alexander deserves the glory which he hasenjoyed for so many centuries and among all nations but
what if he had been beaten at Arbela,having the Euphrates
,
the Tigris , and the deserts in his rear , without any strongplaces of refuge
,nine hundred leagues from Macedonia 1
Surely the reply is that Alexander could have done whatXenophon had already shown to be possible .
The Cap ture of Bahylon and Susa — From Arbela thevictor marched on Babylon, where he w as welcomed bypriests and ‘people
,w ho knew the respect he had shown to
the gods of Egyp t . Like Cyrus the Great , Alexanderapparently took the hands of Be]
,and gave orders that
the temples which Xerxes had destroyed Should be rebuilt .
1
The Babylonians were pleased and thenceforth served himloyally .
From Babylon Alexander marched in twenty days toSusa
,the capital of Elam . The Greeks looked upon Susa
as the cap ital of the Great King and there Aeschylus laidthe scene of the P ersae. In the city talents , or V
p:1 were found , with o ther treasure of inestim
able value . It included the brazen s tatues of H armodius
and Aristogeiton,and these Alexander restored to Athens
where,many centuries later, they were seen by Arrian .
The Occup a tion ofPersep olis andPasargadae — Alexandercelebrated his triumph at Susa with great splendour, byoffering sacrifice
,by a torch race
,and by a gymnast ic :
contest . Having been jo ined by a welcome reinforcementof fifteen thousand men
,which must have been sorely
needed to make good his losses by death and sickness, andthe necessity of leaving garrisons at important strategicalcentres , he again set forth .
-H e decided to ascend themIranian plateau , to the sacred home of the Persians , theoccupat ion of which would prove to all the world thattheir emp ire had indeed fallen .
1
Crossing the Karun at the s ite of modern Ahwaz , hefollowed the route connect ing the tw o capitals v ia Behbehan
,which w as then well known ,
but has seldom beentraversed by modern travellers , owing probably to the
27s HISTORY OF PERSIA cxxx.
destruction of both the great cities . The Uxians, w ho
inhabited the rugged hills and were accustomed to rece ivetoll from the unwarlike Great Kings whenever they passedthat w ay, demanded the same from Alexander, w ho badethem in reply come to the i r defiles to receive it . H e thenfo llowed an unfrequented route with the swiftness whichwill ever be associated with his name
,and falling suddenly
On their villages surprised the tribesmen, w ho fled in all
direct ions . M eanwhile Craterus by a fo rced march hadoccupied the heights commanding the pass . Alexander’sow n column made a second great effort and occupied thepass befo re the Ux ians
,w ho found themselves obliged to
yield wi thout attempt at resistance .
Parmen io wi th the main body and baggage w as sentby the so- called carriage road lying farther south
,which 18
st ill as unmade,except i n so far as it is wo rn by traffi c
,as
i t w as more than tw o thousand years ago . Alexanderhimself marched with his wonted celerity through the
mountains to the Persian Gates,where the Viceroy of
Persis had built a wall to block the pass,and w as defend
ing it with a force of forty thousand men . The tacti csof Thermopylae were now repeated , this t ime by the
Macedonians,w ho were led by a hill track to the rear of
the pass and fel l on the Persians befo re dawn . Theirtrumpets gave the Signal to Craterus
,w ho had been left
in command at the mouth of the defile,and thus the
Persians were surrounded,and a terrible massacre ensued .
This w as the only o rganized resistance encountered inPersia .
Alexander then marched to the Kur,the Band- i—Amir ,
where he had o rdered a bridge to be built . Crossingthis , he reached Persepol is , the Persian capital of the
Great King , where he seized talents , equivalentto and o ther boo ty in vast quant i t ies . H e
wro te himself,as w e learn from Plutarch
,that ten thousand
mule carts and five thousand camels were needed for itstransport . There i s no thing incredible in these immensefigures when w e remember that
,generat ion after genera
t ion ,from every quarter of Asia
,huge sums were received
by the Great Kings , who se tradition it w as to amass t reasure
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
sent home loaded with gifts . Arrian states that not a
few of thei r number elected to fo llow the fortunes of
Alexander, whose forces were now ent irely professional,
looking to their leader and to no one else . The enormousJtreasure
,est imated by Diodorus at talents or
some forty millions sterling , w as left at Ecbatana,which
w as garrisoned by a force of Six thousand Macedonians .It thus became the mo st important military centre in the
1}newly conquered empire
,and w as parti cularly well chosen
owing to its central posit ion and its approximately equaldistance from Babylon,
Susa,and Persepol is . It also /
served as a new base for the main army . Parmeniodetached northward to march through the diffi cult countryo f the Cadus ians with orders to rej o in in Hyrcan ia, andthis operat ion
,the need for which is not apparent , he duly
carried out .
The Pursui t and Dea th of Darius Codomannus, 3 30 B .C .
—When arrangements had been completed , Alexander witha strong force of picked men started in pursuit of the hapless Darius
,whom he hoped to overtake at Rhagae , the
Rhages of the book of Tobit , the ruins o f which lie a few
miles to the south o f Teheran .
1 Alexander rested his men
for five days at Rhagae , and then marched east along whatis to-day the post road between Teheran and Meshed ,which throughout skirts the southern Slopes of the Elburz ,then known as the Taurus . It is seldom out of sight ofthe great desert of Persia
,which almo st throughout comes
up close to the foot of the mountain range , and has thusthrough all the ages fixed the course of the great routeconnect ing Ecbatana with Bactria. The first marcbrought him to the famous Caspian , Gates ,
2and the
second led him beyond them . He then heardBessus , Viceroy of Bactria
,had made a prisoner of
fugit ive king,and the informat ion spurred him to redo
his effo rts . Tw o mo re extremely long marches broug1 From Ecbatana
, the modern Hamadan , to Rhagae, the modern R ei,is just under
tw o hundred m iles, and as Arrian speaks of i ts being reached by forced marches on the
e leventh day, there is evident ly some m istake, either on the part of Arrian or in the
text .2 In Curzon
’
s Persi a, i . 29 3 , the question of the exact s ite is gone into at length .
Wi ll iams jackson , w ho has made a Special study of the quest ion, agrees w ith Curzon ’
s
conclus ion that the Sardarra Pass is the defi le referred to by Arrian .
THE CASPIAN GATES .
(From Hommnire d e Hell ' s Voyage en Ta rgue et en P erse . )
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ». xx11
fortune for Alexander . No t only did it discourageguerilla operat ions , which might easily have becomeformidable , but the odium of the deed fell upon Bessus 'and not upon Alexander . True to his chivalrous instincts , the victor had the body buried with all pomp at
Persepo lis .
LION-GRYPHON.
(Gold M edallion from British Museum .)
CHAPTE R XXIII
TH E L IM IT OF CONQUEST
Comparisoun myght never yit be maked
Betw ixe him and ano ther conq uerour ;For al this world for drede of him hath quaked
,
He w as of knyghthode and of fredom flour .
CHAUCER,The Monhes Ta le .
The Conquest of Hyrcania , Parthia , and Areia .-The
heritage of the empire of Persia w as now Alexander’s,
and he might well have deputed others to subdue the
outlying eastern provinces . But lust of conquest and
ambition were his ruling passions , and the death of
Darius produced no abatement of his thirst for un iversaldominion
,which his wonderful successes had merely
whetted . From the neighbourhood of Damghan the,“
Macedonian army turned no rth into the Elburz rangeto attack the Tapuritae , whose name i s preserved
~ in
Tabaristan, the medieval nomenclature of the province
of M azanderan . Alexander ’s objective be ing Hyrcania, V'
he divided his army into three divisions in o rder to subdue as wide an area as possible , and also to prevent thehill -men from un it ing to attack any one co lumn . H e
himself took the Shortest and most d ifli cult route , and
cro ssing to the Caspian watershed , w as met by the mostdistinguished o f the Persian nobles w ho had been in
attendance on Darius,including the Viceroy of Hyrcan ia
283
2 84 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
and Parthia . The three co lumns uni ted again at Zadracarta
,the cap ital of Hyrcania, which probably o ccupied a
site at or near Astrabad . Here he received the submission of o ther Persian nobles , including the V iceroy of
Tapuria, and of the fifteen hundred Greek mercenarIes .
During the halt of the main body in Hyrcania a raidw as made on the Mardi , w ho l ived farther west than the
Tapuritae under Demavand ; they w ere easily subduedand placed under the Viceroy of the Tapuritae, w ho w as
reappo inted to his post .
At Zadracarta, upon his return from the M ard iand
expedi tion ,Alexander Offered sacrifice and held a gym
nast i c contest . We then read in the pages of Arrian that“after these celebrat ions he began his march towards }
Parthia ; thence to the confines of Are ia and to Susis,a
city in that province .
”The general opin ion has been
that Alexander recrossed to the south Side of the Elburzand rejo ined the main Teheran—Meshed road at Shahrud ;but , as o ften happens
,this View
,formed originally , per
haps,with inadequate knowledge of the country
,has been
adopted by writer after writer without suffi ciently carefuland thorough examination . It is much more reasonable ,in the absence of precise informat ion , to suppose that theGreat Conqueror marched up the fert ile valley of the
Gurgan in which Astrabad is Situated . From this valleythere are tw o exits one by the NO Deh valley, which leadsthrough the heart of the Elburz to Pursian and Nardin ,
and the other up the Gurgan defile . Both these routespass the famous meadow of Kalpo sh, where an exist inglegend represents that Alexander camped and rested hisarmy . The route by which the valley of the Kashaf Rudw as entered
,containing Sa sia or Tus and modern Meshed
,
i s fixed by the fact that there i s only one break in the
wall of mountains which could be used for the passage of
an army with wheeled transport . This I traversed in1908 , and there is l ittle doubt in my mind that it w as the
very route that Alexander trod .
1 Sat ibarz anes , the Satrap sl
of the Are ians,offered his submission at Susia . Here
1 To dea l fu l ly w ith th is quest ion w ould take an undue amount of space and wou ldbe out of p lace in this work . I have made tw o j ourneys, part ly to study the quest ion .
xxx . THE LIMIT OF CONQUEST 2 85
Alexander learned that Bessus had assumed the t itle ofthe Great King, under the name o f Artaxerxes
,and he
decided to pursue him . Traversing Areia,now North
west Afghanistan , which he had restored to its Viceroy,
he w as already well on his w ay towards Balkh when he
heard that Sat ibarzanes , ac ting in collusion with Bessus,
had rebelled , had killed the M acedonian representat iveand his esco rt , and had collected the people to the capital
,
named Artacoana . As usual a forced march w as made,
some seventy miles be ing covered in tw o days,and the
rebellion collapsed . The Si te of Artacoana i s unknown,
but it w as probably on the Hari Rud . This view iss trengthened by the fact that Alexander founded an
Alexandria in the ne ighbourhood , which is generally believed to be close to modern Herat . No t that Herat
w as a new site . On the contrary there is the quatrainwhich runs
Lohrasp had laid the foundations of Herat
Gustasp on t h em raised a sup erstructureAfter him B ahman constructed the bui ldings,And A lexander of Rum comp leted the task.
The Annexation of Sistan and the M arch up the Helmand .
This rebellion changed Alexander ’s plan of campaign,
and instead of marching eastwards to Balkh,he decided to
go south and attack Barsaentes , Satrap of Drangiana or
Zarangia,1w ho w as one of the accomplices in the murder
OfDarius . Possibly Alexander feared that Barsaentes mightcut his l ine of communications , which w as kept open withmarvellous success
,notw ithstanding the eno rmous distances
and the fact that the downfall of its old-established dynastymust have thrown the country into a state of anarchy .
The capital of the province w as then Farrah,on a river
of the same name , st ill a place of some importance . But
the centre of populat ion must always have been the deltaOf the Helmand . This river has changed its course so
frequent ly that until archaeo logical proof is forthcoming ,it is impossible to ident ify with certainty the delta that
1 These names are the c lassi cal form of Zaranj (now known as Nad-i-Ali), whichname i s still preserved in Zirrah, one of the great depressions.
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
w as inhabited at this period . Sir Henry M cMahon,
1
whose au thority is most weighty , probably by a processo f eliminat ion
,concludes that it w as the delta of Tarakan
,
and select s the ruins of Ramrud as be ing the si te of the
capital of the Ariaspae , whose country w as visited by theMacedonians after Drangiana . It i s mentioned thatCyrus had given this tribe the honourable name of
Euergetae, or The Benefactors, in return for aid
rendered to him ; and Alexander also treated them withhonour and increased the extent of the ir territories .
This w as the mo st southerly point reached in EasternIran . A great sect ion of the Lut separates Sistan fromthe province of Carmania or Kerman
,which w as traversed
on the return from India so Alexander now swung eastwards and marched across Arachosia, a district situated on
the middle Helmand . He probably crossed the river atthe modern Girishk , fo llowing what has been the mainroute from t ime immemorial
,and then marched up the
Argandab and founded yet ano ther Alexandr ia,the
Kandahar of to—day. Thence he turned nearly north,
by what must have always been a main route,to Kabul
?The same road w as trodden in the opposite direct ion morethan tw o thousand years later by ano ther European force,an English army under Lord Roberts .
The Crossing of the Hindu Kush and the Annexa tion ofBactr ia
, 3 2 8 B . C .— No rth of Kabul
,clo se to the main v
range of Asia, which had been already crossed to reachHyrcan ia
, yet another ci ty w as founded , near the villageo f Charikar, a site of great importance at the j unction of
three routes acro ss the various passes from Bactria. Thisw as termed Alexandria ap ud Caucasum,
2and w as garrisoned
with M acedonian co lon ists, for whom one cannot but feeldeep sympathy ; for their chances of see ing thei r homesagain were slight . Indeed , when infantry and
3000 cavalry w ho had been settled in Central Asiaattempted to return home after the death of Alexander
,
1 t e“ Recent Survey and Exp lorat ion in Sistan ,
”in journa l Royal Geographical
Society for Sep tember 1906 . Tate,in his M emoir on Sis tan
, Part I . p . 8 , would iden t ifythe Re is tri be w ith the Euergetae . This work contains va luable informat ion co llectedat fi rst hand.
2 This range, now known as the H indu Kush or H indu Ki l ler,
”w as then termed
the Indian Caucasus or, more usual ly, the Paropanisus.
2 8 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
of the twentieth century , unless , indeed , he has travelledin Persia, where fifteen miles a day is the average stage fora caravan ,
or from n inety to one hundred m IIes a week,
including halts .The First M acedonian D isaster .
— While Alexander w asthus engaged he learned that Sp itamenes , w ho had submitted to him ,
had rebelled . Act ing with his usual energy,
he crossed the Jaxartes , and defeated the Scythians, w ho had bf
co llected on its right bank to help the insurgents . Mean
while a division he had sent to rai se the siege of Samarcandhad been cut to pieces in the valley of the Polytimetus
(now the Zerafshan) by Spitamenes, supported by a large
body of Scythians from the steppes . A lexander started off‘
immediately but arrived only in t ime to bury the fallen , and
to avenge the disaster, he ravaged and massacred throughoutthe fert i le valley . Thence he returned to Zariaspa,
1 wherehe rested his army and received large r e info rcements fromGreece, which must have been extremely valuable at thisj uncture .
The Cap ture of the Soghdian R och.— After its rest , the
Macedonian army again cro ssed the Oxus . Alexanderhimself marched to Marcanda ; four other divisions w ereformed to subdue the country thoroughly, and this theydid without much diffi culty . While these operat ions werein progress Sp itamenes
,the most energetic of Alexander ’s
opponents , made a raid,in which he penetrated as far as
Zariaspa ; but he w as pursued and driven away by Craterus .
In at tempt ing another raid he w as defeated,and the
Scythians ultimately sent his head to Alexander as a
peace o ffering . Bactria and Soghdia were then organized JIn peace .
This campaign w as marked by a striking feat in the
capture of the Soghd ian ro ck . Its garrison,believing it to
be inaccessible,taunted the Macedonians and boasted that
only winged men could take the fo rt . Alexander offered1 Ident ified by Sir T. Holdich (v ide Ga tes I ndia, p . 90) with Anderab ; but as
this district is in the h i l ls it could hardly have served as the winter quarters of
Alexander. M oreover, w e know that Spitamenes raided Zariaspa with some Scythianhorsemen
,and
,if modern ana logy serves , they would not have entang led themse lves in
the hi l ls . Zariaspa w as more probably in the open p lain n ot very far from the Oxus,and may poss ibly be ident ifi ed with Balkh itself. t e Bactr ia , by H . G . Rawlinson ,pp . 10-12 .
290 HISTORY OF PERSIA
towns , and although the ir lo sses were not heavy,the effort
would appear to have been somewhat out of proport ion to
the results, especially as Alexander himself w as woundedin the Shoulder by a dart and in the ankle by an arrow .
Probably the report that Hercules had not been able to
capture Aornos w as the main cause of the who le campaign .
The moral effect of these successes must,however
,have
been considerable .
Nysa , a Colonyfounded hy Bacchus.— One extraordinary
incident of the campaign w as the arrival at a city termedNysa
,whose inhabitants claimed to be descendants of the
army of Bacchus, po inting in proof of their statement tothe fact that ivy grew i n the ir ne ighbourhood and no
where else . Alexander,delighted to hear this legend ,
which would act as an incentive to the Macedonians torival the explo its of the god , treated the Nysaeans withmarked kindness , and in honour of Bacchus the armywove ivy Chaplets and sang hymns , invoking him by hisvarIOus names .
The Passage of the Indus.-Meanwhile Hephaestion
had reached the Indus at Atto ck,where its width narrows 1
to about one hundred yards,and constructed a bridge of
boats some t ime before Alexander rejo ined the main body .
Taxiles,too ,
had sent a gift of money,elephants
,oxen
and Sheep,together with a force of seven hundred mounted
men at the same t ime he formally surrendered his capitalo f Taxila
,the largest city in the Panjab , whose ruin s lie
half w ay between Attock and Rawal Pindi . Alexanderrecognized the importance Of the o ccasion by offeringsacrifices and celebrating contests and he waited to crossthe Indus until the omens proved favourable . H e thenadvanced on Taxila
,where he w as rece ived with demon
s trations of friendship , and in return he added to the
territo ry of the state .
5
The Ba ttle w i th P orus, 3 26 B . C .
— A Macedonian ~l
garrison w as left at Taxila and the ever—victo rious armymarched towards the Hydaspes, now the Jhelum
,where it
w as known that Porus , a mighty monarch , had co llected alarge force strengthened by many elephants to withstandthe invaders . Upon reaching the river they saw his camp
xx111 THE LIMIT OF CONQUEST 29 1
on the oppos ite bank . The situation w as diffi cult,as the
Jhelum w as in flood and unfordable,and Alexander ’s
horses could not be trusted to face the elephants . But
his genius shone most brightly when dealing with difficulties
,and after lulling the suspicions of Porus by con
stant marches and countermarches,he cro ssed from a
po int seventeen miles above his main camp where a woodedisland screened his movements . During the operat ionthere w as a vio lent storm of rain and wind
,which
, how
ever,ceased before daybreak . The troops were embarked
in boats,and after passing the island steered for the oppo
site bank , where they were detected by the scouts of Porusw ho rode Off to give the alarm .
Upon landing , the Macedon ians found that they wereno t on the mainland after all
,but on another island
,and
they had to ford a swift stream reaching higher than the
chest before they formed up on the left bank of the river .There Alexander encountered the son of Porus with a
force of 2000 men and a detachment of chariots ; butafter a sharp skirmish the Indians were driven backwith the loss of their commander . Po rus , meanwhileleaving a few elephants and a small force to contain the
Macedon ian troops w ho had been left in camp , formeda line of battle with his main body in the immediatene ighbourhood of Chillianw ala
,where in 184 9 Brit ish
troops met valiant Sikhs,many of whom were probably
the descendants of the so ldiers of Porus . Trust ing to
the terror inspired by his elephants,he distributed them
to the number of tw o hundred in front of the line , a
hundred paces apart . Behind these w as a force ofinfantry . His cavalry and chariots were po sted on the
flanks .Alexander
,whose troops must have been weary after
their long march in heavy rain and the passage of the
jhelum ,ordered rest to be taken while he studied the
dispositions of the enemy . Seeing the elephants coveringthe whole l ine
,he decided not to make a frontal attack ,
but,taking advantage of his
ainst
292 HISTORY OF PERSIA cxxx
Greek right 1 to the rear of the enemy , with orders toharass them when they moved to mee t the main attack .
The commanders of the phalanx were instructed not to
advance until the cavalry charge had produced its effect .The Indian cavalry, upon seeing their rear threatened , werepreparing to wheel part of their force to meet the un
expected danger when Alexander charged home, and theybroke and fled for shelter behind the elephants . The
phalanx now advanced,
and as the elephants crushedthrough it the situat ion w as for a while serious . The
Indian cavalry attempted a second charge but the betterdisciplined Macedonians drove them back upon the ele
phants , and fo llowing them up hemmed them in . The
elephants,as the bat tle progressed
,became unmanageable
from their wounds and attacked friend and foe indiscriminately ; but , whereas the Macedonians could retreatand open out when charged
,the Indians were so closely
wedged in together that their lo sses were very heavy .
At last , when the elephants refused to charge any longer,the M acedonians
,advancing in close order , cut the Indians
to p ieces . At this juncture Craterus,w ho had cro ssed the
Jhelum,appeared on the battlefield , and as his troops were
fresh they engaged in a vigorous pursuit which turned thedefeat into a routPo rus
,conspicuous on a huge elephant
,had fought
throughout with the utmost bravery,and not unt il his
troops were defeated did he seek refuge in fl ight . Be ingcaptured he w as brought before Alexander
, w ho askedhim how he wished to be treated . Like a King w as
the proud reply . Asked if he had any further request tomake
,he rej o ined
,Everything is comprised in the words
Like a King .
’
Alexander w as at his greatest in this battle . Throughout the operat ions he made no mistake ; his army facedelephants in large numbers for the first t ime , after a longnight march in a sto rm and the trying passage of the
Jhelum the victory w as abso lutely decisive,and , to crown
all,he displayed great generosity to the vanquished mon
1 P lutarch, w ho w as not very accurate in m i litary questions, makes Coenus attackthe right wing of the Indians.
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu». xx111
for three days secluded himself ent irely, in the hope thatthe so ldiers’ mood would change . Finally , as they showedno Sign
,he sacrificed and
,the omens being unfavourable
to an advance,the greatest so ldier of all t ime permitted
himself,as the Macedon ians put it , to be vanquished by
his ow n men. The order to march back w as given 1and
rece ived with demonstrat ions of heartfelt joy. Twelveenormous altars were erected to serve as thank—offeringsto the gods and as memorials of the to i l endured
,and after
celebrat ing a fest ival in the usual manner,the army marched
back to the Ravi , which w as probably crossed near Lahore,
and to Wazirabad on the Chenab,which is now a pro sai c
railway j unct ion . Alexander then proceeded to the
Hydaspes , where he halted to construct sufficient ships tocarry 8000 men
,and when these were ready the armada
started off to conclude the mo st important o f all earlyvoyages . I t is safe to state that unt il the present generat ion no o ther European had trodden many of the routeswhich are ment ioned by the Greek writers
,but which can
now be identified from the accurate descript ions that havecome down to us
,more .especially in the pages of Arrian .
1 In Ten Thousand M iles,etc chap . x iv. is devoted to the march of A le
India to Susa.
MEDALLION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
(Cab ine t de France. )
CHAPTER XXIV
THE DEATH OF A LEXANDER THE G REAT— H I S
ACH IEVEM ENTS AND CHARACTER
He taugh t the Hyrcan ians the institut ion of marriage, the Arachosians
agriculture be caused the Soghdians to support, not to ki ll, them parents the
Persians to respect, not to w ed, their mothers . Wondrous ph i losopher,w ho
made the Scyth ians bury their dead instead of eating them .
—PLUTARCH on
A lexander the Great .
The Voyage to the Indian Ocean— TO term the expedi
t ion of Alexander to the Indian Ocean a retreat i s surelyincorrect . Just as of his ow n will he made the jaxarteshis limit of conquest in the north
,so in India his army
made the Panjab his limit to the south . But he descendedthe Jhelum and the Indus as a conqueror
,and as a con
q ueror he traversed the deserts of Gedrosia, subduing and
organizing his conquests,unt il he reached the South-eastern
provinces of Persia. Thus he completed an expedit ionduring the course of which
,as an examination of the map
will prove,few if any centres of importance between Egypt
and the Panj ab had failed to hear the foo tsteps of hiswarriors and feel the ir might .
The great armada started down the Jhelum in the
autumn of 326 B .C .,on a journey which to the sea alone
w as about n ine hundred miles in length , and took nearly ayear to accomplish . Nearchus
,dest ined to earn immortal
fame as the first of all scient ific naval explorers , w as incharge of the fleet
,which kept carefully defined stat ions ,
295
296 HISTORY OF PERSIA
while divisions of the army marched along bo th banks .The Chenab w as entered
,not without danger from the
eddies,and Alexander, ever thirst ing for fresh laurels , left
the river to attack the Mallo i,whom he severely harassed .
In storming their chief city , generally ident ified withMultan
,he leaped down alone into the stronghold with
only three devoted fo llowers , and when the Macedonianscame to his assistance he appeared to be mortally wounded .
The dismay of the army,to whom it w as reported that
Alexander w as dead , may be imagined , and so may the
t ransport Of joy with which he w as greeted when suffi
ciently recovered to endure the fat igue of returning to hiscamp, where he mounted a ho rse to prove his convalescenceto his so ldiers .From Patala
,at the apex of the Indus delta, Craterus
w as dismissed in charge of three brigades,the invalids
,and
the elephants,with instruct ions to travel to Persia “ by
the route through the Arachosians and the Zarangians .
Alexander sailed down to the Indian Ocean and , in spiteof a storm and the st ill more alarming phenomenon of the
t ide , which ebbed and left the fleet stranded , he advancedinto the open sea
,where he sacrificed to Poseidon
,and
after offering libat ions threw the goblet into the water asa thank-offering
,praying the god to grant Nearchus a
successful voyage .
The M arch from the Indus to Susa , 3 25 B . C .— The
direct ion of Alexander’s march through almost the ent irelength of what is now termed Makran w as undoubtedlydetermined by the knowledge that his flee t, on which herelied to complete this epo ch—making expedit ion
,would
require assistance ; throughout i t i s clear that his movements were subordinated to this cons ideration . Knighterrant as he w as , his convict ion that Semiramis and Cyrushad barely escaped from the deserts of Gedrosia with theloss o f almost all the ir men
,would naturally furn ish him
with an addit ional incent ive to w in fresh laurels . Cro ssing the Arabius
,now the Purali , he turned towards the
sea to dig wells for the use of the fleet,and then swept
the country of the Oreitai to the west , where he fo llowedthe same course . He next entered Gedros ia, and for some
29 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
it reached,and would certainly not pass by the valley of
the Bampur River . Therefo re w e may confidently assumethat the mid-winter w as Spent in this valley of Baluchistan
,
and here Alexander regained touch with his PersianSatraps . From Poura the river w as fo llowed down to
'
where its waters commingle with those of the Halil Rudin a hamun or lake known as the Jaz Morian
, w hiCh Idiscovered in 1894 when I fo llowed the foo tsteps of
Alexander In thi s section of his great journey . A stmdsngcamp w as formed In the valley of the Hal il Rud
,probably
in the modern district of Rudbar . Higher up this valley ,in 1900,
a Greek alabaster unguent vase,dat ing from the
per iod of Alexander,w as found by me . It i s now one of
my greatest treasures , as there is every reason to bel ievethat it w as left behind by the Greek army .
I t w as at this standing camp,where an Alexandria w as
founded which has been identified with modern Gulashkird
,that the weather - beaten and ragged Nearchus
appeared . Alexander,seeing him in a miserable plight ,
feared that his fleet w as lost,and w e can imagine the joy
of allwhen its safety w as announced,and with what fervour
sacrifices were Offered and honours bestowed .
In the valley of the Halil Rud the great army w as
jo ined by Craterus,with the baggage and elephants
,after
a march down the Helmand and across the Lut and the
journey w as resumed under the most agreeable conditions,
with abundant suppl ies,and no host ile force to be expected .
Nearchus returned to the fleet , which he safely conductedto Ahwaz
,and Hephaestion marched along the coast ,
keeping in touch with it . Alexander , with a p ickedforce of light troops
,traversed the districts of Sirjan
and Baonat to Pasargadae , where w e read of his distressupon finding that the tomb of Cyrus had been desecrated .
The great army w as reunited at Ahwaz , and crossed the
Karun by a bridge . Thence it marched to Susa ; and
here the greatest expedition recorded In histo ry terminatedin triumphal rejo icings and In weddings between the noblestMacedon ians and Persians .
The Voyage to Babylon— After a while Alexander, ever
chafing at inact ion,sai led down the Karun to the Persi an
300 HISTORY OF PERSIA cxxx
Hyrcan ia for :the exploration of the Caspian Sea. Therew as at that time no certainty that it w as an inland sea
,
and the Volga w as quite unknown . Embassies from manylands
,including Carthage
,Libya
,Ethiop ia, Italy, and
Gaul,came to offer the ir congratulat ions , and such wide
spread homage must have tended to flatter the prideof the
‘Great Soldier . When he approached Babylon,the
priests of Bel begged him not to enter the city ; but herej ected their advice , as interested, and marched in triumphinto the ancient capital of Asia .
The Death of Alexander the Grea t, 3 23 B.C .— No t con
tent with the vast empire he already possessed,Alexander
began almost immediately to prepare for an expedit ionto Arabia by means of reconnaissances and the construc
t ion of a powerful fleet to be manned by Phoen ic ians .H e also made a voyage down the Euphrates and beganthe construct ion of a dockyard at Babylon . Suddenly ,in the midst of his preparat ions
,he w as stricken w ith
fever , probably contracted in the marshes of the Euphrates .H e cont inued to give orders and to Offer sacrifices as
usual but at last he became speechless,and after greet ing
his grief-“
S tricken soldiers as they filed past him,Alexander
' the Great passed away at the early age of thirty- tw o,in
the he ight of his fame and the splendid plenitude of hispower .
An Analysis of Hellenism.— It i s important to grasp
the effect produced on the Pers ian Empire by the GreekConquest ; and in o rder to do so it is necessary to con
sider for a moment the nature of Hellen i sm,which w as
impo sed on the East . Bevan, w ho devo tes a brilliant andmost suggestive chapter to th1s subject ,
1 lays down thatthe epoch—making achievement of the Greeks w as to bring/
freedom and civilization into un ity and this is profoundlytrue . As has been po inted out in dealing with Sumer andAkkad
,the dwellers in Babylonia, in consequence mainly
of the physical condit ions, were certainly not free in the
Greek sense of theword ; indeed each Of the old powers notonly rested on slavery but held that even its free subj ect swere bound to obey any and every o rder without demur .
1 The House q eleucus, chap . ,
1.
302 HISTORY OF PERSIA
this explains the fact that the Englishman i s so often an
able administrator w ho , thanks to his love of sport and
of physical exercise , can l ive all over the globe.
and maintainhis health and with it his sane outlook , his initiative , andhis energy . Just as Alexander the Great built cantonments at strategical po ints, where he posted garrisons w holed their ow n lives, so the Brit ish of to-day hold India bya mere handful of administrators and soldiers also livingtheir ow n l ives in cantonments distributed at strategicalcentres
,albeit with thei r task facil itated of late years by
rai lways and the telegraph .
To conclude this comparison , would it be far-fetched tocompare the Macedonians with the Sco tch
, w ho ,descended
from wild clansmen , have yet played almost as leading a
part in emp ire-building as w as played by the tribesmenof Macedon ia under thei r ever-famous King
The Frui ts of Hellenism.—Given then the Greek char
acter, it is reasonable to suppo se that in ordinary con
d it ions the posit ion of the subject races would be betterthan under the rule of Persia
,just as the Englishman
shows incomparably greater considerat ion to the Indianthan the Indians do to their fellow-countrymen . The oGreek generals , w e know, fo llowed the example of theirk ing in subduing robber tribes and in introducing law and
o rder . But when once the master mind had been removedby death , furious r ivalries and wild ambitions were let i/loose and the Macedon ians spoiled the ir splendid heritageby incessant campaigns . And yet the sp irit remained , and ,i f the era of stri fe never entirely passed away , it is tobe remembered that the armies engaged were small andthe area enormous ; and thus w e can well believe that
,
as in India during the Mut iny,quiet progress w as con
stantly made in districts which were no t affected by thefight ing .
A matter o f no l ittle importance w as the dispersal ofthe hoards of the Achaemenians . Although in the first /
place the money w as given to Macedonian offi cers and men
and w as mainly spent on building temples and on publicworks in Greece
,this unlocking of the treasure-house of
Asia increased the trade of the known world enormously.
xxx, DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT 303
AS the roads to the East were open for intercourse of
every kind , it i s reasonable to suppose that the beneficentpower of commerce w as st imulated and increased to an
extent w e canno t easily appreciate .
One further po int remains for not ice . Alexander theGreat is made to figure in Persian legend as the destroyerof the Zoroastrian rel igion . This is in fact a completemisrepresentat ion . Strabo 1 ment ions that he prohibitedthe barbarous custom of exposing persons at the po intof death to the sacred dog, and perhaps it w as thisand s imilar actions which make the po licy of Alexanderappear to be the very reverse of what it actually w as . It
must also be remembered that it w as through priestlyand consequently ho st ile sources that legends concern inghis act ions were handed down .
The Achievements and Character of Alexander the Great.-It has been well said that Alexander the Great represents
the culminating po int of Greek civilizat ion bo th in hisachievements and in his character . His achievements wereto lead the forces of the poor but virile kingdom of
M acedonia, threatened as it constantly w as by the statesof Hellas and the surrounding tribes
,over the known
world,conquering , o rgan izing , and civil izing wherever he
went . H e held together his conquests by justice,by
founding cit ies at strategical po ints which were occupiedby Greeks
,and above all by his genius , which w as not
merely dazzling but attract ive . And this gigant ic work,
which w as accomplished in eleven years , held good in /
many cases for cen turies ; so that after h is death,Arrian
tells us , from Hellas to India,Semit i c and Turan ian states
were alike ruled by Greek dynast ies permeated with theHellenic spir it . Again
,this extraordinary personality
worked to break down the barriers between East and
West, and had he succeeded in yoking all Hellas to the
noble task the results would have been incomparablygreater and more last ing than they were but even Athenscould no t rise above lo cal jealousies, and Sparta w as everhost i le . This temper in Greece only heightens the achievements of Alexander, which , w hen the age, the short time,
1 Strabo, xi . 517.
304 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP. XX IV
and the circumstances are all considered , stand unrivalledamong the deeds of men .W
In studying his character no one w ho reads with carethe pages of Arrian and of Plutarch can fail to no t ice thej udicial frame of mind in which they are written . The
erro rs and defects of Alexander are ne ither concealed norextenuated but set forth plainly , and w e are impressedwith the fact that w e have a truthful , detailed , and impartialaccount of his li fe . This being so
,does the character of
any great conquero r appear finer than that of this fearlesskn ight
, w ho in Makran poured away a precious draughtof water in the sight of his army ? H e w as courteousto women , ever athirst ' for knowledge
, and surely wo rthyof the chief seat at any court of chivalry ; true to all
,
generous, humane , and greedy only of renown . Werehe impeached before any conceivable tribunal
,could w e
not fancy him exclaiming , like the great Englishman,
Clive,By God , Mr . Chairman ,
at this moment I standastonished at my ow n moderation Moderation
,self
control,and the cult of the proper mean of Aristotle
were among his marked characterist ics in all his deal ingswith his fellows .Alexander w as not only the greatest of all soldiers ; he
w as a statesman who se plans were constantly successful,
and his love of explorat ion and of knowledge of all kindsw as a ruling passion throughout his li fe . In parting withperhaps the most famous man w ho ever trod this earth
,
I quote the words of his great histo rian,Arriam For my
ow n part , I think there w as at that t ime no race of men,
no city,nor even a single individual to whom Alexander ’s
name and fame had no t penetrated . For this reason itseems to me that a hero totally unl ike any o ther humanbe ing could not have been born without the agency of thedeity .
”
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
without personal ambit ions and more loyal to the throne ,proclaimed Philip Arridaeus king .
The moment w as crit ical , but a compromise w as made ,and
,in accordance with ancient custom ,
the who le armymarched between the divided halves of a dog which hadbeen sacrificed ]l and then engaged in a sham fight
,the
infantry oppo sing the cavalry and the elephant division .
The infantry w as overpowered,and as the contest threat
ened to become grimly earnest , surrendered the leaders ofthe party favouring Phil ip Arridaeus , w ho were thereupont rampled to death by the elephants . In the end 1t w as settledthat Philip Arridaeus should be king until the expectedheir w as old enough to
'
succeed,and that Perd iccas should be
regent of the who le emp ire . The generals were appo intedto various countries
,to which they pro ceeded , meaning
undoubtedly in most cases to carve out kingdoms forthemselves , a fact history has recogn ized by bestowingupon them the t it le of D iadochi or Successors .”Meanwhile Roxana had ent iced Stat ira
,the daughter
of Darius,to Babylon
,where she murdered her, and her
ow n position w as shortly afterw ards strengthened by thebirth of a son
,known as King Alexander .
The Deaf}: of Perdiccas , 3 2 1 B . C .— The clash of con
fl icting interests ended speedily in w ar. Perdiccas , aftermany intrigues
,strengthened his position by betrothal to
Cleopatra,which gained him the support of the masterful
Olymp ias . This fresh development so alarmed Ant igonusof Phrygia that he fled to Ant ipater
,w ho
,in the previous
year , had succeeded in crushing a Greek rising in What isknown as the Lamian w ar. Perd iccas now attempted to
remove Ptolemy from his path,and summoned him from
Egypt , hop ing that his order would be disobeyed . Butthe astute P tolemy promptly appeared before the army ,the sovere ign tribunal
,which duly acquitted him ,
and he
re turned 1n safety to his province . Angered by this wantof success
,Perd iccas invaded Egypt
,where he failed
signally 1n three attempts to force the passage of the Nile .
The Macedonians turned on him and he w as murdered by
1 For th is rite 'w'
de Livy x1. 6. I have to thank Sir J. G . Frazer for drawingmy attent ion to th is reference.
xxv WARS OF THE “ SUCCESSORS” 307
his ow n officers . Peace w as then made with Pto lemy,and
the army marched away to jo in the forces of Ant ipater .The R ise of Seleucus .
— Among the leaders in thismut iny w as Seleucus , w ho w as dest ined shortly to play aleading part . A favourite of Alexander
, w ho had no tedhis splendid physique and great courage
,Seleucus
,although
comparatively young , had served with dist inct ion throughout the long series of campaigns
,and in India had been
appo inted Commander of the Royal Hypasp istai or
Medium Infantry .
1 At the tr iumphal celebrat ion at Susa ~
he had been awarded the hand of Apama, the daughter ofSp itamenes , w ho with Oxyartes had been so doughty an
opponent of A lexander in Bactria, and thus the famousSeleucid dynasty, of which he w as the founder
,sprang
from both Macedonian and Iranian sto ck .
After the death of Alexander and the assumption of
the regency by Perdiccas , Seleucus w as appo inted to the
command of the Compan ion Cavalry,and in Egypt he led
the cavalry oflicers w ho forced their w ay into the Regent’s
tent .
The Macedonian infantry , which had been ignored inthe mut iny
,ro se against Ant ipater when the tw o armies
met . He attempted to reason with the men but w as
greeted with stones,and had no t Antigonus and Seleucus
intervened it would have gone hard with him . When a
redistribut ion of posts w as made,Seleucus
,possibly in
reward for his services, w as appo inted to Babylon , where
he immediately began to assert his authority and to extendhis power .
Tbe Fight for P ow er .— During .
the twenty years of
constant warfare following"the second distribut ion of
.a
v,
posts,
“
Which”w as in real ity a partit ion of the empire
,
.and’
I propose to ! dea‘l -with themvery briefly . Pithon ,
Satrap of Media, and Peucestasfl‘
Satrap of Persis,were bo th among Alexander ’s -greatest
‘
and most trusted ofli cers ; but the former w as too ambitious and impat ient
,and no sooner had he returned to
‘
his province after reappo intment to it than he se ized
l ’These troops were used when the phalanx could not be emp loyed, and were lessheavily armed.
308 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Parthia, making away with its Satrap . This false step gavePeucestas an opportunity of heading a force supplied byhimself and o ther ne ighbouring Satraps
,which drove
Pithon out of Media and forced him to flee to Babylon forhelp
/ ifntigonus and Eumenes ,
— Meanwhile Ant igonus had"
been fight ing against E umenes,the late King ’s secretary ,
w ho alone at this period represented the family of Alexander in Asia
,and had fo rced him in 3 20 B .C . to shut
himself up in a fort in Cappadocia. The fo llowing year ,
the loyal Ant ipater died,and as he had bequeathed his
ofli ce of regent no t to his son Cassander but to Polyperchon
,a brother- in-arms
,the latter, in o rder to secure
support against Cassander,espoused the cause of Olymp ias
with great zeal,and Eunienes w as thereby enabled for a
short t ime to play“
a leading part in the ceaseless strugglefor power . The command of the farnous Silver Sli iélds 1 ’
and‘
al'
s? the disposal of the royal treasure were entrustedto him . Indeed , the prospects of the royal family seemedto be distinctly brighter but in 3 18 B . C . its fleet w as defeated off Byzant ium by that of Ant igonus and Cassander
-a very serious blow . Eumenes,a man of strong char
acter , thereupon marched inland and called upon the
Satraps w ho had attacked Pithon to recognize his autho rityand to jo in him . He spent the winter of 3 1 8-3 17 B.C .
in Mesopotamia,and in the spring encamped only thirty
miles from Babylon,on his w ay to Susa. Seleucus tried
to corrupt the Silver Shields,
”but in vain,and Eumenes
jo ined the Satraps at Susa.
Meanwhile Antigonus had effected a junction with theforces of Seleucus
,and in pursuance of the ir concerted
scheme he marched on Susa,which w as ult imately surren
dered . Eumenes opposed him as he w as attempting to
cross the Karun , and infl icted a serious defeat ‘
on him ,
fill ing the river with the dead and capturing four thousandmen . In a second engagement the Silver Shields
,
”w ho
were now men of over sixty , carried all before them ,but
lo st the ir baggage. They thereupon disgraced themselvesby an act of treachery seldom paralleled in mil itary history .
They handed over their undefeated general Eumenes to
xxv WARS OF THE “ SUCCESSORS” 309
Ant igonus ; and , in sp ite of the remonstrances of Nearchus,
one of the very few generals w ho kept his high reputat ionin prosperity , he w as put to death .
~ The date of thiscrime w as 3 16 B. C .
T/te Sup remacy of Antigonus on the Death of Eumenes,3 16 B . C .
— Ant igonus next assassinated Pithon ,whom he
lured to a friendly conference,and Peucestas w as also
mysteriously removed . Laden with the treasures of
Ecbatana and Susa to the value of six millions sterling,
Antigonus returned in triumph to Babylon,where he
intended to complete his successes by making away withhis host , Seleucus . He
,however
,fled to Egypt
,where ‘
Pto lemy rece ived him and granted him protect ion . Ant i
gonus now overshadowed all his rivals, and , as his fleets
were supreme and he o ccupied a central posit ion whichmade concerted act ion on the part of his enemies extremelydifli cult , i t seemed probable that he would overcome themone by one .
T/ze Destruction of t/ze Family of fl /exana’er the Great.
The savage hatred and jealousy of Olymp ias and Eurydice,
prototypes of the equally barbarous and cruel Fredegondeand Brunhild , were the main cause of the final destruct ion of the royal family. At the same t ime , the characterof the “ Successors”appears in a very evil l ight ; for,with the exception of Antipater , w ho w as loyal to histrust
,none of the generals w ho owed everything to
Alexander rall ied round the throne to protect his helplesshei r. Cassander
,w ho had been passed over by his father,
had jo ined forces with Antigonus, and as a result of
the naval battle in the Bosphorus he had been able to
conquer Hellas from ‘Polyperchon,the Regent . Then
followed the first of the royal tragedies . Olympiasreturned suddenly to Macedonia from Ep irus and
contrived to seiz e Philip Arridaeus and his intriguingwife Eurydice . With savage cruelty she put them to
torture and finally to death , Philip being shot with arrowsand Eurydice being graciously permitted to hang herself.The old Queen then arrested hundreds of the adherentsof the family of Antipater , and they too were mercilesslydealt with . Upon the return of Cassander, the tide
3 10 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
turned,and Olympias
,besieged and captured in Pydna
,»
w as stoned to death in revenge for her many crimes .The youthful Alexander and Roxana now fell into
the hands of Cassander, w ho , having himself married a
daughter of Philip , aspired to the throne . He kept theyoung King and his mo ther clo se prisoners for a few
years , but in 3 1 1 B. c .,hearing that the people were
murmuring,he basely murdered the deserted son of
Alexander the Great,whose fate is surely one of the mo st
pathetic in histo ry . Cleopatra,the widow — queen o f
Epirus,
and Hercules the i llegitimate son were alsomurdered
,and the ext irpation of the royal family w as
continued un ti l the usurpers had no fear of a host i leclaimant to the throne w ho could boast that he w as of
royal descent .
The Battle of Gaza , 3 12 B . C .— To return to the chief
acto rs , there were in 3 15 B. C . ,or only e ight years after
the death of Alexander the Great , but four Macedoniansw ho had maintained their power , the o thers
,namely ,
Perdiccas, Eumenes , Peucestas , and Craterus, having
disappeared from the stage,while Seleucus w as
fugit ive . Ant igonus ruled from the Mediterranean Seato Bactria Pto lemy held Egypt firmly Cassander ruledin Hellas and Macedonia, and Lysimachus w as carvingout a kingdom for himself in Thrace and in Asia Mino r .
The balance of power having been upset by the
preponderance of Ant igonus,the three weaker rulers“
made common cause,and down to the decisive battle
of Ipsus , in 30 1 B . c .,they constantly endeavoured to
undermine and weaken his position . The first great Jblow w as struck by Pto lemy
,w ho
,accompan ied by
Seleucus, marched into Syria and infl i cted a heavy defeaton Demetrius
,the brilliant son of Ant igonus . This
ent i rely upset a plan for invading Europe which Antigonushad been maturing .
The Reoccup ation of Bahylon hy Seleucus, 3 12 B . C .
The effects of this defeat were made much greater by thedaring venture of Seleucus
, w ho set out with a body ofonly one thousand men to recover his lost prov ince .
There w as a strain of knight-errantry in Seleucus that
3 12 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
after n ine years of successful warfare , his empire extendedto the Jaxartes in one direction and to the confines of thePanjab in the o ther . In India’
he came into contact withthe famous conqueror Chandragupta, better known to usby his classical name of Sandroco t tus , grandfather of thest i ll more famous Asoka. At first he prepared to attackthis monarch ; but realizing that the advantages to be
gained were far outwe ighed by the risks,he came to
terms with him ,ceding the Greek po ssessions in India
up to the Hindu Kush,in exchange for 500 trained
w ar elephants and large sums of money . Seleucus sealed.
the treaty by giving his daughter to the Indian monarch ,and it w as faithfully observed on bo th sides .During this period Seleucus organized his vast empire
into seventy- two satrapies,an arrangement which lessened
the chances of revo lt by preventing any single subjectfrom becoming too powerful . Furthermore
,he had
moved the cap ital to Seleucia, a city which he foundedon the Tigris some forty miles no rth of Babylon . Hisobj ect in building it w as probably to strengthen the
influences of Hellenism,which must have been weak in
face of the great traditions and associations of Babylon .
Antigonus ana’Ptolemy.
— ln the west , meanwhile , thestruggle had cont inued with varying success . Demetriusw as subduing Cyprus when a fleet commanded byPtolemy in person came in sight . In the batt le whichensued the Egyptians sufl
’
ered complete defeat , fortyships of w ar
, 8000 soldiers , and immense boo ty beingcaptured and many ships besides being sunk . Followingup this success , Ant igonus invaded Egypt ; but the
expedit ion failed , Ant igonus , like Perdiccas , being baffledby Pto lemy . He w as baflled also at Rhodes
,which
Demetrius w as unable to take . Here,too
,the assistance
in men and money afforded by Pto lemy contributed not
a l ittle to the successful defence .
The Battle of Ip sus, . 30 1 B. C .— During these last years
Antigonus had been barely ho lding his ow n,and when in
302 B. C . the forces of Lysimachus and Cassander carried .
the w ar into Asia Minor,Demetrius w as recalled from
Greece , where he had been conducting a brilliant campaign .
xxv WARS o r THE “ SUCCESSORS” 3 13
. It w as Seleucus w ho now decided the issue . At the end
of 302 B . C . he marched into Cappadocia with a veteranarmy of infantry , mounted troops
,
elephants,and 100 scythed chario ts . In the spring of
30 1 B.C . he united his forces with those of Lysimachusand a decisive battle w as fought at Ipsus , in the provinceof Phrygia
,on the great route runn ing from Sardes to
Susa . In the first phase Demetrius routed the Opposingcavalry commanded by Antiochus , son of Seleucus ; buthe
,like Prince Rupert in later times
,carried the pursuit
too far,and Se leucus
,whose elephants were used to great
effect,w on the battle . The success w as rendered all the
more complete by the death of the veteran Antigonus,w ho
to the end w as expect ing the return of his impetuous son .
This victory w as a most important one ; for, althoughDemetrius st i ll maintained his ho ld on parts of Hellas andon Cili cia
,Cyprus
,Tyre and Sidon
,and possessed an un
beaten fleet,Syria w as annexed by Seleucus and Asia
Minor by Lysimachus .Seleucus became thenceforward the paramount king ,
as Antigonus had been befo re him ,and consequently, to
preserve the balance of power,Pto lemy and Lysimachus
united against him . Probably it w as on this account thatthe Seleucid capital w as again transferred , this t ime from the
centre of the empire to the Orontes,where Ant ioch arose
in great splendour foreshadowing its future importance .
The Career of Demetrius Poliorcetes after Ip sus .— Refer
ence has already been made to some of the brilliant explo itsof Demetrius
,best known by his title Poliorcetes or
Taker of Cities . Plutarch compares him apt ly withAntony
,and the i r l ives w ere indeed , as he says , each a
series of great successes and great disasters , mighty acquisit ions and tremendous losses of power, sudden overthrowsfollowed by unexpected recoveries .
”No one w as more
conspicuous than he for some years after the battle of
Ipsus, and a brief account of his later career is necessary,
as he w as connected with almo st every important event .When Seleucus pract i cally succeeded to the paramount
posit ion of Antigonus,Lysimachus and Ptolemy , as w e
have seen,were forced into opposition . Seleucus con
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
sequently made overtures to Demetrius , and asked for hisdaughter Stratonice
,the grand daughter of Antipater”
marriage . This pleased Demetrius,w ho came to Syria
with his daughter , and the tw o monarchs remained on
excellent terms unt il Seleucus tried to purchase Cilicia,
and demanded Tyre and Sidon ,the po ssession of which
had become a mat ter of great importance to him since hisestabl ishment at Ant io ch . Demetrius replied by augmenting their garrisons , and shortly afterwards returned to the
West .
His Access ion to the Throne of M acedonia .
-In’
297 B . c .
Cassander died,and m the fo llowing year his son Philip
also ; the kingdom of Macedonia w as then held byhis tw o remaining sons , w ho reigned conjo intly . But
again the barbarous Macedonian spirit showed itself inAntipater
, w ho murdered his mother ; and Demetrius,
taking advantage of his opportun ity, seized the throneof Macedonia in 29 3 B . C . Soon afterwards
,his vast,
preparations for a campaign in Asia aroused Lysimachusand Pto lemy
, w ho incited Pyrrhus of Epirus to jo in the
former in a concerted invas ion of Macedonia,while
Seleucus turned the situat ion to advantage by annexingCili cia . The Macedonians had come to despise the
luxuriousness of Demetrius , and , regarding Pyrrhus as
the bravest so ldier of the dayand the most l ike Alexander ,1
desired him for their king . They consequent ly desertedDemetrius
,to whom Plutarch applies the words put by
Sophocles into the mouth of Menelaus
For me,my destiny, alas, is found
Wh irl ing upon the gods’
sw ift w heel around.
After a period of eclipse this truly great adventurercollected a force
,and
,landing in Asia Minor , captured
Sardes . Agatho cles,son of Lysimachus
,now appeared on
the scene,and although he gained no success , the army of
Demetrius suffered from lack of suppl ie s and forage and
lo st a number of men in the passage of the Lycus . So,
1 P lutarch writes They thought his countenance,his swiftness and his
motions expressed those of the Great A lexander,and that they beheld here an
image and resemblance of his rap idity and strength in fight . What a Sp lendid memoryA lexander bequeathed to the Macedonians
3 16 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP . xxv
Keraunus fled to the court o f ~Lysimachus , where he w as
rece ived most kindly . ! But he intrigued against hisbro ther— in - law Agathocles , w ho ,
on a false accusat ion,
w as put to death by his father, and Keraunus then lefthis court for that of Seleucus . The murder of Agathocles
,
whose inno cence w as subsequently proved , rai sed a stormof indignat ion against Lysimachus , and Seleucus tookadvantage of it to attack him . The i ssue of the cam
paign , whose theatre w as in Asia Minor, w as hardly
doubtful,as the subj ects of Lysimachus were completely
al ienated . In a battle on the plain of Co ron, the site
of which has not been identified,Lysimachus w as killed .
Thus at last Seleucus w on where both Perdiccas and
Ant igonus had fai led ; but , in view of his extreme age ,he decided to surrender his vast empire to his son and to
spend his few remain ing years as King of Macedon ia,his
dearly loved home .
The Assass ina tion of Seleucus Ni cator, 2 8 1 B.C .— But
the fates were against the real izat ion of his desire . As hew as proceeding towards Macedon ia, after cro ssing the
Hellespont,he w as assassinated by Keraunus while l istening
to the legends connected wi th an ancient altar . Thus fellSeleucusNicator
,or
“the Conqueror ,
”w ho w as perhaps the
greatest and most attract ive of the “ Successors .” Hisdeath may be said to close a chapter of history .
SELEUCUS SOTBR .
CHAPTER XXVI
THE SELEU C ID EMPIRE TO THE R ISE o r PARTH IA
And the so ldiers made ready for battle and sounded the trumpets . And
they distributed the elephants among the phalanxes and for every elephant theyappointed a thousand men, wearing coats of mai l, and on their heads helmetsof brass . And the rest of the horsemen they set on the tw o w ings ofthe army to strike terror into the enemy and to serve as protection for the
phalanxes . And when the sun shone upon the sh ields of gold and brass,the
moun tains glistened therew ith and blazed like torches of fire .—The Seleucid
A rmy,from 1 M accabees v i .
The Accession of Antiochus Soter, 28 1 B. C .— The house
o f Seleucus w as shaken to its foundat ions by the foul deedof Keraunus : and the defect ion of the army and of the
fleet to the assassin seemed to presage its overthrow .
Probably the great distances and the lack of goodcommunications gave a respite and thereby proved the
salvat ion of Ant io chus , w ho moreo ver it must be remembered w as no raw youth but a man with considerableexperience bo th in w ar and in administrat ion . For a
considerable period the energies of the new monarch wereent irely devo ted to securing his posit ion in Syria. Mean
while his bro ther- in—law Ant igonus Gonatas,
son of
Demetrius , prompt ly espoused his cause , and attackedKeraunus , partly , it may be imagined , in order to defendMacedon ia, but he w as defeated and ret ired to Central(3reece .
The Inv asion of the Gaq and the Death of PtolemyKeraunus, 280 B .C .
— Keraunus w as no t dest ined to enjoyhis i ll-gotten power very long but to perish and that
3 17
HISTORY OF PERSIA a r .
speedily . A terrible inroad of Gauls,or as the Greeks
termed them Galat ians, spread deso lat ion far and wide, andon Keraunus fell the brunt o f the invasion which resultedin his defeat and death in the spring of 2 80 B C . Thatyear Macedonia w as overrun by the terrible invaders , w ho ,not content with murdering , ravishing , and burning
,
apparently even ate the Greek children. The followingspring they turned the pass of Thermopylae and ravagedHellas ; but they were at length defeated at Delphi
,
whereupon they retreated and Greece w as saved .
Asia Minor so far had remained invio late : but theNorthern League , consist ing of Bithynia and the powerfulcity—state o f Heraclea, made a sinister alliance with the
Gauls and ferried across a large body, w ho spread far
and wide ravaging and massacring, and finally o ccupied
districts in the province of Phrygia.
The Defeat of the Gauls by Antiochus I . Ant io chus I . ,
gained his title of So ter or the “ Saviour by a greatv i ctory gained over these invaders . Lucian tells us thatthe Gauls , w ho possessed forty thousand cavalry and manyw ar chario ts
,were preparing to charge when the elephants
of Ant io chus moved to the front and by their mereappearance terrified the horses and caused a mad stampede .
The Macedonian V ictory w as complete, and Ant iochuscelebrated i t suitably by a trophy bearing the figure of
an elephant . As t ime passes w e hear of the Galatiansenl isted as mercenaries and fight ing as such on oppositesides
,until gradually they settled down and became
partially civil ized , although gangs of them levied blackmail for many years to come .
The D iv isions of the Emp ire of Alexander after the
Inv asion of the Gauls.— The Celtic Fury ended the
epoch of the contemporaries of Alexander the Great,and
when its fo rce w as spent there were only three emp ires orkingdoms left
,with a fringe of independent states . The
‘
most important in area,population
,and resources w as
ruled by the house of Seleucus , which w as united to thatof Macedonia by t ies of special strength . Seleucus
’
Nicator
had , as w e have seen,married Stratonice , sister ofAnt igonus
Gonatas , and then,to grat ify his love—s ick hei r
,the son o f
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
re ign of Pyrrhus,Epirus had to be reckoned with . In
short, there w as an unbroken chain of lesser states intouch with one ano ther from Atropatene to Hellas
,and
forming an important factor in the po l it ical situat ion .
The Death of Antiochus Soter , 262 B . C .— The later
years of Ant io chus are wrapped in some obscurity,the
chief event to record being an indecisive campaign wagedwith Egypt, which began in 274. B.C . Ptolemy apparentlyused the cry of Helleni c autonomy with much effect
,and
for the mo st part w as successful during the first tw o
years but when Antigonus intervened the Egypt ians weredefeated o ff Cos .
,
The l ife of Ant iochus unt il its closew as one of constant struggle to keep his vast possessionstogether . The task w as enormous ; forAsiaMinor , his realhome
, w as far from the centre of the empire,and between
Syria and Persia lay great separat ing wastes . After nineteen years of constant effo rt wi th varying success he died ,full of honours and years
, a no t unworthy prince of the
house of Seleucus . His re ign and that of his contemporary .
Ptolemy in Egypt const itute the golden Hellen istic age ,and it i s thanks to his enlightened patronage that Berossuspublished the history of Babylonia
,based on the cuneifo rm
reco rds,of which
,alas ! only fragments have come down
to us . Dr . Mahaffy is of opin ion that the early Greekversion of the Pentateuch w as also made at this period
,
for the benefit of the Jews settled in Egypt .
Antiochus Theus , 262— 24 6 B . C .— The re ign of Ant i
ochus whose title of the “ Deity w as bestowed bythe city of Miletus
, w as marked for some years by a
cont inuance of the dreary w ar with Egypt ; but at last thisterminated no t only In a peace
,but in a clo se all iance .
By its terms Beren i ce,the daughter of Pto lemy , w as
married to Ant io chus, w ho undertook to divorce Laodice,
to whom he had been married for many years and bywhom he had a family . Laodice ’s influence , however,brought Ant io chus back to her
,and in 24 6 B . C . she
po isoned him . I t i s recorded of him,probably with
truth,that he w as hopelessly sensual and depraved .
The R evolt of Bactria , 256 B .C ., and of P arthia ,
250
B. C .— It w as during this reign that Bactria
,in conj unct ion
xxv1 THE SELEUCID EMPIRE 3 2 1
with Soghdiana and M argiana, broke away from the empireunder i ts governor Diodotus , w ho w as allowed to o rganizehis kingdom undisturbed for many years before a Seleucidmonarch attempted to reassert his claims . A few yearslater
,in B.C .
, Parthia also revo lted and established itsindependence . Lit tle d id the Seleucids realize that the
smal l cloud on the northern confines of the empire w as
dest ined before long to overcast the who le horizon of
Anterior Asia. Atropatene also,under its Persian ruler
,
increased in strength , and w e see the chain of secondarypowers now stre tching un interruptedly from distant Bactriato Hellas .
The Third Syrian War ana’
the I nv asion of Syria ana’
Persia,
B .C .— The death of Ant io chus I I . w as the
signal for a bitter civil w ar,in which during the first
phase the pro tagoni sts were Laodice and Beren ice . The
influence of the former,whose eldest son Seleucus had
almost reached manhood , w as naturally great but,if her
rival could gain t ime,the armed support of Egypt w as
assured . Laodice struck the first blow by arranging to
kidnap Beren i ce ’s infant son . The mother showed greatspirit , and succeeded in establishing herself in a fortifiedpart of the palace ; but she lost this advantage by herfolly in trust ing herself to the oath of her adversary
,and
she w as murdered .
Pto lemy Philadelphus had in the meanwhile beensucceeded by his son Pto lemy III . , known as Euergetesor the “ Benefactor .” A brilliant soldier, he speedilycollected a powerful army
,wi th which he appeared on the
scene , and the operat ions that fo llowed are known as the
Third SyrianWar . Our chief authority for this campaigni s an
‘ inscribed stone seen near modern Suakin by the
Egypt ian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes and copied by him .
This mo st important inscription runs : “ H e marchedinto Asia with foot—so ldiers and horse and with a fleetand with Troglodyt i c 1 and Ethiopian elephants , whichhe and his father had first captured in those parts and
equipped for w ar. After having made himself master of
all the countries on this side of the Euphrates he
1 The word “ Trog lodytic refers in this passage to the coast of the R ed Sea.
VOL . I Y
HISTORY OF PERSIA cus p .
cro ssed the Euphrates , and after the subjugation’
of Mesopo tamia, Susiana, Persia, Media, and all the remain ingdistricts as far as Bactriana he sent troops throughthe canals .”1 Here the inscript ion breaks off
,and w e
learn from o ther sources that events in Egypt compelledPtolemy to return . Although he left an army behind
,
the campaign w as rather a brill iant raid than a seriousattempt at permanent conquest . The naval operat ionswere more successful
,and many ports and coast pro
vinces were o ccupied , but, as in the case of the formerw ar, there w as no finality .
The second phase of the civi l w ar w as en tered uponwhen Seleucus II . , as to whose operations during the raidof Pto lemy w e know very little
, w as defeated decisivelyin Palestine after having lost his fleet in a sto rm .
The Battle of Ancyra , circa 235 B.C .
— At this crisisSeleucus appealed to his brother Antiochus H ierax ,
now
fourteen years of age and his mother’s favourite . Hearing
of this and ascertain ing that the army of the north hadstarted
,Pto lemy concluded a ten years ’ peace with Seleucus .
Ant io chus,however
,or perhaps rather the Queen—Mother ,
had no intent ion of supporting Seleucus on the contrary,
claim w as laid to the who le empire and a desperate civi lw ar began . At first Seleucus carried all before him but
when Mithridates of Pontus declared in favour of Antiochus and jo ined his army with a large fo rce o f Galatians
,
the odds against Seleucus were too heavy . At Ancyra,in
Phrygia,about 235 B. C .
,
2these grim ‘mercenaries swept
away the army of Seleucus,whose lo sses are said to have
aggregated twenty thousand . H e w as himself reportedas slain ; but the news w as false , and he escaped to
Cilicia,where he rallied the fragments of
‘
his brokenfo rces .
The provinces north o f the Taurus were defin itelylost to Seleucus I I . , but Ant iochus H ierax w as no t on
that account secure in the possession of his kingdom ;
for the Galat ians , w ho real ized their power , turned on
him , and made his p03 1t1on precarious . A peace w as
1 Vida Ho lm, vol. iv . p. 2 1 1 .
2 Vide Ho lm, vol. iv . p. 24 2, note 2 ; for th is date Bevan , vol. i . p . 285, w rites
soon after
xxv1 THE SELEUCID EMPIRE 3 23
therefore concluded between the tw o brothers,
andSeleucus w as able to turn his attention to Parthia andBactria .
The Camp a ign of Seleucus I I . aga inst Parthia — Thecampaigns of Seleucus I I . in the north of his stragglingempire belong to the history of Parthia
,and will be dealt
with in the fo llowing chapter . Here it is enough to statethat Seleucus , whose t itle o fCallinicus o r “ Splendid Victo rdoes not appear to have been part icularly well earned
,
defeated Arsaces of Parthia,w ho fled northward to the
steppes . Thence he speedily reappeared and Seleucusret i red to Syria, constrained , perhaps , as much by troublesin the western provinces as by fear of the Parthians . Littlemore is recorded of him , and a few years later
,in 227
— 226
B. C . ,he w as killed by a fall from his horse
,after a reign
crowded wi th failures and disappointments .Attalus of Peg amus ana
’ Antiochus Hierax .- The
fortunes of the house of Seleucus were considerablyinfluenced by the rise of Attalus of Pergamus
,w ho
succeeded to the throne in 24 1-24 0 B. C . Early in his
re ign he rendered an immense service to Hellenism by hiscrushing and repeated V icto ries over the Galat ians
,whom
he drove from the coast into the hills . As a result he ex
tended his power over Asia M inor at the expense of
Ant iochus H ierax,w ho maintained his posit ion at Sardes
with diffi culty .
The events of this period are extremely d ifli cult tofollow : but it appears that Ant iochus H ierax
,finding
himself unable to cope with Attalus, at tempted to conquerSyria by an invasion of Mesopotamia. There
,however
,
he w as defeated by the forces of Seleucus , and he escapedinto Cappadocia. In 229
— 22 8 B . C . he again fought Attalus , 1
and being defeated in a series of four battles fled to Thrace ,where in 22 8— 227 B. C . he w as killed by a raiding band of
Gauls,a year befo re the death of his bro ther . The result
w as to leave Asia Minor ent irely at the mercy of Attalusfor the death of Seleucus Callin icus prevented any attemptto reun ite the vast but unwieldy possessions of the houseof Seleucus . As Holm w ell puts it , the state of affairs inAnterior Asia during this troublous period must have
3 24. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
closely resembled that in Germany during the ThirtyYears ’ War .
“
Seleucus I I I .,226— 223 B.C .
— The burden which fellupon the heir to the throne of Seleucus , w ho is also knownas Seleucus Soter , w as crushing ; but he appears to havefaced it with energy and courage . Indeed the who le of hisshort re ign w as spent fighting for his inheritance againstAttalus of Pergamus , with what results w e do no t know.
His career w as cut short by a consp iracy and murder,in
223 B .C .
The Close of a Great P eriod — The historian Po lybiuschose 22 1 B .C . as the opening year of his great work ,on the grounds that it marked a distinct turn ing-po int inthe history of the world . Pto lemy Euergetes of Egypt
,
Cleomenes of Sparta,and Antigonus Doson of Macedonia
,
men of great personality , had all recent ly died, and the
vacant thrones were filled by youths wi thou t experience,
none of whom , except Antiochus the Seleucid , showed anycapacity
,and he too fell ingloriously after achieving a
splendid reputation . We shall have occasion to touchupon his career in connex1on with Parthia . For in the
history of Persia,too , this w as a time of change
,the rising
state of Parthia having already embarked on a career of
conquest which w as soon to embrace the who le of Iran .
In the west also a new period w as opening , when Rome,after absorbing the Greek cities of I taly and the greaterpart of Sicily
,appeared in Hellas at Co rcyra
,in connexion
with attacks made on her merchantmen by Illyrian pirates .Had Ant igonus Doson l ived , after defeat ing Cleomenes
,to
conso l idate what he had w on , Hellas united might haveformed a bulwark strong enough to beat back the risingmight of Rome but i t w as not so o rdained .
I ran under M acedonian Rule — Befo re w e quit thisperiod it will be well to give some idea of the people of
Iran under the dominion ofAlexander andIf w e compare the character of the Persians as describedby Herodo tus and that of the Macedonians , w e find con
s iderable similarity bo th in their mode of life and in the irpleasures . Bo th nations were equally fond of sport , whichincluded a love of horse and hound. Both , too , were
3 26 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
them being Europus and Heraclea, both at strategicalpo ints in the neighbourhood of Rhages . Po lybius saysMedia w as covered with Greek cit ies after the plan prescribed by Alexander to form a defence against the
neighbouring barbarians .”1 It i s probable that there w as
a chain of Greek cit ies or posts between Media and Bactria,and w e know what a large number of colonists were settledby Alexander in those utterly remo te regions
,and with
what pitiless severity they were treated when attempt ing toreturn home . In Persis
,which remained somewhat apart
,
w e hear of Ant ioch- in-Persis . In Carmania, the modernprovince of Kerman
,an Alexandria w as founded
,which
,
as already ment ioned,has been ident ified with modern
Gulashkird,a small Village which I have visited to the
north-east of Bandar Abbas . In Sistan the capital hadbeen made a Greek colony by Alexander under the nameofProphthasia, and farther no rth he founded an Alexandriaon the Hari Rud ; tw o other Greek cities were built inthis comparat ively fertile district under Seleucid auspices .Finally H ecatompylus , the capital ofParthia , and Eumenea
in Hyrcania must be ment ioned .
The Greeh Cities in the Pers ian Emp ire.
— Let us,in
conclusion,consider for a moment the posit ion of the
Greek cit ies . If w e bear in mind the numerical paucityof the Macedonians and Greeks
,together with the
sanguinary wars in which they were constantly engaged,
it is clear that,unless they kept the ir ideals with the
utmost constancy and remained like fl ints in chalk,they
must within a few generat ions have merged into the
surrounding populations . To a certain extent this actually w as their ult imate fate . The consciousness of a
similar danger prevails very strongly in India to - dayamong the English commun ity, where experience provesthat children educated in Ind ia are almost invariablyinferior in type to those brought up in England . As theGreeks in Asia could no t send their children back to
Hellas for educat ion,it w as of the utmo st importance
that they should be brought up in c i t1es which weretypically Hellenic
,even if situated on the banks of the
1 Po lybius x. 27. 3 .
xxv1 THE SELEUCID EMPIRE 3 27
Tigris or on the Iranian plateau . Even so there w as
undoubtedly rap id degeneration,partly owing to the fact
that the Greeks were sett led among peoples whom theyused as servants
,and w ho probably did all the work . As
a consequence,the Greeks of Hellas desp ised the Greeks
of Syria,j ust as a so- called Country-bred is somet imes
looked down upon by Englishmen bred 1n Great Britain .
Posidon ius of Apamea ( circa 135—
51 B .C .) depicts thelife led by the Greek co lonists , and shows clearly howluxury had ruined their manhood . The people of theseci t ies
,he says , are relieved by the fert il ity of the ir so i l
from a laborious struggle for existence . Life is a cont inualseries of social festivit ies . In the public eat ing-hallsthey pract i cally l ive , fill ing themselves there for the betterpart of the day with rich foods and wine . The cit ies arefilled from end to end with harp-playing .
If this w as the case in Syria , which maintained constantintercourse with Hellas , the degeneracy must have beenstill greater in cit ies where there w as no chance of regularintercourse and it is a remarkable tribute to the vital ityof Hellenism that , even when Bactria w as cut off byParthia from the empire , it survived for several generat ionsas a centre of Greek culture .
1 Posidonius ap . Athen . vol. 2 10 f. and xi 1. 527 c . Quoted from Bevan, p. 224 .
ARSACES I I .
CHAPTE R XXVII
THE R I SE OF PARTH IA AND THE APPEARANCE OF
ROM E I N AS IA
Parth ia 13 no t an ex tensive tract of country ; for th is reason i t w as united
w i th Hyrcania for the purpose of paying tribute under the Persian dom inionand afterwards . Besides i ts small ex tent, i t i s thickly wooded, mountainous,and produces noth ing .
-STRABO x i . 9 . 1 .
Parthia P rop er.-Parthia
,the home of the warrio r
race which for so many centuries divided with Rome the
empire of the wo rld,is familiar to me
,as lying mainly
within the modern provinces of Khorasan and Astrabad ,in which I have travelled extensively . I ts originalboundaries cannot be ascertained with exact itude ; but itis known that Parthia marched with Hyrcan ia on the
west , and that the latter state o ccupied part o f modernM az anderan and part of the Astrabad province . It seemscertain that the lower reaches of the Gurgan and Atrekvalleys were included in Hyrcania, and that the uppervalley of the Atrek , and po ssibly also of the Gurgan ,
belonged to Parthia . Along the southern slopes of the
Elburz range Parthia, even in ancient t imes,appears to
have stretched considerably farther to the west than on
the no rthern side . There can be lit tle doubt that itscapital lay in the ne ighbourhood of Damghan , which w as
the chief city o f Kumis in medieval t imes ; and Kumis isthe classical Comisene ment ioned by Pto lemy 1 as beingthat part of Parthia which adjo ins Hyrcan ia. On the
east it w as bounded by tthe Tej en River, which 1n part of
1 Ptolemy vi . 5. I . Vide also Strabo x i . 9 .
328
3 30 HISTORY OF PERSIA cu s p .
kings w e have no consecut ive histo ry,but only a few
scattered references . Nor can any informat ion of historicalvalue be gleaned from the Persian or Arabian historians .The co ins , unfortunately , bear no dates unt i l the clo se of
the first century of the Christian era,when the race of
Parthia w as more than half run . But as there are almostinvariably portraits on the co ins
,and as there are dates on
the later tetradrachms,the value of the ir evidence is con
s iderable , more especially since there are pract i cally no
rock sculptures or inscript ions to furnish materials for theuse of the historian . In the earlier re igns the quest ion of
dates presents considerable diffi cult ies .The Arsacid Dynasty — The o rigin of the Parthian
dynasty canno t be ascertained with certainty,and diver
gent statements are given by the classical writers . But
some facts are known . The Arsacids were no t a nat ivedynasty which rose in revo lt , but came from outside . The
nat ive Parthians are ment ioned by Darius with the Var
kana or Hyrcanians in the Behistun inscript ions,and were
apparen tly as much Aryans as the ir ne ighbours . The
invaders were a Turanian tribe from the north,termed
Parn i , a division of the nomadic people know ri as the
Daae or Dahae,whose habitat w as that of the modern
Yamut Turkorrian to the east of the Caspian Sea,and
w ho fought in the left wing o f the Persian army at
Arbela . In the Akhal oasis to the north of the RiverAtrek there is a distri ct which in the tenth century A .D . ,
and probably in much earl ier t imes , w as termed Dihistan .
It included a town of the same name,which according to
the Persians w as founded by Kei Kobad of the hero ic age .
To—day the name is st i ll known . Moreover,during the
course of my enquiries I w as informed that the Daz tribeof the Yamut cherish a legend
,according to which they
are descended from kings,and among the Yamu t Turko
man they are regarded as the noblest sect ion . Theyconnect the ruined Kala Maran
,to which subsequent
reference will be made,wi th the period of the i r greatness .
It is at least po ssible that these names are derived from the
1 Anaba sis,ii i . I I . The Dahae are mentioned as being one of the chief tribes of
Persia in chap . xiii .
xxvu THE RISE OF PARTHIA 3
Dahae , but it would be a mistake to press the po inttoo far .
The Chief Arsaces , w ho is the somewhat shadowyfounder of the dynasty , appears to have settled in Asaak 1
in the district of Astabene,which seems to be ident i cal
with the Akhal oasis, although Gutschmid ident ifies itwith Kuchan Asaak is po ssibly connected with the termAshkani , which is invariably applied to the dynasty bythe Persians
,and which survives in place—names no ted by
me in this district and also as far south as Tabas .2 On
the o ther hand,Ashkani may be ident ical with the name of
the dynasty. The name Arsaces,by which the dynasty is
known to the west , i s believed no t to have been a personalone
,but to have been adopted deliberately in order to con
nect theTuranian dynasty wi th the royalAchaemenian line .
I t will also be remembered that Artaxerxes II . (Mnemon)w as named Arsaces
,and w e are expressly told that the
Arsacid dynasty w as descended from Artaxerxes . 3 It isworth noting that the Achaemenian Arsaces w as bornwhen his father w as Satrap of Hyrcan ia and probablyalso of Parthia
,and this fact strengthens the theory just
mentioned .
The Bir th-Tear of the Arsacid Dynasty,24 9
— 24 8
B . C .— The Parthians themselves gave for the birth-year
of their dynasty a date corresponding to 24 9— 24 8
B. C . This w e may bel ieve w as in memory of someV ictory w on by Arsaces , but it i s by no means certain ,
and the quest ion is certainly not one for dogmat ic pronouncement .
The Career of Arsaces I . ,24 9
— 24 7 B . C .— The Chief
Arsaces , wi th whom w as associated his bro ther Tiridates ,attacked a Seleucid representat ive , probably the subgovernor of the district of Asaak,
in revenge for an
insult offered to the younger brother . The offi cial, w hoi s variously termed Pherecles or Agathocles , w as killed ,and as
,j ust before this period, the provinces of Bactria,
1 The House of Seleucus, l . 2 85.
2 A Fifth Journey in Pers ia, youm al R.G.S. for Nov . and Dec. 1906 . Accordingto Pers ian h istorians
,the founder of the Parthian dynasty w as Ashk, w ho w as descended
from the ancient kings of I ran .
3 Syncell. p . 539 , quoted by Bevan in op . ci t. i . p . 2 86 .
3 3 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
M argiana, and Soghdiana had broken away from the
empire,the opportunity w as favourable for a bold nomad
chief or the leader of a body of bandits 1 to occupy an
o utlying distri ct and then make a bid for a prov ince .
Here again the s ituation is no t clear in its details ,but
apparently the leading figures on the stage of this partof Asia were Diodotus , the rebel Sat rap of Bactria
,Andra
goras,Satrap of Parthia, and the nomad Chieftain already
new ly established in Astabene and apparently attackingParthia. Arsaces I . disappears from the scene , probablybeing killed in batt le in 24 7 B. C . Though a shadowyfigure , he w as nevertheless the founder of a mightydynasty .
Hecatompylus , the Cap i ta l.— The site of the capital of
Parthia presents considerable difficult ies . Rawlinson,w ho
w as well acquainted with the classical writers,located it
somewhere in the neighbourhood of the city o f Jajarm .
2
On the o ther hand,Apo llodorus of Artemi s places it
one thousand tw o hundred and sixty stades,
or one
hundred and forty-four miles , east of the Caspian Gates .Po lybius
,too
,in narrat ing the campaign of Antio chus
the Great against Arsaces I I I .,states that he took
H ecatompylus and then marched to Tagi in the mountains and descended into Hyrcania. Now Tagi
,or Tak
,
w as a wel l- known fortress in the Elburz range,the
last refuge of the Sipahbud of Tabaris tan ,and considered
at that period to be ancient . Much o ther evidence hasbeen marshalled by Schindler 3 and Williams Jackson , and
the site of Hecatompylus may now be ident ified with thatof the ancient city of Kumis . This l ies some eight milesto the south of the modern city of Damghan, and aboutsixteen miles from Tak. But it is curious that the
Parthians should have had the ir capital at the westernextremity of the ir country , and this fact misled me at
one t ime ; perhaps the site w as selected because their
1 Just in,xli . 5, writes .
“ One Arsaces, a man of uncertain orig in but undoubtedcourage
,arose at this period. He w as accustomed to make his l ive lihood as a bandit .
Perhaps Just in w as unable to appreciate the somewhat narrow l ine separat ing a nomadch ief from a robber.
2 I/ zde m ap to The Six th Or iental M onarchy.
3journal Royal A siatic Society, 1876, p . 4 27 .
3 3 4, HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
it w as not a serious disaster and the main body w as probably not invo lved .
1
Dara ,the New Cap i tal of P arthia — Tiridates , upon
the ret irement of Callinicus , devoted the remain ing yearsof his life to organiz ing his conquests . He fort ified theParthian cit ies, and selected a si te for. a new capi tal . Thisw as found in the mountain range termed Zapavortenon or
Apavarta.
2 It w as surrounded by precip itous rocks,which
enclosed a very fertile plain ; in the neighbourhood werethick woods and many. runn ing streams and
,finally
,the
so il w as very rich , and there , w as an abundant Supply o fgame . This city , named Dara by Tiridates
, w as subse
quent ly known as Dareium . Its Site has no t hitherto beenident ified . It seems possible that it lay in the GurganValley
,for nowhere else, I think , can the necessary condi
t ions as to woods and running streams be found . In the
course of'
a journey in 19 12 I v isited a high mountain,
resembling Gibraltar in shape,and termed Kala M aran .
Situated some fifty miles east ofAstrabad in the GurganValley
,it contains important ruins , and it may have been
the site in question . In any case , Dara w as found to beunsuitable , perhaps because the springs dried up
,as had
happened at the t ime of my journey,and Hecatompylus
after all remained the capital .The Early Career of Ant iochus the Great, 223 — 2 13 B .C .
— Ant iochus II I . w as a youth of e ighteen when he unex
pectedlysucceeded to the throne of the Seleucids . Achaeus ,his able cousin ,
remained loyal at this crit ical j uncture,and
the young monarch w as received w ith acclamation by theMacedonians in Syria upon his arrival from Babylon . He
rewarded Achaeus by appo int ing him Viceroy with fullpowers in Asia Minor . Mo lon ,
the Satrap o f Media,and
his bro ther Alexander , Satrap of Persis,were also given
full powers east of the Tigris . Unhapp ily the youngmonarch w as at this period under the :influence of
Hermias,a corrupt and jealous mini ster of the familiar.
1 Just in quotes Trogus, w ho fl ourished in the Augustan era,as saying
, Quem diemParthi exinde solennem
,ve lut in itium libertati s, observant .
”2 According to Brunnhofer, Apavarta is preserved in Bavard. I f so
,Kalat-i-Nadiri
m ay _
be referred to, as it is c lose to Abivard, the modern Doshakh but I hardly imag inethat Parthia stretched so far east at this period as to have its cap ital in th is district Nor
w as this district wel l wooded.
From a photog rap h by the Author .
KALA MARAN .
(Poss ib ly the S i te of Dareion . )
3 3 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
tw o years the campaign on the whole went in his favourbut in 2 17 B . C . the Egyp t ian preparations, which includedthe engagement of large numbers of Greek mercenaries
,
were completed , and Pto lemy marched northwards acrossthe desert . He met Ant iochus at Raphia
,on the northern
edge of the waste . The fight ing w as severe . The Indianelephants of Ant io chus drove back the African elephantson to the Egyptians, and thereupon Ant iochus broke the
Egyptian left by a charge and pursued it for miles . On
the o ther flank the situat ion w as reversed . There the
tw o phalanxes met , and at the first charge the Seleucidarmy‘ fled in disorder. Pto lemy w as satisfied with thissuccess and readily made peace , leaving the discreditedAnt io chus to face the unscrupulous Achaeus .
In 2 16 B. C . Antiochus marched across the Taurus, and
although no detai ls have reached us he w as evidently successful ; fo r tw o years later w e read of his besiegingAchaeus in Sardes . In the end
,through an act of
treachery , the details of which are mo re thrilling to readthan many a romance , Achaeus w as thrown bound intothe royal tent at night and put to a cruel death . Thi scampaign re-established the supremacy of the house of
Seleucus in Central Asia Mino r , and led to an agreementwith Attalu ft Ant iochus free to turn his armseastwards .
Antiochus the Great,209 B .C .
— We
now return to Parthia. Artabanus on his succession to
the throne assumed the t itle of Arsaces I I I .,and
,l ike his
father,took advantage of the difficulties of the house of
Seleucus,at this period engaged in fight ing Achaeus
, to
extend the sway of Parthia. The M ardian terri to ry w as
first overrun ,and the Parthians then passed the famous
Caspian Gates , on the west side of which lay MediaRhagiana, with Rhages and other important cities . MediaMagna
,with its capital , Ecbatana, w as next o ccupied ;
and it seemed probable that Artabanus would descend thegorges of the Zagros , when his advance w as effectuallychecked . After the death of Achaeus , Ant iochus first invaded Armenia
,and in 209 B .C . he marched into Media
and o ccupied Ecbatana,which w as not defended by . the
xxvu THE RISE OF PARTHIA 3 37
Parthians . The capital of Astyages st ill boasted of the
immense old palace with its co lonnades of wood,which
had escaped fire , by a miracle it would seem , although thegold and silver plates had been stripped off after Alexander ’s death . The temple of the goddess Anai t is hadalso been spared , and furn i shed rich treasure to the hardpressed Ant io chus , w ho realized the immense sum of fourthousand talent s by his act of sacrilege .
Arsaces I II .,meanwhile , had disappeared from Media
,
hoping that he would no t be fo llowed up,and by w ay of
precaut ion he attempted to fill up the Kanats or underground water-channels . But Ant io chus w as too quick forhim
,and marching with a force of cavalry spread out far
ahead to prevent the water supply from being tamperedwith
,passed through the Casp ian Gates and seized Heca
tompylus , which the Parthians,aware of their weakness
,
made no at tempt to ho ld . After resting his men,Antio chus
probably fo llowed Alexander’s foo tsteps into the Taurus,
where,although the Parthians had every advantage of
posit ion ,his light troops forced the p assage , and from
the summit of the range the army marched down intoHyrcania. Arsaces there engaged in a determined guerillawarfare
,for which the country w as favourable . Finally
he induced his powerful antagon ist to make terms and
accept him as an ally .
The M arch of Ant i ochus through Bactria ,the Panjab,
and Kerman,208— 204 B. C .
— Upon the conclusion of the
Parthian campaign Antiochus marched on Bactria,which
w as ruled by a Magnesian named Euthydemus , w ho hadoverthrown the house of Diodotus . A cavalry engagement w as fought on the right bank of the R iver Tej en
,
in which Ant iochus displayed great bravery , and the
defeated Bactrian army w as shut up in the capi tal . Aftera long blockade which had no definite result , a treaty w asconcluded and sealed by a marriage and Antiochus , following still in Alexander’s foo tsteps , cro ssed the HinduKush and , moving down the Kabul valley past Alexandriaapud Caucasum,
marched through the Khyber Pass intothe Panj ab . The successo r of Asoka wisely bought off
the invader with rich gifts of elephants and money ; and
VOL . I z
3 3 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
the Great King continued to beat the boundaries of. his
empire,following down the R iver Helmand to Sistan
,and
thence cross i ng the Lut to Narmashir by the same routethat Craterus had taken rather more than a century before .
Wintering 1n the Kerman province , probably where Alexander had halted , Ant io chus ended this great expedition ,
which included Gerrha In the Persian Gulf,at Seleucia on
the Tigris . By it he increased the prestige of his dynastyand regulated its interests in more ways than one .
EarlyR elations betw een Hellas and R ome.— It mayseem
to be go ing far afield in a History of Persia to give anyaccount , how ever brief, of the early relat ions betweenHellas and Rome but the latter w as destined to exercisesuch an important influence on the history of the PersianEmpire that i f all ment ion of the subject were omitted
,it
would be impossible to bring certain aspects of the quest ioninto proper focus .
It i s certain that envoys from various Italian states , ifnot from Rome
,travelled to the court of Alexander the
Great as far as Babylon,and possibly dreams of adding
Italy and Carthage to his Empire were indulged in by theGreat Conqueror . The fight for power among the
Successors”interested Rome bu t little,and the first
relat ions established with a Greek state consisted of a
commercial treaty concluded in 306 B .C . with Rhodes,
then at the zenith of her pro sper ity , a year before the
famous siege by Demetrius Poliorcetes .
It w as Pyrrhus, the leading so ldier of his age , w ho
first led a phalanx against Roman cohorts and thus beganthose direct relations on which , as Mommsen we ll says,“the who le subsequent development of ancient
,and an
essent ial part of modern civil izat ion are based .
” Pyrrhusinvaded I taly in B . C . Thanks mainly to the fearinsp ired by his elephants alike in the so ldiers and in the
ho rses,he w on tw o great though co stly victories over the
Romans . In 275 B . C . ,after an unsuccessful campaign
in Sicily , he returned to I taly and w as defeated by the
splendid valour of the legions which drove the Eagleback to its eyrie .
The First M acedonian War, 2 15
— 205 B .C .— After the
m u THE RISE OF PARTHIA 3 3 9
campaigns of Pyrrhus had ended,Rome w as too much
o ccupied with affairs in I taly and the First Puni c War to
concern herself with Hellas . However,upon the clo se
of the first phase of that gigant i c contest,in the course of
which the Greeks bo th of Italy and of Sicily had felt the
might of Rome and had come under her sway, the Senate
desired to have i ts new posit ion recognized in Hellas .The first step actually taken w as to fo llow up and punishsome I llyrian pirates
,and as a consequence of these opera
t ions Corcyra, Apollonia, and Dyrrachium were rece ivedas subj ect allies . This w as in 2 19 B.C . , and just whenfurther interference appeared to be inevitable the l ife-anddeath struggle with Hannibal began
, and for twenty yearsRome w as fight ing for her existence .
The chances of ano ther invasion from Hellas wereserious . On hearing of the crushing defeat of the
Romans at Thrasymene ( 2 17 Philip V.
1of Macedon
determined to aid Hannibal,and it seemed possible for
a while that he would lead a united Hellas . Bu t the
monarch whose maxim w as Whoever kills the fathermust also slay the sons had not the necessary qualities toplay so big a part . He w as dilatory
,and at first very
litt le w as effected beyond the conclusion of a treaty withHann ibal . The truth is that the sea power of Romemade him shrink from crossing the Adriat i c ; instead , heemployed himself in at tacking the Roman possessions inEpirus
, and that in a half—hearted and ineffectual fashion .
Rome w as no t content to remain a passive spectato rof these operat ions but landed a force in Epirus , whichattacked the Macedon ians . Moreover, Roman diplomacysucceeded in combin ing the Aetolians and minor Greekstates against Macedon ia
,and the coalition w as jo ined by
the Thracians and Illyrians and by the astute Attalus of
Pergamus . Phil ip in the end emerged victorious , butweary of the w ar , and made peace with Rome on the basisof the s tatus guo. This w as a turn ing-po int of historyfor had Philip prompt ly thrown his veteran army into the
scale by landing in Italy , i t might have gone hard withexhausted Rome
,even after the defeat of Hasdrubal at the
1 He w as son of Demetrius the Fair, and father of Perseus .
34 0 HISTORY OF PERSIA CH I P.
Metaurus in 208 B. C . Instead of this,he had shown
hosti l ity but stayed his hand , and thereby sealed no t onlyhis ow n doom but that of the Helleni c world .
The Spoliat ion of Egyp t by P hilip V. and Antiochus the
Grea t. — Philip V .,shortly after making this impoliti c
peace with Rome , agreed with Ant io chus in 202 B . C . to
divide the out ly ing possessions of Egypt,and in pursu
ance of this design attacked the Thracian po ssessions andi slands belonging to the House of Ptolemy . Pergamusand Rhodes united to repel him
,and in the first naval
battle they were victorious , although the losses on bothsides were heavy . A second engagement w as w on byPhilip . On the whole
,he had added to his possessions
and power when he returned to Macedonia in the lateautumn of 20 1 B . C . and in the following year he com
pleted his conquests on the coast o f Thrace .
Ant iochus , on his side , w as equally act ive . H e naturally burned to avenge his defeat at Raphia and to add
Coele-Syria to his possessions . This apparen tly he accom
plished by 199 B .C . ; but no details of the operat ions havebeen preserved . H e then invaded Pergamus
,which w as
undefended by Attalus , w ho w as absent co -operat ing withRome against Phil ip . The Romans pro tested against thisattack on the ir ally
,and Ant io chus promptly withdrew .
Meanwhile an Egyptian army invaded Coele—Syria and
drove out the Seleucid garrisons . But Ant iochus marchedto the rescue
,and near the sources o f the Jordan gained a
decisive victory,which finally subst ituted his rule for that
of Egypt in Palest ine . The defeated army w as besiegedin Sidon
,which surrendered ; and the campaign ended
with the Siege of Gaza, where the Philist ines maintainedto the full the glory of their Minoan descent ,
1and made
a defence that i s memorable in military history . Nevertheless it w as at last stormed by Ant iochus .
The Second M acedonianWar,200— 197 B .C .
— The po sit ion of Rome in the year 200 B . C . w as very different fromthat of five years before . The Second Puni cWar had beencarried to a successful conclusion by the crushing defeatof Hannibal at Zama in 202 B . C . , and the Republ ic w as
1 The Ancient History of the Near East,p . 72.
HISTORY OF PERSIA cum».
mount the throne o f Macedonia . Pending the real izationof these fantast ic dreams , he cont inued to restore hispower over the coast cit ies of the Hellespont and NorthernIonia. One of these , Lampsacus , si tuated on the As iat icside near
'
Abyl
dos , appealed to Rome,claiming kinship
with M assil ia.
1 As that city also sent an embassy to
suppo rt the representat ions , the appeal w as successful inenlisting the sympathy of the Senate . Moreover
,the
Massilians , w ho were i n close relation with the Gatils of
the Rhone Valley , Wro te to their kinsmen of Asia Mino r,
the Galat ians, begging them to befriend Lampsacus .In the spring of 196 B . c . Antiochus cro ssed into
Europe and began to rebuild Lysimachia,which Philip had
abandoned to the Thracians,and appointed his son to
rule there as his V i ceroy . The Roman general Flaminiusand the Ten Commissioners w ho had pronounced the
liberty of Hellas had also declared the freedom o f the
Greeks of Asia, and had summoned Ant iochus to surrenderall the cities he had taken from Philip and Pto lemy .
Consequently the advance o f Ant iochus into Europe w as
viewed with strong resentment . Philip,w ho w as affected
more clo sely st ill by this act of his quondam ally, naturally
ranged himself on the side of his late enemies whenhost il ities finally broke out . A Roman embassy w as sentto protest but Antiochus merely expressed astonishmentat thei r pretensions
,and , a rumour having reached Lysi
machia that the young Pharaoh w as dead , bo th partieshurried off to Egyp t . On the w ayAnt iochus learned thatthe rumour w as false, and , his fleet having been shatteredby a sto rm
,he ret ired to Ant ioch . About this t ime he
w as jo ined by Hannibal,w ho unreservedly placed his
services at his disposal,and had he been guided by the
gen ius and experience of the great Carthagin ian, the i ssue
might Well have been different .
In 194 B .C . the conquest of Thrace by Ant iochus w as
completed,and in the same year the Romans
, w ho for
once in the ir splendid career gave w ay to sent imental ity ,withdrew all their garrisons from Hellas
,failing to real ize
that the numerous pet ty states would speedily call in1 Both co lonies were descended from Phocaea. Vide Chapter XI I I .
xxvu THE RISE OF PARTHIA
another power . At this juncture Hannibal framed a
plan , according to which he would once again invadeItaly at the head of an army
,while Carthage would rebel
and An tio chus would invade Hellas . But Ant iochus couldno t grasp the necessity of meeting the danger by carefulforethought and large preparat ions, and he drifted somewhat aimlessly , sacrificing policy to side- issues . Nor doesi t appear that he made any adequate military preparat ionsfor the trial of strength that w as imminent . However,upon hearing that the Aeto l ians had captured Demetrias
,
the important city of Magnesia, Ant iochus , in spi te of
the lateness of the season,decided suddenly to cross into
Hellas with the troops at his immediate disposal , aboutstrong . This w as in truth a puny army for the
Master of Asia, and it could not be reinforced unt il thespring .
It is unnecessary to describe in detail the intriguesof the various Greek states , which had very li ttle influenceon the issue of the campaign . In the spring of 19 1 B . C .
the Roman army took the offensive , and in conjunct ionwith Phil ip marched into Thessaly . Ant iochus , w ho
rece ived few or no re inforcements , retreated to Chalcis inEuboea and finally took up his position at world -renownedThermopylae . As in the days of Leonidas
,the main
po sit ion w as too strong to be forced ; but a Romandetachment w as able to ut il ize the hill tracks , which wereinadequately guarded , and when the rear of Antiochusw as threatened , his force became demoral ized . The defeatw as decisive , and Antiochus with a body of fugitiveshastened back to Ephesus , leaving his adherents in Hellasto their fate . Thus ingloriously ended the first phase of
his contest with Rome .
The Ba ttle of M agnesia ,190 B . C .
— Antiochus , i t
w ould seem,after his safe return to Asia, w as disposed to
believe that , while he had indeed failed to defend Hellas ,it w as open to him to make a second and more fortunate attempt when circumstances were propitious . But
Hannibal,whose opinion w as now as eagerly l istened to
as it had previously been l ightly disregarded , po inted out
that the tenacious Romans would not rest unt i l they had
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
attacked their foe in his ow n country , and that he mustbe prepared to fight for his throne . The Romans
,on
the ir part, V iewed the campaign with apprehension
,
owing to the distance from their base and the difficultyof marching by land through Thrace with the forts of
Antiochus barring the route . Furthermore,not to speak
of raids by the Thracian highlanders , there w as the factthat Sestos and Abydos , the strongly guarded portals of
the Hellespont , .
,w ere garr isoned by Seleucid troops .
Above all, so great w as the difficul ty of supplies that thecommand of the sea would clearly play a decisive part inthe approaching contest .
The Romans did no t waste t ime , and before Ant io chuscould develop his resources
,it w as known that their fleet
had reached Delos . The island states of the Aegean ,
although not conquered by Antiochus , felt their l ibertythreatened and consequently jo ined the invaders . Of st i llmore importance were the adhesion of Rhodes and the
steady alliance of Pergamus . So strong , indeed , w as the
posit ion of Rome from the first that Chios , though clo seto Ephesus
, w as selected as the base of supplies . By theseall iances Ant io chus w as ent irely cut off from his Thracianpossessions by land . His communicat ions by sea dependedon his sea power
,which w as vital to the maintenance
of his empire . His admiral,Polyxenidas, determined to
attack the Roman fleet before it w as jo ined by the alliedsquadrons but he failed to carry out his purpose
,and
the Roman commander , after the junct ion with the
Pergamene squadron , w as as anxious to meet his an
tagon ist as he had previously been to avo id him . Asin Greece
,Ant io chus again failed to place a superior
force in the field,and the Roman fleet of 105 vessels
easily defeated the 70 smaller ships which were all thatAntiochus had contrived to co llect . For the t ime , at anyrate , the command of the sea passed to the victors .During the winter Ant iochus , at last fully al ive to the
peril,strained every nerve to co llect an army at Magnesia,
s i tuated in the valley of the Hermus about h alf-w aybetween the sea and Sardes . At the same t ime his fleet ,although defeated
,w as no t destroyed , and he hoped by
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
ow n force of scythed chariots upon the cavalry,which in
its turn threw the infantry into confusion and masked thephalanx . In short , the defeat w as as complete as ifDarius Codomannus had been commanding againstAlexander . Ant iochus , l ike his predecessor on the
throne of Iran after Arbela,fled without further hope of
res istance .
T/ze P ea ce of d p amea , 18 8 B . C .— The terms finally
agreed to were s imilar to those demanded befo re the
battle . Antiochus gave up his possessions in Europe and
evacuated Asia Minor nor th of the Taurus and west of
the H alys . The indemnity w as fixed at Eubo ictalents or Twenty ho stages , selected by ,
Rome,were handed over
,and Hann ibal
,Thoas
,Chief
of the Aeto lian League,and o thers were required to be
surrendered . Hann ibal , however , had already escaped toCrete , but eventually w as fo rced to end a glorious thoughunsuccessful career by taking po ison .
The peace of Apamea had far-reaching results ; forit showed beyond doubt that there w as no power able towithstand Rome . The Seleucid dominions shrank into a
comparat ively weak but compact kingdom ,and Pergamus
,
their rival , to which most of the ceded provinces werehanded over, ro se to great power . Antiochus , havingno more hope in the West
,turned his thought s to a
further campaign in the East and left Syria never toreturn . H e w as killed in 1 8 7 B.C . ,
in an expedi tiono rgan ized for the purpose of robbing a shrine of Bel in
the Elymean hills . The sentence in the book of Danielreferring to his death runs Then he shall turn his facetoward the fort of his ow n land ; but he shall stumbleand fall , and no t be found .
”1P arthia until the Reign of M it/zrada ter I .
,209
— 170 B . C .
To return to Parthia, after the departure of Ant iochus ,Artabanus devo ted his energies to developing his w ar
wo rn country, as also did his son and successor Phriapatius ,
w ho w as the first Parthian monarch to assume the t itleof Philhellen . In 1 8 1 B. C . Phraates I . succeeded to a
kingdom which had fully recovered . H e extended his1 Daniel xi . 19 .
xxvn THE RISE OF PARTHIA
sway o ver the Mardi w ho l ived under Demavand ,and
built Charax on the western side of the Caspian Gatesin the territory o f Media Rhagiana . But it w as reservedfor his bro ther and successor M ithradates to enlarge thestate of Parthia into an empire .
Bactria ,205
— 170 B . C .— TO complete the narrative of
events connected with Persia,a few lines must be devoted
to the Hellenic kingdom of Bactria. This state w as
bounded to the south by the Hindu Kush and to the
no rth by the Oxus Valley . Under Euthydemus and hisable successo r Demetrius the Hindu Kush w as crossed ,and in a series of campaigns the Greek state annexed no t
only Eastern Afghanistan but part of the Panj ab . Com
mercial relat ions,too , were extended in every direct ion .
But the prosperity of Bactria did not last long ; forDemetrius w as overthrown by a pretender and the l ittlestate
,already strained by distant campaigns
, w as furtherweakened by internal convulsions .From the po int of view of Parthia it w as of the
utmo st importance that the aggressive energy of Bactriashould be diverted towards India instead of to the west ,and at the clo se of the period under review the Hellen i cstate w as not in a condit ion to do more than defend partof its original possessions
,while holding on for a t ime to
some of its recent conquests .Summary
— The forego ing chapter deals with countrieslying far apart , Parthia in the East being separated fromRome in the West by many degrees of longitude . But
between these '
tw o rising states lay Hellas , incapable at
any t ime in her history of unit ing in the face of a commondanger : a defect which led to her destruction . AsiaMinor
,too
,at this period w as broken up into a number
of secondary states . Chief among them w as Pergamus ,but the confederacy of Rhodes , which headed the leagueof free cit ies along the coast , had also to be reckonedwith on account of its sea power . True to the Greekcharacter
,however
,these tw o states were usually on bad
terms with one ano ther , and both appealed to Romeagain and again . There were also the kingdoms of
Bithynia and of Pont i c and Southern Cappadocia, and the
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP . xxv 11
provinces which were held by the Galatians and o therbarbarous tribes . In Syria there w as
, indeed , loyalty to
the Seleucid dynasty ; but the Greeks and Macedonianso f Syria were alike degenerate and incapable of facing theRoman legions . Finally, Egypt w as already a pro tectedstate
,unable to do more than play a secondary part , and
no t even that without Roman aid . Consequently the realresult of the battle of Magnesia w as to make Rome thedominant power of the West
,with a circle of secondary
states,incapable of opposing a sol id front to her and
invit ing absorp tion whenever it might suit the pol icy of
the Republic .In the East
,on the o ther hand , the rising dynasty of
Arsaces,with its curious veneer of Hellen ic civilization
,
had firmly established itself in Parthia and Hyrcania,and
w as about to expand unt i l its front iers touched those of
Rome . I t will thus be seen that the tw o military systemsmeet in a country which is favourable to the l ighthorseman
,with the result that upon the who le the Asiat ic
power ho lds its ow n . But bo th powers benefited byintercourse
,which widened the outlook of East and West
al ike and prepared the w ay for progress .
350 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
regarded as inglorious , and he w as then murdered by hischief minister, in 176
— 175 B . C .
The Succession of Antiochus Ep ip hanes, 175 B . C .
— H e
w as succeeded by his bro ther Ant iochus IV w ho had l ivedas a hostage in Rome for many years and whose characterw as full of ext ravagances and contradict ions , so that somehistorians have regarded him as a genius and o thers as a
madman . H e prudently paid Rome the instalment s of
the w ar indemnity and refrained from jo in ing the enemiesof the Great Republic . He repelled an attempt on the
part o f Egyp t to regain Coele ~ Syria and acquired r ich spo ilfrom the campaign
,in the course of which Alexandria w as
besieged . Later, he undertook a fresh campaign, and this
t ime it seemed probable that he would secure possessionof the whole of Egypt .
The Battle of Pydna ,168 B. c .
— Rome during this periodhad been engaged in what is generally known as the ThirdM acedonian War. Philip V . had bequeathed extensivemilitary preparat ions and undying hatred of the WesternPower to his son Perseus , w ho attempted to unite Hellasagainst the barbarian state
,but as might be expected
he failed . In 17 1 B .C . the Roman legions again landed inGreece to fight the King of M acedon ia, w ho w as unsupported by a coal it ion . For tw o years the advantage laywi th Perseus
,and had he been willing to spend his treasure
freely Rome might have suffered a heavy defeat . But he
w as ne ither a statesman no r an able soldier . At the
bat tle of Pydna his phalanx ca rried all before it , and a
charge of the M acedonian cavalry might have decidedthe day. But the Roman legionaries were allowed t imeto recover and to annihilate the phalanx
,which w as left
unsupported by Perseus , w ho paid the penalty of his
cowardice and inept itude by be ing led in triumph throughthe streets of Rome . Po lybius dates the establishment of
the Roman empire,as w e know i t, from this battle ; as
,
with the so le except ion of the desperate effo rt made byM ithridates of Pontus , this w as the last attempt on the
part of any state to challenge the might of the Republi c .The E va cua tion of Egyp t hy Antiochus , 168 B . C .
— Romew as now free to take a strong line in Egyp t, and im
xxvm THE EXPANSION OF PARTHIA 3 51
mediately despatched an embassy to Ant iochus . Polybiustells us that the Roman envoy handed the king a tabletcontaining the formal resolut ion of the Senate that heshould evacuate Egypt
,and then ,
drawing a circle roundhim on the sand , demanded a reply before he steppedoutside it . Ant io chus dared no t refuse . H e evacuatedEgypt and returned home to celebrate a triumph on a
scale surpassing all records,presumably hoping thereby to
save face and to soo the his lacerated feel ings .The Ea stern Camp a igns of Antiochus and his Dea th
,165
164 B . C .— Antio chus , real izing that he could not pursue
an aggressive pol icy in the west,determined to reconquer
the eastern provinces of his empire , one great incent ivebeing that his ex travagance had brought him to the end
of his resources . Following in the foo tsteps of his father ,he first invaded Armenia, where his suzerainty w as quicklyacknowledged and no doubt tribute w as paid . H e thenmarched into Media
,where w e know litt le of his do ings .
Apparently he met with no oppo si t ion ,and Ecbatana w as
renamed Ep iphanea in his honour . In Luristan,un
deterred by the fate of Antiochus the Great,he attempted
to rob the temples of the ir treasures but the wild mountaineers drove him and his army out of the country .
Shortly after this “ shameful retreat ,”
as it is termed inthe book of Maccabees , he apparent ly went mad , and he
died at Tabae in Persis in the winter of 165— 164 B .C .
His reign,in spite of some successful campaigns , must
have further weakened and exhausted his empire .
Antiochus Ep ip hanes ana’the 7e
‘w s .
— The dealings o f
Ant iochus Ep iphanes with the Jews are an episode whichwould not have been regarded as important at the t ime ;
yet it is owing to his persecutions that his name is bestknown
,and consequently the subj ect canno t be passed
over in silence .
1 The little Jewish co lony planted byNehemiah had tenaciously maintained its posit ion in
Palest ine,and more than tw o centuries later w as still
holding i ts ow n under the rule of a High Priest . I t
had been invo lved in the contest fo r Coele-Syria, and
1 I t is dealt with by Bevan in chap . xxv . Vzde also the work of Josephus and the
book ofM accabees .
352 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
had become part of the possess ions of the house of
Seleucus .Since the conquests of Alexander the Great
,w ho had
transported some Jewish prisoners to Hyrcania, the cit iesof Syria, whether Canaani te , Philist ine , or Phoen i cian ,
had
become hellenized , either by an influx of Greek colonists ,as in the case of Samaria, or through the all-pervadinginfluence of the dominant race . There i s proof fromJo sephus and from bo th books of the Maccabees thatJerusalem also w as hellenized , a fact which w as markedby the erection of a gymnasium in Jerusalem at the requestof a Jewish deputat ion . The city w as divided betweenthose w ho saw with approval their youth practising Greekathlet ics in a state of nudity and those w ho rigidly maintained the old tradit ions . Ant io chus
, w ho w as mainlyconcerned with the quest ion of tribute , would in all probability have allowed the Jews to manage or mismanagetheir petty local affairs but he w as forced to take act ionbecause during his absence in Egypt they rose on behalfof the house of P to lemy . Consequent ly , upon his returnhe entered Jerusalem and no t only spo i led the Temple as
reco rded in the quo tat ion from Jo sephus at the head — of
this chapter, but even entered the Ho ly of holies . Nor
w as this all, for he determined to hellenize Jerusalem ,and
in pursuance o f this policy forbade the r ite of circumcision ,
and erected a Greek altar on the old Jewish altar in the
court of the Temple , and caused swine to be sacrificed uponit . These outrages goaded the Jew s to resist . They w onbrilliant victories under Judas Maccabaeus
,and upon the
death ofAntiochus they were granted full l iberty to worshipaccording to the Jewish rites , together with an amnesty .
Demetrius the Sav i our, 162- 150 B. C .— After the death
of Ant iochus Ep iphanes , his son , a boy of n ine,succeeded
to the throne under the guardianship of a certain Lysias,
whose incapacity and corrupt ion produced a hopeless stateof anarchy , culminat ing in the murder of a Roman envoyin 163
- 16 2 B .C . Demetrius , son of Seleucus IV .,w ho had
been living in Rome as a ho stage , se iz ing the opportunity,
landed at Tripol is in Phoen icia, w as welcomed by the armyand the people , and o ccupied the throne in 162 B. C .
354 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
he subdued in a campaign invo lving much hard fight ing .
He returned to the north to crush a rising in Hyrcania,
and then from his new base overran . Elymais,which w as
successfully reduced . Persia, cut off from any help fromthe West , submitted , as also did Babylon ia. Thus in a
sho rt period Parthia had created an empire reaching fromBactria to the Euphrates and from the Caspian Sea to the
Persian Gulf. For some years after these successesM ithradates , w ho w as the Darius of the Arsacid dynasty
,
o rganized his conquests before attempting to carry themfurther .M eanwhile Eucrat idas had been murdered by his son ,
w ho drove his chariot over his father’s corpse and forbade
its burial . But the new monarch w as assai led by Scythiansand also by the Sarangians and Indians
,and when
,about
150 B. C .
,M ithradates also invaded Bactria
,he w as unable
to o ffer any effect ive resistance .
Demetrius , whose expedit ion will be ment ioned later ,w as jo ined by a Bactrian contingent ; but his defeat and
capture took away the last hope of aid from Syria . Exhausted Bactria, overrun by Sakae from the north—east
,
while its western provinces were annexed by Parthia,
w as driven from its ancient habitat . An Indo-Bactriankingdom is
,however
,known to have existed on the
southern slopes of the Hindu Kush for more than halfa century
,befo re it w as swept away by an irrupt ion of
tribes .The House of Seleucus, 150
— 14 0 B.C .— To revert to
the house of Seleucus,Alexander the Pretender ruled for
three years as Alexander Balas, under the po lit i cal suzeraintyofPto lemy Philometor
,whose daughter Cleopatra he
married but again the scene changed,and Demetrius
,son
o f So ter,a boy of fourteen
,w as brought back and w on a
battle . Alexander fled,and after a further defeat by Philo
metor,w as assassinated Cleopatra w as handed over to the
new monarch . The ascendancy of Egypt , however, w as
lost owing to the death of Philometor in the battle . Yet
again a claimant for the throne appeared in the personof Ant io chus
,the son of Alexander by Cleopatra
,whose
cause w as espoused by a certain Diodotus,a man of low
xxvm THE EXPANSION OF PARTHIA 355
extract ion . Antio ch w as ready to welcome the son of
Alexander Balas,and for some t ime there were tw o
monarchs in Syria, Ant io chus hold ing Ant io ch and the
North , and Demetrius the South . D iodo tus,w ho assumed
the name of Tryphon , murdered the young Ant iochus in14 3
— 14 2 B . C .,and usurped the throne . The Jews now
took advantage o f this divided authority to strengthenthe i r posit ion unt il the erstwhile city—state developed intoa kingdom ,
as may be read in the pages of Josephus .In or about 14 0 B . C . Demetrius
, w ho had reachedthe age of twenty
,determined to make a bid for the
eastern provinces , although Tryphon w as
'
unsubdued,
hoping perhaps to return with a full treasury and an
increased force of veteran so ldiers .M ithrada tes I . and Demetrius I l .
—VVhen this surprising campaign w as undertaken Mesopo tamia w as st ill a
possession of his house,and Babylonia had been his in 14 4
B .C . but since that date it had been added to the Parthianempire
,although loosely held . The Greeks
,as always
,
greeted the Seleucid monarch with enthusiasm,and , since
the Parthian rule w as both new and unpopular,adherents
flocked so rapidly to his standard that Demetrius w as
victo rious in more than one battle : the Bactrians alsohelped him by a diversion . M ithradates resorted to
stratagem,
and made proposals for peace which werebeing accepted when the unsuspecting Demetrius w as
suddenly attacked , his army dispersed , and he himself takenprisoner . H e w as in the first place carried round intriumph
,but w as afterw ards well treated and granted a
residence in Hyrcania . An attempt to escape w as unsuc
cessful,and he w as recaptured by Phraates , w ho ,
affectingto treat the matter as a youthful escapade , sent him a giftof dice . Curiously enough , the incident is described byChaucer in The Pardoneres Tale
L‘
ooke eek t hat, to the kyng Deme trius
The kyng of Parthes, as the book sei th us,
Sen te him a paire of dees of go ld, in scorn ,
For he badde used hasard t her-bifo rnFor w h ic h he heeld hi s glorie or hi s renoun
At no value or rep utac ioun .
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
The Death of M ithrada tes I . ,13 8 B . C .
— The reconquest o f Elymais w as the last explo it of M ithradates I .The great Parthian monarch died , full o f years and honour ,in 13 8 B . C .
Antiochus Sia’etes,
13 8— 129 B . C .
— When the newsreached Syria of the disaster that had overtaken Demetriusthe cause of Tryphon benefited , but only for a short time .
Ant iochus , known as Sidetes from the Pamphylian port ofSide where he had l ived , at once claimed his bro ther
’s throne,
and in the end gained it , together with the hand of the
often-married Cleopatra . Again the prest ige of the houseof Seleucus w on the day, and Tryphon w as deserted byhis adherents
,w ho went over to his r ival at Seleucia
,
distant on ly twelve miles from Ant io ch . Tryphon w as
captured and allowed to commit suicide— an advance on
the horrible mut ilations and tortures he would havesufl’ered a few generations earl ier .
Anti ochus Sia’
etes ana’ Phraates [I . , 130
— 129 B. C .
The new monarch,in the first place , o ccupied himself in
putt ing down the old abuses and in reassert ing hisau thori ty over the Jews and o ther subjects .
In 130 B. c .
,considering that his rule w as conso lidated ,
he prepared to try conclusions with Phraates I I , the son
and successor of M ithradates . H e co llected a large army,
in which w as included a Jew ish cont ingent under JohnHyrcanus, grandson of the first Maccabee leader . But
the number of camp followers appears to have beenenormous
,and probably led to the final disaster . Like
his bro ther,he w as greeted with warm affect ion in Meso
po tamia, and adherents came in by thousands . Threebattles were fought and w on
,which gave him possession
no t only of Babylonia, but also of M edia,and the Parthians
had to retreat to the ir nat ive fastnesses . Indeed,it
seemed as i f Ant io chus were destined to repeat the explo itsof his great ancestor .During the winter, however , his army w as broken up
and quartered in various cities , and great discon tent arose ,probably on account of the ho st of camp fo llowers . One
of the generals , too ,made an evil name by his exact ions .
Phraates during this period tried to negot iate,but t he
xxvm THE EXPANSION OF PARTHIA 357
Victor’s terms were too hard, as only Parthia w as to be
retained by him ,and that in return for tribute and
Demetrius w as to be handed over to his bro ther .
Phraates played one trump card by releasing Demetrius,
with an escort to take him to Syria but the mistakes ofhis adversary made this stroke of po licy unnecessary
,for
,
at a given signal , the cit ies of M edia attacked their garrisons and Phraates w as able to march with his army to
Ecbatana in suppo rt o f them . Near Ecbatana he foundAnt iochus
,whom he attacked at a considerable d isadvant
age in numbers,and the last warrio r Seleucid
,defeated and
wounded,threw himself from a cliff to avo id capture and
thus ended a strenuous l ife . The Parthian monarch en
slaved the remnants of the great army and then turnedwi th fury on Seleucia, which w as punished w ith
'
merciless
severity .
The Dow nfa ll of the House of Seleucus .— But this w as
merely a detail . The dominant fact w as that the death ofAnt iochus Sidetes w as the end of the dynasty of Seleucusas a great power . Thenceforward it w as dest ined to ex
pend its waning energies in domest ic bro ils . Some yearslater , when Rome appeared on the scene as a conqueror , itw as with the Kings of Pontus and Armen ia that battleswere fought , and no t with the degenerate and disinheriteddescendants of the great Seleucus .
[ts Place in History— Before w e quit this dynasty ,
which loomed so large in the history of Persia, and even
on a wider stage , w e may well pause to consider the partit played .
Bevan 1 po ints out that in the kingdom of
the “ Successors there were three dist inct tradit ionsthe Oriental inherited from the previous empires , theM acedonian
,and the Helleni c . Even during the lifet ime
of Alexander the Oriental concept ion of the monarch’
sinfallibil ity and absolut ism began to prevail , and it
necessarily clashed with the Macedon ian and Hellen i ctradition s .
On the other hand , the Seleucids claimed to be
different from these Oriental monarchs , and to a limitedextent the ir claim w as just ified . Perhaps 1t would be
1 House of Seleucus, chap . xxxn .
358 HISTORY OF PERSIA '
CHAP. xxvm
more correct to say that in thei r conduct towards theirsubjects they dist inguished between the Asiat ic
,accus
tomed to obey passively , and the Macedonian o r Greek,
Whose character w as strongly opposed to passive obedience . In Macedonia the king w as supreme
,but his
supremacy w as in practice tempered,and in some cases
contro lled,by the great nobles and the army . In the
East the nobles tended to give place to courtiers dependingon the favour of the monarch but examples o ccur of thearmy ’s taking act ion. For instance
,it w as the army which
called Ant iochus the Great to the throne . In fact,the
rule of the Seleucids w as tw o- faced,inasmuch as it w as
abso lute towards its Oriental subj ects , but w as tempered bythe army
,which w as mainly a home-born and therefore a
nat ional force . Moreover , the character , and consequentlythe acts and poli cy , of the Seleucids were influenced deeplyby Greek opinion
,by the use o f the Greek tongue
,and by
Greek training . Of the achievements of the house of
Seleucus,the most important w as that it kept al ight
the torch of Greek civilizat ion and Greek ideals , so that itaffected even the rude Parthians . Further
,by ho lding
the Nearer East for Hellen ism,that great and important
part of Asia w as preserved from being overrun bybarbarism
,and although towards the last the dynasty
became effete and helpless , it had done i ts work . Romew as ready to take its place and to keep back the ho rdesof Central Asia and the Arabian desert - dwellers , unt i lByzantine Rome
,too
,in the course of the centuries ,
waned and fell before the onslaught of a new power .
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
o rdinary man is generally bel ieved to have built the greatwall of China
,which w as an effectual bar to raiding
nomads and thereby undoubtedly influenced the course of
their migrat ion .
In 200 B. C . China first became a World Power and at
this very period the tribes termed in Chinese history the
Hiung — Nu or Huns,fought with the ne ighbouring
nomadic nat ion of the Yue—Chi,which w as defeated and
fled west to the Il i r iver . Finding the local tribes toostrong to be attacked in this district
,the horde swung
south on to the Sakae, w ho in 163 B . C . were displaced
from their habitat in the Tarim basin . They in the irturn advanced to the Sir Daria and Bactria
,where they
broke up the Graeco—Bactrian kingdom .
This movement o f the Yue-Chi set in mot ion wavesof hardy nomads
, w ho were forced by the driving powerbehind to w in fresh territories from the comparat ivelycivil ized kingdoms to the south , or to suffer ann ihilat ion .
It is not suggested that all these movements were simultaneous . Fortunately for civil izat ion they were no t ;
but they had this in common,that they gave r ise to
an overwhelming danger, for in place of the absorp tionof one civil ized state or some of its provinces by a
neighbouring state which w as also more o r less civil ized,
the who le c ivil ized world w as threatened by hordes of
Scythians or nomads w ho devoured their aged relat ions,
held their women in common,and were from every po int
of view coarse savages whose success would have been a
calamity for mankind . Even to-day a Yellow Peril i sfeared by some ; but Japan ,
the leading Turanian state ,has already entered the comi ty of nat ions and China isalso struggling , painfully it may be , towards the samegoal . Consequent ly w e real ize with difficulty that defeatin tho se days meant death , probably after torture , to man
,
woman,and child
,o r a l ife to which death w as infini tely
preferable .
The Victories of the Nomaa’s ov er the Parthians — It w as
with this threatening state of affairs that Phraates I I . w as
confronted after his v ictory over the Seleucid forces , andit w as on this account that he made no attempt to conquer
xx1x PARTHIA,ROME
,AND PONTUS 3 6 1
Syria. Far from this,he at once marched to defend
Parthia, and increased his army by embodying m it the
survivors of the force of Antiochus . No details of the
campaign have been reco rded , but apparently it lasted forsome years and ended in the total defeat of the Parthians ,owing to the defection of their Greek cont ingent , and in
the death of the monarch . His successor,cont inued his
po licy,bu t he too w as defeated and died fight ing against
the formidable nomads .M ithradates H . of Parthia ,
124— 8 8 B.C .
— Ir might bethought that Parthia w as doomed to succumb after thissecond defeat ; but M ithradates I I . , w ho now ascended thethrone , w as a mo re fortunate or a better general , and hisoperat ions changed the who le aspect of affairs , the nomadsreceiving such severe lessons that they turned their armsto a quarter where the resistance w as weaker
,and poured
into the state now termed Afghanistan . Indeed , so successful w as M ithradates that he annexed various provinces tothe eastward
,and co ins prove that princes wi th Parthian
names bore rule near the Himalayas during this period .
After his new provinces had been duly organized , Mithradates w as free to devo te attent ion to the west of hisempire , where Hymeras , the Viceroy of Babylon ,
w as
preparing to revo lt . But the Parthian monarch with hisseasoned army w as too powerful
,and Hymerus w as easily
crushed .
Parthia ana’
Armenia — The state of Armema W1th 1ts
capital Van has already been referred to in connexion withthe campaigns of the Assyrian conquerors , when it w as in
habited by the Nairi,the Urartu , and the M annai . But
about the sixth century B . C . the Armen ians , w ho are an
Aryan race , apparently entered the country from the west .
Herodo tus speaks of them as colonists of the Phrygians ,when he ment ions the ir cont ingent in connexion with thegreat army of Xerxes .1 Armenia (Armina) also appearsamong the provinces of the Persian Empire 1n the Behistuninscri pt ions
,and w e hear of it from t ime to t ime in sub
sequent history , but generally as having no parti cularimportance . When M ithradates I . extended the Parthian
1 Herodotus v11. 73 .
3 62 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Empire,Armenia, which had been compelled to submit to
Antiochus Ep iphanes , again threw off the Seleucid yoke .
Apparent ly this w as accomplished through Parthian assistance , as its new monarch , w ho reigned from 150 to 128 B . C . ,
w as an Arsacid prince , named Val—Arsaces . His son, w ho
waged w ar with Pontus , ruled unt i l ( 13 B . C .,and w as
succeeded by Artaxias , the Artavasdes of Just in . It w as
about 100 B. C . when M ithradates invaded Armenia,and
although no account of the campaign has been preserved ,w e learn from a remark by Strabo that Tigranes
,the eldest
son of the Armenian king,w as for some years a hostage in
Parthia. This clearly po ints to Parthian success ; butArtavasdes kept his throne
,and during the course of the
tw o fo llowing decades Armenia under Tigranes reachedthe zenith of her power and ruled from the Gulf of Issusto the shores of the Casp ian Sea. In the history of Parthia,the Armenian question constantly recurs as a matter of thefirst importance .
The Exp ans ion of R ome,190
— 129 B. C .— When the
legions crushed Ant iochus the Great at the battle of
Magnesia in 190 B .C . ,it seemed inevitable that the era
of independent kingdoms in Asia Minor and Syria mustspeedily come to a close . But Rome , perhaps insp iredwith statesmanl ike prudence
,withdrew
,and for a genera
t ion pursued a poli cy of abstention,the different states being
allowed to act much as they pleased without any armedintervent ion from the West . In 16 8 B .C . the battle of
Pydna and .the subsequent annexat ion of Macedoniachanged the si tuat ion ,
as the curt o rder to Ant iochusEp iphanes to evacuate Egypt clearly showed . A ' few yearslater ( 151— 14 5 a pretender appeared in Macedon ia,and the Achaeans also rose but the result w as the sack ofCorinth and the final reduct ion of Hellas to subordinat ionunder the Roman Governor ofMacedon ia, although at firstthere w as no direct administ ration by Rome . Carthage ,too
,had been destroyed , its site be ing levelled to the
ground after its capture by Scipio in 14 6 B .C . Yet ano therevent, perhaps in i ts direct effect the mo st important of all,brought Rome permanently to the East . The rulers ofPergamus had always been staunch all ies of the Republic
,
3 64. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
the hordes roving in the interior .
1 As a result,Mithridates
w as welcomed as a del iverer,and fo rmed the so-called
kingdom of the Bosporus,which no t only furnished him
with large supplies of corn and money , but provided thefinest recruiting ground imaginable . Nor d id his conquestsend with these successes . He annexed Lesser Armen ia and
made a treaty wi th Tigranes, w ho had meanwhile succeeded
his father , and w ho sealed it by bestowing his daughterCleopatra on Mithridates . The details of this importantagreement are no t known
,but it evidently included a
promise of mutual support and probably mapped out the
respect ive zones of conquest . We thus have Mithridatesof Pontus
,an ally,
of Rome,united by a treaty to Armenia,
which w as regarded by the Par thians as at any rate lyingwithin what nowadays w e should call their “ sphere of
influence .
Hitherto the interests of Rome had not been directlyaffected
,although the wiser and better- informed must have
real ized that this new emp ire boded ill for the peace of the
East ; but when Paphlagon ia and Cappadocia were alsoabsorbed it w as inevitable that the Senate should takeaction . In 102 B. C . the Romans had establ ished themselvesin Cilicia
,be ing forced to this step by the p i rat ical
tendencies of its populat ion , and Lucius Sulla, its Governor ,w as instructed to intervene in Cappadocia. On thiso ccasion M ithridates ‘
dared not oppo se the representat iveof Rome
,and Sulla swept through the country . Thus for
the first t ime a Roman army reached the Euphrates , ariver destined to play so large a part in the future as the
eastern boundary of the Roman Empire . But the expedit ion of Sulla had no permanent results ; for upon hisdeparture the Roman nominee w as driven out by Tigranes ,and Paphlagonia
,which had been evacuated , w as again
o ccupied . The Senate despatched a second Romano fficer
,as an ambassador
,and again , in 90 B.C . , Mithridates
yielded .
The First I nter course betw een P arthia and R ome, 9 2
B .C .— M ithradates I I . of Parthia had undoubtedly watched
1 M ommsen (Bk. IV . chap . v i ii .) refers to an inscript ion at Olb ia, s ituated neanthemouth of the Dnieper,which gives a contemporary account of the meessant exactions
and depredations of the Scyth ians .
xx1x PARTHIA ,ROME
,AND PONTUS 3 65
the growth of Armenia with deep concern, as Tigranes
,
w ho owed his throne to Parthian support and w ho had
ceded some territo ry in payment for it,had no t only taken
back his gift , but had even annexed provinces acro ss theParthian border . Consequently , when Sulla reached the
Euphrates , a Parthian ambassador w as sent to him to
propose an offensive and defensive alliance with Rome . It
w as a meet ing full of portent , and Sulla gained unboundedprestige by assuming the place of honour between the Kingof Cappado cia and Orobazus the Parthian ambassador .
The latter afterwards paid with his life for not maintainingParthian honour as its monarch considered that it shouldhave been maintained . Sulla w as unable to conclude a
treaty and perhaps w as reluctant to do so at all eventsthe mat ter dropped . It is , however, of interest to note
that the tw o states whichWere destined to champion for solong the rival interests of East and West met at first infriendly intercourse and with propo sals for an all iance .
The Ea rliest Intercourse of China w i th Parthia , 120
8 8 B .C .— It i s at least of equal interest to know that
M ithradates I I . w as not only the firs t Parthian monarchto open relat ions with the Great Republic of the West
,
but that he also rece ived the first Chinese embassy whichvisited Iran .
1
It i s generally agreed by Chinese scholars that unt il14 0 B.C . China had no knowledge of the West . But
under the Han dynasty missions were despatched in everydirection
,and mo re than one of these penetrated as far as
Parthia, which is termed An - Sih — the Chinese form of
Arsaces,as Kingsmill first po inted out . The Chinese
descript ion of Parthia is to the effect that rice , wheat, andthe vine were cultivated , that the cities were walled , andthat it w as a very great country . Reference , moreover, ismade to the use of silver co ins bearing the effigy of thereigning monarch . It w as also reported that they makesigns on leather from side to side 2 by w ay of l1terary
1 Vide Chinese Knowledge of Early Persia, by E. H . Parker (A sia t ic Quar terly,
January,
The I ntercourse of China w i th Central and Western A sia in the Second
Century B .C. (Shanghai, by T.W. Kingsm i l l, and China and the Roman Or ient, byDr. F . H irth.
2 Chinese writ ing runs from top to bottom ,and consequent ly a horizon tal script
would strike the observant trave l ler.
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
record . This evidently refers to parchment,which
,as
its name shows , reached Europe from the Near East , theword having been traced through the late Lat in p ergamena ,or product of Pergamus . No ment ion whatever is madeof the Roman Empire , which lay beyond the ken of Chinaat this period . The account then refers to the “ WeakWater
,which , as Kingsmill po ints out , w as originally the
tradit ion of an inland sea in the basin o f the Tarim ,of
which the Lop Lake i s a dwindling represen tat ive . The
envoys probably heard of the Sistan Hamun and transferred the legend to the new and more distant site
,as w as
the invariable custom among early t ravellers of the Eastand West alike .
Return embassies bringing gifts of great birds ’ eggsand clever Li - Kien conj urers to offer to Han are
mentioned . The eggs referred to must be those of the
o strich , probably obtained from the Arabian Desert,
although Kingsmill suggests that the ostrich may haveranged the Lut in those days ; and Li-Kien i s to be
identified with Hyrcan ia. Parker dates these embassies,
which throw the first gleam of l ight on the intercoursebetween Iran and China, between 120 B. C . and 8 8 B . C .
An Obscure Perioa’of P a r thian Hi story, 8 8 — 66 B . C .
The circumstance that Parthia applied to Rome for an
all iance is in itself evidence of the convict ion that the
fo rces of Armen ia, supported by Pontus, were too strongto be met . And although w e now enter a period of
history which is obscure,w e learn that Tigranes w as strong
enough to defeat Parthia and to expand at the expense of
the Arsacid monarch, w ho died about 8 8 B . C .
,and of his
successors . We read that,taking advantage of the Pont ic
War , he annexed Upper Mesopotamia and Media At ropatene from Parthia
,and westwards absorbed what w as
left of the kingdom of the Seleucids . These campaignstook place between 85 B.C . and 74 B . C . and , as alreadyment ioned
,Armenia from being a small state grew into
a wide - spreading empire . Tigranes only reco rded an
accomplished fact when he stamped in Greek upon hisco ins the ancient t itle of the monarchs of Asia
,King of
Kings .
3 68 HISTORY OF PERSIA
death o f Sulla and of the victories in Spain of Sertorius,
with whom he opened up nego t iations and made a treatyin 75 B .0. He w as also aware of the exhausting w ar
against the gladiators under Spartacus . Consequently,m
74 B . C .,he marched into Bithyn ia
,whose monarch
,follow
ing the example of the last A ttal id,had bequeathed his
kingdom to the Roman people . Again he carried all
before him at the outset , but when Lucullus appeared on
the scene and blockaded the Pont ic army,which w as
besieging Cyzicus , it w as severely handled , and only a
shattered remnant escaped to Lampsacus . The'
fleet of
Mithridates , too , w as lo st in a storm . During 73 B . C .
and the fo llowing year Lucullus operated in Pontus,unt i l
Mithridates, hard pressed , took refuge in Armen ia.
Tigranes,who se pride w as o f the order which precedes
a fall,decl ined to surrender his father- in- law ,
and whenthe Roman legions advanced into Armen ia in 69 B . C . he
contemptuously remarked,
“ Tho se Romans for ambassadors are too many , for enemies too few . But hisarmy w as scat tered like chaff before the Roman onset andfled eastwards . In the fo llowing year he w as againdefeated
,and Lucullus would have completed the subjuga
t ion of Armen ia,had not his so ldiers refused to advance
amid the high mountains of the Ararat distri ct . H e
retired southwards to less elevated country,where he
captured Nisibis . In the spring of 67 B . c . Lucullusreturned to Pontus
,where M i thridates had reappeared
,
and again wished to march into Armenia,but again his
army mut inied . Thus Lucullus failed to complete the
task he had begun,which w as one of extraordinarydifficulty,
partly on account of the enormous d istances and the
mountainous nature of the field of operat ions .The Career of P omp ey in the East
,67
— 63 B . C .— Pompey
w as one o f the greatest men produced by Rome , and hiscareer in the East showed his extraordinary capacity tofull advantage . He had already brill iantly distinguishedhimself in Afr i ca and in Spain
,and had arrived back in
Italy in t ime to take a leading part in the ann ihilation of
the gladiato rs of Spartacus , a difficult feat , the credit forwhich he shared with Crassus . H e therefore stood high
3 70 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
to rece ive him ,but even set a pri ce on his head . M ithri
dates then made for the eastern co rner of the Black Sea,
pursued by Pompey up to the R iver Phasis,and ultimately
appeared 1n the Cimmerian Bo sphorus , where his son ,w ho
had rebelled against him , be ing unable to maintain hisposi t ion
,committed suicide .
Pompey gave up the pursuit,but not con tent wi th
having driven Mithridates from his state , marched on the
Armenian cap ital , Artaxata,close to modern Erivan .
There he received Tigranes and his son of the same name,
and dictated to them his terms . A payment of 6000
talents,or
,g w as demanded,and also '
a presentfor the soldiers . Tigranes had to yield up all his con
quests,including Cilicia, Phoenicia, and above all Syria .
His territories were in fact reduced to the o riginal kingdom,
and he became a Vassal - .King The young Tigranes,
having fool ishly refused to accept the governorship of a
prov ince,w as made a prisoner
,and
,with his wife
,the
daughter of Phraates , graced the Victor 8 triumph “
Few generals have had the good fortune of Pompey inthis campaign . In the case of M ithridates mu t iny alonehad prevented Lucullus from crown ing with final successthe crushing blows he had infl i cted on the king
,whereas
Pompey by a single engagement w as able to drive him,
almost a fugit ive , out of Asia. In Armenia, without evenan engagement
,and partly at any rate in consequence
'
of
the aw e inspired by Lucullus , he had dictated terms toTigranes by which he no t only annexed some of the richest
,
and strategically the most important , provinces of the
An terio r East,but also rece ived a huge sum of money
,
which enabled him to reward his soldiers and keep themcontented . Not that Pompey did no t merit good fortune .
H e w as no carpet knight , and success did no t weaken hisenergy and manhood .
After the submission of Tigranes , he marched into thevalley of the Kur, and , fight ing the Albanians
,crossed by
the picturesque pass across which now runs the railwayconnec t ing Batum with Baku into the valley of the Phasis ;this he descended to the Black Sea
,where he met his fleet .
This march w as undertaken in the hope.
of re-establ ishing
Km PARTHIA , ROME , AND PONTUS 37 1
contact with Mithridates ; but , realizing that the old kingw as out of his reach
,arid not l ikely to trouble Pontus ,
he returned into the valley of the Kur and subdued it .
Plutarch states that he wished to advance to the shores ofthe Caspian Sea, but that , when only three marches ’ distant
,
he w as fo rced to retreat by the number of venomoussnakes . At all events he had penetrated to dis tr icts whereeven Alexander the Great had not been
, and he concludedthese operat ions by return ing to Lesser Armenia
,where
he rece ived letters from the kings of the Elymaeans and of
the Medes .Pomp ey ana
’Phraa tes I I I . of Parthia — Upon his arrivalin Asia
,Pompey , w ho w as an able diplomat ist , had opened
nego t iat ions with Phraates I I I .,son o f Sinatruces
,and had
proposed that in return for assistance against Armen ia,
Corduene and Adiabene,which Tigranes had annexed
,
should be restored to Parthia. These terms were accepted ,and as it happened that the eldest son of Tigranes withmany adherents w as then at the Arsacid court
,Phraates
I I I . had no difficul ty in carrying ou t what he had promised .
H e invaded Armen ia with a powerful army,accompan ied
by the refugee prince,and drove Tigranes from Artaxata
to the mountains . Thinking that the campaign w as ended,
Phraates left the Armen ian prince to besiege Artaxata ;
but after the departure of the Parthian monarch Tigranesswooped down on the invest ing army and drove it headlong from the country . As already related , Pompeyafterwards appeared on the scene and dictated terms .Phraates , w ho had
,
already recovered Adiabene , proceededto repossess himself of Corduene but Afranius
, Pompey’s
legate,expelled the Parthians and handed over the dis
puted province to Armenia. This cyn ical breach of faithand Pompey ’s contemptuous refusal to address Phraatesby his accepted t itle of King of Kings ’ raised a feelingof hatred against Rome , which soon bo re bitter fruit . It
is probable that Pompey w as contemplat ing an invasionof Parthia with his vi ctorious legions ; but he ult imatelydecided that the risk w as too great , and
, modifying hispo licy
,he appo inted arbitrators w ho settled the outstanding
quest ions between Armen ia and Parthia.
HISTORY OF PERSIA cuxp . xx1x
The Suicia’
e of M ithrida tes VI .,63 B.C .
— M ithridates ,in whom there must have been a strain of madness suchas showed itself in
“
his kinsman Ant iochus Ep iphanes , atthis t ime reached the end of his long career . H e w as pre
paring a fresh army wi th which to invade I taly , w hen hisson Pharnaces headed a rising against him ,
which w asjo inedby all classes w ho had united in opposit ion to this wildscheme . The old wo lf, finding no hope left , first po isonedhis wives , his daughters , and his concubines
,and then
himself drained the deadly cup . Thus dramatically diedM i thridates VI . of Pontus
,in 63 B . C .
,and with him passed
away the greatest enemy that had ever withstood the mightof Rome in the East . As Plutarch puts it , The wholearmy ( of Pompey) upon hearing the news fell to feasting ,as i f in the person of M ithridates alone there had diedmany thousands of the ir enemies .”1
The R esults of P omp ey’
s Camp a igns.—The campaigns
o f Pompey and their results can be concisely summarized .
H e had thoroughly subdued and annexed Pontus , whichwith ne ighbouring Bithynia became un ited to Rome ; hehad made Armenia a vassal state , as also the CimmerianBosphorus and the Albanians and Iberians of the valleyof the Kur had been conquered . Parthia had been humiliated bu t no t subdued , and here , in his deal ings w ith
'
this
Eastern Power, he had shown a lack of wisdom and foresight . In Syria he refused to acknowledge the puppetprince lings of the house of Seleucus
, and subdued the
various d isturb ing elements,the last resistance being
offered by the Jews . Rome now mar’
ched with Parthia,but the demand of Phraates that the Euphrates shouldbe the recogn ized boundary had neither been defin itelyacknowledged nor observed . Pompey
,moreover
,had
re ce ived communicat ion s from states such as Elymais
and Media which certainly’
formed part of the ParthianEmpire . In sho r t
, the arrangemen t come to w as intendedto be an advance and no t a final settlement , and the
course of event s in the next generation proved that this,
indeed,w as its character .
1 Plutarch’s Liv es— Pompey.
374. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
thought of him as“a brave man anywhere 'but in the
field . In 55 B .C . Crassus drew the proconsulate of Syriaby lot
,and
,jealous of the fame of his rivals , he boasted
that he would lead an army to Bactria, to India , and to
the Eastern Ocean . Start ing at the beginn ing of winterfrom Brundusium ,
he lost several ships in a storm . H e
then marched through Macedonia and Thrace to AsiaMinor. On his w ay to Ant io ch he saw Deio taurus , the
aged king of the Galatians,laying out a new city . You
begin to build rather late in the day,”w as his remark .
The caust ic retort w as , And you ,too
,are no t beginn ing
very early in the mo rn ing to attack the Parthians .”
Crassus marched acro ss the Euphrates and gained a
success,defeat ing the Parthian Satrap . But
,instead of
fo llowing it up , and taking advantage o f Babylon be ingheld by M ithradates , he returned to Syria, where he spentthe autumn and winter of 54 B. C . in adding to his alreadyco lo ssal fo rtune by plundering temples and levying special1mposts .
The Invasion of Parthia , 53 B . C .— In the spring of
53 B. C . the Pro consul determined to undertake the muchtalked—of expedit ion . He had been visited by Artavasdes
,
King of Armenia,w ho promised the co-operat ion of a
force o f cavalry and infantry . The pro
mise w as accompanied with the counsel that the line of
march should be through friendly Armenia,where the
hills were favourable to the manoeuvres of the Romaninfantry and unsuitable for the Parthian cavalry . Crassus ,however , decided to use the route across the plains of
M esopo tamia which w as in part already familiar to him ,
and where he had left garrisons ; these to some extentcommitted him to this l ine of advance .
Orodes realized that Parthia would without doubt beinvaded
,and
,knowing the character of Crassus , w as not
afraid . Indeed,in the spring he sent an embassy to the
Roman general with a provo cat ive message , to the effectthat “ if the w ar w as waged by the people of Rome , he
( the king) proclaimed w ar to the bitter end ; but if, ashe understood w as the case
,Crassus for his ow n private
profit had invaded his territo ry,he would be merciful , and
xxx PARTHIA AND ROME 375
taking pity upon Crassus’
s do tage,would send those
so ldiers back w ho had been left there as his prisoners .”
Crassus repl ied that his answer would be given at Seleucia,
whereupon the leader of the embassy laughed and said,
Hair will grow on the palm of my hand before you willsee Seleucia.
Crassus at last started on his great undertaking and
cro ssed the Euphrates without incident at Zeugma at the
head of seven legions , supported by 4 000 cavalry and a
similar force of slingers and archers,making up a total
of men . It appears that his original plan w as to
fo llow down the left bank of the Euphrates unt il hereached a po int opposite Seleucia where the tw o rivers of
Mesopotamia are close together but the influence of the
Shaykh of Osrhoene,whose district he w as traversing ,
caused him to alter his plan of campaign . This wily Arab ,w ho w as secretly allied to Orodes
,explained that the main
Parthian army had fled towards the East , and that the
only chance of overtaking it w as to march after it by theshortest route . In sp ite of counsels of prudence , Crassuscould no t res ist the pro spect of securing rich booty fromthe supposed flying enemy , and the army turned its backon the Euphrates and marched east across the open steppeof Mesopotamia .
The Plan of Camp a ign of Orodes .-The plan followed
by Orodes w as to advance in person into Armenia withall the Parthian infantry and thereby prevent Artavasdes
from reinfo rcing Crassus with cavalry , an arm in whichthe Romans were very weak . He no t only succeeded inthis object
,but made a treaty of peace with Artavasdes ,
which w as sealed by a marriage . The main operat ion of
attacking Crassus he left to his Surena, or Commander- inChief
,to whom he gave the whole of the mounted troops ,
which were of l itt le value in a mountainous country , butwere in thei r element on the open plains .This Surena
, w ho greatly impressed the Romans , andw ho probably o rganized both campaigns , w as a combinat ionof fine qualit ies and extremely luxurious habits . Hisprivate baggage w as loaded on one thousand camels , andtw o hundred waggons were required for the use of h1s
3 76 HISTORY OF PERSIA
concubines ! Yet his activ ity,energy
,and capacity were
indubitable,and after the great victo ry w as w on
,Orodes
paid him the high but painful compl iment of so fearing hispersonality that he had him put to death .
Parthian and Roman Troop s comp ared .-The Parthian
mounted troops consisted o f light and heavy cavalry . The
first w as the more famous , and i s referred to in the wellknown l ines of Horace
M i l es sagi ttam et celerem fugam
Parthi (t ime t).
It consisted of swarms of light horsemen armed withbow and arrow
,and trained from boyhood to shoot at
full gallop while advancing or ret iring .
1 Spare arrows inthousands were carried on camels
,and as the field of
operat ions w as parti cularly suited to this mode of warfareand the Roman army consisted almost enti rely of infantry ,this force , both brave and devoted
, w as as fo rmidable fromi ts elusiveness as from i ts o ffens ive power . The heavycavalry
,o rganized on ent irely different l ines
,w as armed
much in the same manner as the medieval kn ights of
Europe . The horses were pro tected by armour equallyw ith their panoplied riders, and the chief weapon w as a
heavy lance . In battle they charged in l ine,and
,unless
opposed by similarly protected troops,const ituted a most
redoubtable force .
The famous infantry , of which the Roman army w aschiefly composed
,w as trained for clo se combat
,and their
pro cedure w as to hurl a j avelin and then charge swo rd inhand in serried ranks . But against a mounted foe the ircharges were of l ittle avail nor did theirjavel ins carry as faras the Parthian arrow
,which indeed completely outranged
the arrows of the Roman archers . The Roman cavalry too,
although well mounted and equipped , w as , in this ,campaign
at any rate,unable to face the Parthians with success . It
must,however
,be remembered that its numbers were com
parativ ely small , and that it w as no t well handled .
The Battle of Carrhae, 53 B . C .— Crassus had advanced
1 Persians shoot guns or ri fles o ff horseback at ful l ga110p with remarkable prec is ion
,their shot to the reai' being one that wou ld bafli e any European cavalryman .
Indeed it is imposs ible when us ing a European saddle .
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
rained arrows upon them . The heavy cavalry next cameup
,and in spite Of the great bravery shown by the
Gaulish horsemen , w ho crept under the Parthians and
stabbed the ir horses, or even pulled the lances from the irhands
,the combat w as too unequal the Roman detach
ment w as annihilated , and Publius,being wounded by a
dart , o rdered his armour—bearer to despatch him .
Crassus had decided on a general advance,when to
his dismay he learned of the disaster by see ing the headof Publius on a spear . The Parthians
,encouraged by
their success , redoubled their efforts,bringing the heavy
cavalry into action . They cont inued the uneven contestunt il sunset , when according to custom they rode off to a
distant camp,call ing out that they would allow Crassus to
mourn his son during the night,before completing thei r
task by the capture of the Proconsul,which w as their
special object .
Crassus w as,as Plutarch puts it
,
“altoge ther past
helping,
”and consequently Octavius and Cassius ,
1w ho
were his staff Officers,gave orders fo r a n ight retreat ,
by which they hoped to escape from the enemy . The
Parthians were aware . of this movement , bu t negligentlyallowed it to be executed without making any immediateattempt to harass the demo ral ized Romans . In the
mo rn ing they began by massacring the wounded left incamp
,and by the t ime they fo llowed up the retreat ing
army i t w as safe in Carrhae .
So ut terly demoralized were the Romans that,instead
of halt ing in this stronghold to recover their shaken moral,they made another night retreat
,in the course of which
they broke up into detachments of armed rabble . Crassus ,m isled by his guide , had only reached some low hills whenthe Parthians overtook him . Octavius came to his rescueand a small force stood at bay on an eminence , from whichthey drove the Parthians .
The Surena now resorted to treachery to complete hissuccess . H e proposed a truce to arrange for the withdraw al o f the Roman fo rces unmo lested . Crassus w as
unwilling to t rust to his good faith ; but the mutinous1 Gaius Cass ius Longinus w as afterwards the leader in the assassination of Caesar.
xxx PARTHIA AND ROME 3 79
so ldiers insisted , and so , with something o f the true Romansp irit , he yielded with dign ity and met the Surena. The
latter w as mo st friendly and said that there w as now a
t reaty in fo rce between the tw o countries,bu t that Crassus
must accompany him to the river to sign it,adding
,with
po inted allusion to'
fthe bad faith of Pompey , “ for you
Romans have not good memories for condit ions . Crassusagreed , and ordered one of his ow n horses to be sent forbut the Parthian to ld him that a horse with a go lden bit
w as at his disposal , and he w as forcibly placed upon it
and carried off . His staff,suspect ing treachery , attempted
to come to the rescue,and in the mélée that ensued
Crassus w as killed .
The Roman troops after the death of the ir leaderbroke up in pan i c and were hunted down by the Arabs
,
but few escaping . I t i s computed that fully one-half of
the army of men perished in the campaign . Ten
thousand escaped across the Euphrates,and as many more
were made prisoners and settled at Margiana, the modernMerv
,where they intermarried with the women of the
country . It would,indeed
,be interest ing if some trace
of this large body of Romans were some day found inthis historical oasis .Plutarch ends his account of the life o f the unfortunate
Roman with a description of the scene at the ParthianCourt when his head w as received . The wedding betweenPacorus , son of Orodes , and the sister of Artavasdes w as
being celebrated , and the assembled guests were enj oyingthe Bacchae of Euripides when the head w as thrown downamong them . To quo te from Plutarch The Parthiansrece iving it with joy. Jason
,a Greek actor
,taking
up the head of Crassus,and acting the part of a bacchante
in her frenzy , in a rapturous impassioned manner, sangthe lyric passage
We’
ve hunt ed down a migh ty chase to-day,And from the moun tains bring the nob le prey .
The P arthian Inva s i on of Syria , 51—
50 B. C .— The
batt le of Carrhae w as undoubtedly o f great importance inthe confl ict which has been waged between East and West
3 80 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP . xxx
for so many centuries ; for it restored to the East itslowered pres tige and weakened that of the great repre
sentative European power . But in many ways its resultswere hardly as serious as might have been ant icipated,partly because the Parthian army w as not fo rmidable exceptin the level open steppe , and partly owing to the executionof its capable Commander-in-Chief. Cassius commandedbut the remnants of the army o f Crassus
,and Syria w as
ripe for revo lt,but Parthia gave the Roman authorit ies
tw o years in which to recover,merely sending out a few
bands of marauders to raid. On the o ther hand,as the
civil w ar w as imminent in Rome , no reinforcements weresent to the Roman Governor, whose defence deserves thehighest credit .
In 51 B. C . the dreaded invasion o ccurred,and under
the leadership of Pacorus swarms of l ight horsemen overran Syria ; but they were unable either to gain over or
to capture the stronger cit ies . Cassius , though compelledto throw himself into Ant io ch , did no t who lly abandonthe offensive
,but played Parthian tact i cs on his enemy
by feigning a retreat and luring them into an ambush,
where the Roman legionaries had the i r revenge . In spiteof this reverse , Pacorus did no t recro ss the Euphrates , butprepared to renew the campaign in the fo llowing spring .
He changed his plans,however , and instead of again over
running Syria w as induced to plot against his father . But
before the conspiracy had ripened Orodes heard of it and
summoned his t reacherous son to Court .
The Parthian army recro ssed the Euphrates in the
summer of 50 B.C . Thus concluded the first trial of
strength with the great Western State , which had beendeeply humiliated and had been unable to take any stepsto resto re her damaged prest ige . Parthia, on the o therhand
,had reaped immense advantages , bo th moral and
material,and , had her monarch been a man of first- rate
capacity, Rome
’s eastern emp ire would have been in
j eopardy .
3 8 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHA P .
his friends thought the risk too grave , more especially forhis wife Cornel ia, and that it w as on this account thatthe illustrious fugit ive sought the pro tect ion o f the boyking of Egypt , by who se m i nisters he w as treacherouslyassassinated .
Caesa r and the Near East, 4 7 B .C .
— In the year fo llowing his great victory Caesar visited Syria and Asia Minor
,
partly in connexion with the at tempt of Pharnaces, son of
M ithridates , ruler of the Bosphorus , to regain the ent irekingdom of Pontus . This attempt had at first beensuccessful
,the lo cal forces of Rome having been defeated .
Caesar took but one legion to re inforce the beaten troopsand w as bo ldly attacked by Pharnaces
,on the 2nd August
,
4 7 B . C .,at Zela
,where
,after recovering from the surprise
,
the Roman troops w on the day. Pharnaces fled , pursuedby his illegitimate bro ther
,w ho ,
thanks to the support of
Rome,succeeded to the kingdom of the Bo sphorus . Perhaps
the victory o f Zela i s best known as be ing that announcedby Caesar to the Senate in the three words Veni , Via
’i , Vici .
I t is improbable that Caesar,who se presence w as urgent ly
needed in the West,thought at this period of attemp ting
to avenge Crassus ; bu t three years later,after the suc
cessful conquest o f the whole Roman Empire , he determined to seek fresh laurels by a campaign against the
Eastern foe . The necessary decree w as passed by the
obedient Senate , the legions had been collected and had
even started for the East , when on 15th March 4 4 B . C .
the daggers of the “ Liberators saved Parthia from a
peril which w as perhaps the greatest in all her historyfor Caesar
,with his splendid genius for w ar and diplomacy
,
and with the experience of previous Roman expedit ionsto guide him ,
would have conquered Orodes as surely andas completely as Alexander the Great overthrew DariusCodomannus .
The Ea rly Career of M arh Antony.— Of the great
Romans of this period none played a more importantpart in Anterior Asia than Mark Antony
,of whose
early career a brief account is called for. In the lastchapter reference w as made to Gabinius
,Governor o f
Syria,w ho had been bribed by an enormous sum of money
xxx1 ROME AND PARTHIA 3 8 3
to invade Egypt . The Commander of the cavalry in thisexpedition w as Marcus Antonius
,grandson of the famous
pleader and son of Julia, a member of the family of theCaesars . H e had already dist inguished himself by the
capture of Aristobolus,the leader of the rebel Jews
,and
his son,in which he displayed considerable military skill
and valour .In the campaign against Egypt he marched ahead with
the cavalry division and w as instrumental in ensuring thesuccess of the Roman arms by his capture of Pelusium
,
the key of the who le country,which w as surrendered by
its garrison of Jews . In the final batt le he also dist inguished himself conspicuously , and when Egypt w as
handed back to Ptolemy he opposed the massacres bywhich the enraged monarch wished to signal ize hisrecovery of the throne . Upon quitt ing the countryhe left a great name behind him and a reputation forbrilliant military capacity .
Before the C ivil War he aided the party of Caesar,at
first as Tribune of the People and later as Augur ; and
when host il it ies broke out he rendered Caesar signalservice
,being in
'
command of the left wing at Pharsalia .
After the assassination of his patron,An tony obtained
possession of his papers and money and represen ted the
family until Octavian appeared on the scene as Caesar ’sheir . When the tw o quarrelled , Octavian drove Antonyacross the Alps but he speedily returned with seventeenlegions which he had w on over to his cause
,and forced
Octavian to make terms . The united forces then marchedinto Macedonia to meet Brutus and Cassius
,and in
4 2 B. C . the battle of Philippi w as w on chiefly by Antony,
Octavian be ing so ill that he w as obliged to be carried ina litter . After this victory Antony pro ceeded to the East ,and levied such heavy taxes that he w as bo ldly told that“ Asia has raised tw o hundred thousand talents for hisservice :
‘If this has no t been paid to you , ask yourco llectors for it ; if it has, and is all gone , w e are ruinedmen .
’
Nor w as his prodigal ity and o stentat ious recklessness limited to grinding down the East . Cleopatraappeared on the scene, sail ing up the Cydnus
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
The barge she sat in,l ike a burn ish
’d throne
,
B uru’
d on the w ater the poop w as beaten go ldPurp le the sai ls .
1
And from this t ime fo rward the wishes of this mo st beaut iful and gifted woman were the ruling influence ofAntony
’
s
chequered career .The Parthi an Inv asion una
’er Pacorus ana
’ Lahienus ,
4 0—3 9 B. C .
— It is a curious fact that a Parthian fo rce foughtat Philippi . Orodes , w ho believed in fishing in troubledwaters , had originally sent a small cont ingent to aid
Caecilius Bassus, formerly an adherent of Pompey, w ho
aimed at carving out an independent kingdom . In
4 3 B. C . Bassus jo ined Cassius , bringing the Parthian con
t ingent with him ,and that capable official
, w ho w as wellknown to the Parthian Court , took advantage of this factto open negot iat ions with Orodes , sending back the
Parthian so ldiers with gifts . As a result a body of
cavalry w as sent to j o in him , and took part in the battleof Philippi , this be ing the only appearance of a Parthianforce in Europe .
The defeat of Cassius and Brutus might well haveproduced complications between the victors and the
Parthian monarch ; but Orodes,it would seem
, thoughthis posit ion much stronger than that of the Roman Empire
,
convulsed as it w as by constant civil wars,and reso lved to
take advantage of the situation . At this period Parthiahad at her disposal the services of a Roman general
,
Quintus Labienus, w ho happened to be on an embassyto the Court of Orodes on behalf of Cassius and Brutus
,
and w ho feared to return home . He w as not a soldierof any special repute ; but his services were obviously of
great value to the Parthians .Orodes , w ho had forgiven Pacorus , entrusted him and
Labienus with a large force, which crossed the Euphratesin the spring of 4 0 B . C .
,or just a decade after the close of
the previous campaign . Antony would naturally haveled the Roman army ; but he w as summoned West to
protect his interests against Octavian ,and Syria w as left
to his incompetent subo rdinate , Decidius Saxa . At first1 Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopa tra.
3 86 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
re inforced during the battle by the who le army, and
Ventidius gained yet ano ther victory . Pacorus thereforewithdrew across the Euphrates, and Vent idius
,content
with having recovered Syria, wisely made no attempt tofollow up the Parthians .
The Defeat and Death of Pacorus , 3 8 B.C .— The
Parthian prince , however, w as not disposed to surren’derhis conquests tamely, and in the following spring he oncemore cro ssed the Euphrates . Vent idius at first adopteddefensive tact ics and occup ied an entrenched camp on an
eminence . The Parthians were ent iced into an attack on
i t and charged up the hill with magnificent audacity,but
suddenly the gates were flung open and they were drivenheadlong downhill by the legionaries , w ho pursued them .
The heavy cavalry of Parthia acted as a centre roundwhich they re-formed
,and the battle w as stubbornly
contested . But Pacorus w as killed and this decided theday. The Parthian host broke and fled towards thebridge of boats on the Euphrates
,but w as intercepted
,
and only the division which made northwards to Commagene escaped .
The results of this apparently nameless battle were of
the first importance . Until then the Parthians wereprepared to fight Rome for her Asiat ic provinces whichthey overran more than once
,and even to a certain
extent admin istered . After this bat tle, however , theyabandoned the offensive to Rome , and were thenceforthcontent to keep within the ir borders
,the only exception
being that Armenia w as,to some extent
,regarded as
lying within the Parthian sphere of influence .
The Death of Oroa’es , circa 3 7 B .C .— The death of
Pacorus w as a crushing blow to Orodes. The agedmonarch resigned his throne to his eldest son
,Phraates
,
w ho se tetradrachms are the first to bear a date . He at
once pro ceeded to assassinate his numerous brothers,and
his father on remonstrating w as also murdered . Thusfell Orodes after a long and glorious reign, during whichthe fame of Parthia had struck terro r into the cit izens of
Rome . He w as no t,perhaps
,a great man
, and the
supreme victory over Crassus w as w on by his Commander
xxxr ROME AND PARTHIA 3 87
in—Chief but he deserves much credit as an o rganizerw ho raised the status of Parthia to that of a power ableto treat with Rome on equal terms . It remains to
add that under Orodes Ctesiphon became the cap ital ofParthia.
The Exp edition of Antony aga inst Parthia , 3 6 B. C .
Phraates IV . , after assassinat ing his brothers and hisfather, instituted a reign of terro r which drove awayfrom his court many of his leading nobles . Among themw as a certain Monaeses
,a well-known general under
Pacorus,w ho fled to Antony and suggested to him that
the conditions were favourable for an invasion of Parthia.
Phraates,alarmed at this prospect
,pardoned Monaeses
,
w ho w as permitted by Antony to return,with instructions
to state that he only desired the restoration of the Romanstandards and of any prisoners w ho were st i ll alive .
This , however, w as merely a pretence intended to blindthe Parthian Court ; for Antony, jealous of the triumphdecreed to Ventidius , thought the t ime ripe for a
campaign which would place him on the p innacle of
fame . Consequent ly he made secret, but strenuous
,
preparat ions and soon had sixteen or eighteen legionsmobilized (about men). Ten thousand Gallicand Iberian horse and auxil iary ho rse and footmade up a formidable army . Artavasdes of Armeniaalso entered into a secret treaty , by the terms of whichhe w as bound to furnish 6000 cavalry and 7000 in
fantry.
In spite of the importance of attacking Parthia beforeher preparations were completed , precious time w as
wasted by Antony’s inability to part from Cleopatra, andin consequence it w as midsummer of 36 B . C . when the
army,which exceeded men , finally started . The
Euphrates w as found to be strongly held,and Antony
thereupon moved northwards into Armenia, where he
w as welcomed by his ally . His plan of campaign w as
now changed by the advice of Artavasdes , w ho po intedout that the entire Parthian army w as collected on the
Euphrates , and that an invasion of Media Atropatene ,whose king w as with Phraates, and the
.capture of
3 8 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
Praaspa,1 its capital , would be a magn ificent achievement .
Antony agreed to make the at tempt , but apparently didno t fully real ize the mobility of a Parthian army . H e
divided his command , leaving the siege-train and baggageto fo llow,
while he pressed forward by forced marches,
hoping perhaps to surpri se Praaspa but this w as foundto be impossible and he w as forced to awai t the arrival ofhis siege- train .
Meanwh ile, the Parthians , as might be expected ,followed swift ly in the tracks of Antony and attackedStatianus , w ho w as in charge of the second column . The i rvictory w as complete , Stat ianus and Romans be ingslain
,and the important siege- train captured . The result
w as a terrible blow to Antony , whom the subsequent defection of Artavasdes placed in a still worse position. All
his efforts to capture the naturally strong fo rtress fai led,
supp lies began to run short,and
,as the Parthians pursued
the ir nat ional tact i cs of envelopment and retreat,in spite
o f all his efforts to engage them,the situat ion as the
autumn drew near became increasingly serious . An
attempt to save face by agreeing to abandon the siegeif the standards and Roman prisoners were restored w as
treated with derision and contempt,and at last Antony
decided that retreat w as imperat ive .
His cho i ce of routes lay between one striking theeastern shores of Lake Urumia
,the water of which is
undrinkable, but which is surrounded by a fert ile belt ofopen country, or a route lying more to the east througha hilly tract . Hearing that the Parthians were occupyi ngthe route across the open plain
,Antony wisely took to the
hills and made for the neighbourhood of modern Tabriz .
This decision gave him tw o days’ immunity from attackbut on the third daythe Parthians appeared and surroundedthe retreat ing column. The Romans had learned sincethe defeat of Crassus to oppose these tact ics by developinga corps of slingers w ho used leaden bullets with cons ider
1 This is ident ical with ru ins now termed Tukht—i-Sulayman, or ‘“ The Throne of
So lomon ,”situated about one hundred m iles south - south -east of Lake Urum ia.
Rawlinson erroneous ly cons idered that ancient Ecbatana w as to be found at this s ite
(w ide Chapter X . of th is work). Vide also Wi l liams Jackson’3,Persia Past and Prese
chap. xi . and Strabo x i . 13, where Vera, a corruption of hir, s ign ifying a cast le,i s to
be ident ifi ed with Praaspa
3 90 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Parthia and the Parthian problem ,and devo ted his energies
to securing his pos1t1on against Octavian .
As might be supposed , Phraates , left free to deal withMedia
,defeated his rebellious vassal and in the end took
him prisoner . He then invaded Armenia in alliance withArtaxias
,the eldest son of Artavasdes . The Roman
garrisons,unsupported and left to their fate
,were cap
tured one after another,and in a very short t ime Armenia
w on back her independence . As a result of these cam
paigns , the posit ion and prestige of Parthia stood higherthan before . The co lumn of Statianus had been annihi
lated,M ark Antony had been driven out of the country
with heavy losses,and did no t dare to venture again into
the Parthian Emp ire ; and finallyArmenia had been broughtback into the sphere of Parthian influence .
Phraa tes IV. and Tir idates, 3 3
—
30 B . C .
— The fero cioustemperament of Phraates showed itself so fiercely after hissuccesses
, that in 3 3 B .C . a revo lt w as headed by a certainParthian nobleman named Tiridates . Phraates fled to the
nomads of Central Asia, and Tiridates w as declared king .
H e had ruled for about three years when Phraates re
turned at the head of a nomad force . Tiridates thereupon fled
,taking with him the youngest son of Phraates
,
and appeared at the court of Octavian,w ho w as at the
time 1n Syria. The son of Phraates w as accepted as a
ho stage,and Tiridates w as afforded protection ; but the
caut ious Roman w as no t to be drawn into a policy of
adventure beyond the Euphrates .The Restora tion of the R oman Standards , 20 B. C
Seven years later,in 23 B . C .
,Phraates opened nego t iat ions
for the surrender of the Pretender and the festoration of
his son . Octavian declined to consider the fo rmer proposal but agreed to surrender his son without a ransom .
In return he demanded the Roman standards . Phraates
rece ived his son with much joy ; but showed no inclinat ion to give up the standards unt il Octavian again visitedthe East three years later . Then
,fearing the consequences
of refusal,he duly restored them . The joy felt in Rome
and the prestige which accrued to Octavian,now the
Emperor Augustus,can be discerned in mo st writers of
xxx r ROME AND PARTHIA 3 9 1
the time . Indeed a wave of exultation appears to haveswept through the Emp ire, which finds expression in thewell-known l ines of Horace 1
Tua, Caesar, ae tas
fruges c t agris rettulit uberes,et signa nostro restituit Iov i
erep ta Parthorum sup erbis
postibus, et vacuum duellis
Ianum Quirini clausi t et ordinemrec tum evagant i frena licentiae
in iec i t emovi tq ue culpaset veteres revocaVI t artes.
The End of the Second Trial of Strength — The cam
paigns of Mark Antony constituted the second phase inthe struggle between Parthia and Rome
,the protagonists
of the East and West . When Phraates restored the
Roman standards , one of the main incent ives for Rometo attack her powerful neighbour w as removed
,and
,as
Augustus w as wisely averse from foreign expedit ions andleft it as one of the main principles of policy that the
Roman Emp ire should not be extended,there w as for the
t ime be in no fear of wanton aggression from the West ,after .the fashion of the invasion of Crassus . Phraates
,on
his side,real ized that it w as as well to cult ivate good
relat ions with Rome , and when his sons grew up , he sentthem to the Court of Augustus , mainly perhaps in o rderto get possible rivals out of the w ay, but also to pay a
compliment to the mighty Emperor . In short , a spiritsimilar to that which now animates the Brit ish Empire ,whose statesmen are unwilling to increase their weightyresponsibil it ies, governed the relations between the tw o
states , and there w as no invasion of the territory of one
by the o ther for almost a century , a long period in the
history of tw o neighbouring empires .
1 Odes, iv. 15.
PARTHIAN SCULPTURE FROM THE SOUTH LIWAN OF THE MAIN PALACE AT HATRA,SHOWING HELLENIC INSPIRATION.
CHAPTER XXXI I
THE ORGAN I ZAT ION,RELIG ION
,AND ARCH ITECTURE
OF THE PARTH IANS
For five centuries a people, or rather a camp, w i thout past or future, w i thout a religion, an art, or a policy of its ow n
, assumed the protectorate of theEast, and saved A sia from the arm s of Rome .
— GARDNER , on the Parthians .
The Organization of the Parthians .— From the larger
po int of View the history of Parthia is that of Persia and
Central Asia under the paramountcy of the Arsacidae, and
no attempt w as made by this nomadic tribe to colonize or toweld conquered peoples into a nation . The empire w as
divided by the Caspian Gates into the upper kingdom witheleven and the lower kingdom with seven provinces , butthe Parthians were
,generally speaking
,con tent to possess
the open country and their capitals,and so long as the i r
o rders were obeyed and the tribute paid , they allowed thesubj ect populat ions to develop
'
on the ir ow n lines . Afterthe conquest of a kingdom
,it w as either replaced under
its monarch w ho ruled as a Vassal-king,or else a Satrap
termed a Vi tana w as appo inted . In the fo rmer category,
392
3 94 HISTORY OF PERSIA
been duly elected , the right of crown ing him belonged tothe Surena or hereditary Commander- in—Chief
,a custom
which strongly emphasised the military const itution of the
empire . The lords spiritual were known as the Magi”or Sophi . They were specially powerful as represent ingreligion
,and also as be ing the mo st highly educated body
in the emp i re . As in medieval Europe,and in Persia at
the present day, the sp iritual lords owned much of the
best land , were granted special privileges , and const ituteda powerful hierarchy .
The Army.— There w as apparent ly no standing army
in Parthia apart from the royal guard . Just as under theAchaemen ians
,when w ar w as declared the monarch issued
orders to his Vassal-kings and Satraps , w ho brought the irlevies to an appo inted centre on a fixed day, each contingentbeing ent irely self- supporting . The infan try w as of smallvalue and of less account
,as i s st ill the case in Persia.
The fight ing force of the nat ion consisted of its light andheavy cavalry
,which has been described in connexion
with the campaign of Crassus . We there saw the tacticsof the Parthian army at their best , and also its weaknessin the fai lure to pursue the Romans by night .
In the campaign against Antony,
i t appears thatPhraates w as most anxious for the invader no t to winterin Media, as he could not have kept his army together forso long and this indicates ano ther serious weakness . The
art of waging w ar scient ifically,as understood by the
Greeks long before Alexander the Great , w as never learnedby the Parthians . They possessed no siege- train ,
thoughthey could easily have o rgan ized and manned one with theaid of their numerous Greek subj ects . Even when theycaptured a splendidly equipped siege- train from Antony,they destroyed it .
Everything connected with navigat ion w as a sealedbook to this typi cally nomadic , horse- loving race , althoughthe Caspian Sea washed Hyrcania . We have had occasionto make the same remark about the Persians throughouttheir long history .
The Court — Like the Achaemenian monarchs w ho
moved from Susa to Persepolis and again to Ecbatana, ,the
xxxn RELIGION AND ARCHITECTURE 3 95
Parthian Court spent the winter in Mesopo tamia and the
summer in Media and Parthia. Its winter capital w asCtesiphon, built on the left bank of the Tigris oppositeSeleucia and a few miles below Baghdad . Ecbatanaw as the Median capital ; and Hecatompylus , the ancientcapi tal of Parthia which borders on Hyrcania and isperhaps confused with it by Strabo
,
1w as the third cap ital .
Rhages , too , w as certainly visited,and ly ing as it does on
the direct route between Media Magna and Parthia or
Hyrcania w as probably the site of a royal palace . Finally ,there w as a royal palace at Babylon ,
and of this alone a
descript ion has come down to us,from the writ ings of
Philostratus , w ho says The palace i s roofed with brassand a bright l ight flashes from it . It has chambers forthe women, and chambers for the men
,and port i coes ,
partly glittering wi th silver , partly with clo th— of—go ldembro ideries
,partly with so l id slabs of go ld , let into the
walls,l ike pictures . The subjects of the embro ideries are
taken from the Greek mytho logy , and include representat ions of Andromeda and of Orpheus , w ho i s frequent lydepi cted . You behold the o ccupat ion of Athens andthe bat tle of Thermopylae and a canal cut through Atho s .
One chamber for the men has a roof fashioned intoa vault like the heaven
,composed ent irely of sapphires ,
which are the bluest of stones,and resemble the sky in
colour .”It is tantalizing to know so l ittle about the daily life of
the sovere ign . We have seen from Plutarch’
s accountthe luxury of the Surena w ho defeated Crassus . Hisdress w as of the Median fashion,
he wore his hair partedin the middle
, and his face w as painted with co smet ics .He rode to battle with a guard of ten thousand horsecomposed exclusively of his ow n adherents , and his transport train w as prodigious . It is safe to infer from this andfrom o ther not ices that the King of Kings passed hIS l1fein similar but even greater splendour .
The Position of Women — The posit ion of women,as
usual in the polygamous East, w as subordinate . The
monarch,like the Achaemen ian Great Kings , had a ch ef
1xvi . 1. 16.
3 96 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAR.
wife, w ho w as recogn ized as the Queen
,and a mult itude
of concubines,many of whom were Greeks . The customs
of separation and ve iling generally known as the Haremsystem prevailed , but eunuchs never obtained any greatinfluence ; nor, with the so l itary except ion of Musa
,the
Ital ian slave- girl,does anyQueen play a part comparable
with that of several of the Achaemenian royal ladies .Indeed the Parthians maintained their virility to a
remarkable degree,probably because they never enti rely
abandoned the ir nomadic habits .The L ife of the P arthians.
— We know comparat ivelylitt le as to the actual life of the Parthians
,but it is no t
very difficult to picture i t . War w as of course consideredthe first and noblest employment
,and after it came the
chase . The variet ies of game which then abounded havebeen already described
,and w e mayfeel sure that , although
shoo ting preserves are alone ment ioned,the Parthians as a
nation , l ike the Persians and Macedon ians,were devo ted
to sport . This is indeed borne out in a remark byJustin
,w ho states that game formed the main art icle of
diet . The Parthians were addicted to a wine made fromdates , and at revels there w as obviously much intemperance ,as indeed w as the case all over the wo rld . The i r musicincluded the flute
,the pipe , and the drum ,
and the i r feastsfrequent ly closed with dancing . Like all nomadic racesthey originally lived sparely
,but their habits changed with
prosperity . They’ate meat of all kinds
,including pork ,
and various vegetables . The ir bread w as leavened,l ight
and po rous,and w as known and esteemed in Rome .
Their Dress. The Parthians , l ike the Persians ,adopted the flowing Median robe
,with baggy trousers
similar to those worn by Pathans to—day. Fo r head-dressthey used a ribbon terminat ing in tw o long ends or else a
rounded t iara. The beard , when worn ,and the hair
generally were curled,but fashions changed at various
periods . In w ar they wore armour , with helmets of
polished steel . The trappings of the ir horses were veryrich
,go lden bits and bosses be ing usual . The national
weapon w as a powerful bow . Swords , too , were carried ,and a dagger w as invariably worn by all classes . The chief
3 9 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA c x.
recognized the eternal confl ict existing between Ormuzd,
the Principle of Good and Drug,the Lie . The Sun w as
saluted at its rising , w as worshipped under the old nameof Mithra, and asso ciated with the Moon . O ther deit ieswere probably the ministers of Ormuzd , w ho watched overthe monarchs and their families just as the geni i of theAchaemen ians did . The common people generally w orshipped little else besides the ancestral images
,which were
the most precious po ssession of every family,-high or low .
There w as also a profound belief in magic and invocat ionswhich recalls the ancient ! faith of Babylon .
The Mag i were held originally in great r everence, andtaught .the sanctity of fire and exposure of the dead . Theywere members of the Parthian House of Lords . As t imewent by , however , their power waned , unti l at last the irinfluence became sl ight . This is partly to be attributedto the fact that the Parthians tolerated the Greek and
Jewish rel igions , and later Christ ianity,1 which madesome w ay in the Empire . It i s believed that the kings ofOsrhoene were Christians from quite an early date ; and
it is a well-authent icated fact that a Council w as held at
their capital , Edessa, the headquarters of The Church ofthe Easterns ,
”in A .D . 19 8 to determine the date on which
Easter should be observed . As a set—Off to this weaken ingof the nat ional religion w e learn that it w as a Parthianmonarch , Volagases I .
,w ho collected '
all that w as left of
the Avesta .
In the works of Philostratus , w ho flourished from A .D.
172 to about 24 4 , w e read in the description o f the palaceof Babylon ,
part of which has been quo ted,that golden
images'
of the gods whom they worship are set up aboutthe vault , and show like stars in the firmament . This isthe chamber in which the King delivers his j udgments .Four golden magic wheels hang from its roof, and threatenthe 'monarch with the Divine Nemesis if he exalts himselfabove the condit ion of man . These wheels are calledthe tongues of the gods ,
’
and are set in the ir places bythe Magi w ho frequent the palace .
”21
’
Th is question is dealt w ith in The A syr ian Church, byDoctor W . A . W igram.
2 Philostratus, Vi t. Ap oll. Tyan. 1 . 25 (quoted from The Six th Oriental Mona rchy,P 4 17)
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
dominated the fancy of the Sasan ian and of the earlyMohamedan architects”;1 indeed , it i s st ill the i r dominantfeature . The eastern facade w as ornamented with a seriesof pilasters
,and some sculptures , chiselled on the arches
over the entrances to the halls , represented e ither humanheads or a female form . The ent ire length of the facadew as 300 feet .
Behind these halls w as a square building entered fromone of the great halls, and surrounded by a vaultedpassage . It is believed “
to have been the temple, and
above the doorway leading into it w as a splendid frieze .
Internally the temple w as without ornamentation, and it
w as lighted only by the single doorway .
These are not the only remains ; foundations of
Parthian palaces and houses have been uncovered at morethan one site in Mesopotamia
,such as Niffer and Sherkat
and a Parthian rock sculp ture exists on the famous ro ckat Behistun . This w as set up by Gotarzes
,whose name
may st ill be made out in the Greek inscript ion abovethe panels . It consists of tw o divisions or panels .That on the left , the greater part of which is now de
stroyed , contained standing figures , three ofwhich are s t il lvisible . The right-hand division is better preserved and
contains three mounted figures on a smaller scale . Thatin the centre is Go tarz es, w ho has charged and overthrownhis rival M eherdates , and is being crowned by a wingedVicto ry. The fall ing figure of Meherdates and his horsei s balanced on the left by the third horseman, a supporterof Gotarzes w ho gallops , lance in rest, to his master
’ssupport .2 This relief, which evidently inspired the Sasanianrock- sculptures, i s of little merit , but of some interest inthe historical development of Eastern art .
Coinage.— A few remarks on the co inage may fitly
conclude this meagre l ist of Parthian art i st i c achievement .There were no go ld co ins , and all the drachms bear on the
reverse the efligyofArsaces seated to the right and holding1 Palace and M osque a t Uhhaidir, p . 66 . For the best and latest publ icat ion dealing
w ith Hatra,v ide Andrae,
“ Hatra,”t ssenschaftliche Verofi’
entlichungen der Deutschen
Orient-Gescllschafi,No . 9
2 See King and Thompson, The Sculptures and Inscrip tion of Behistun, Pl. IX ., a
photograph taken at a t ime when the fi gures in relief stand out from the fi eld inshadow. I have special ly to thank M r. King for the above explanat ion.
PALACE AT HATRA. SOUTHERN WALL OF SOUTH LIWAN.
W . Andrae , Ha tra , Wi ssenschaf tl iche Verojentlzc/zungen der Den i se/zen
Or ien t-Gesellschafl , No . 9 ,
PHRAATACES AND MUSA.
CHA PTE R XXXII I
THE STR UGG LE FOR ARM EN IA
Quin et Artabani Parthorum regis laceratus est li tteris parricid ia et caedes
et ignav i am et luxuriam obicientis monentisque, ut vo luntaria morte max imoiusti ssimoq ue civium odio quam primum sati s faceret .— SUETONI US, Tiberius,8 . 66 .
The Armenian Question — The relations between Romeand Parthia would probably have cont inued to be friendlybut for the constantly recurring Armenian quest ion .
Augustus accepted the status guo as arranged by the
Parthians after the departure of Antony,and Artaxias w as
left in undisturbed possession of the throne of Armen ia.
On his death , in 20 B . C .,the Emperor sent Tiberius to
nominate his bro ther Tigranes as his successor . Tigranesreigned until his death in 6 B .C . ,
when the Armeniansplaced his three sons upon the throne . This independencedispleased Augustus
, w ho despatched an army to establisha Roman nom i nee in place of the three natural heirs .Shortly afterwards a rebell ion broke out , and Phraates ,w ho must have watched the situation with the greatestinterest
,came forward as the pro tector
w ho w as unanimously chosen King .
an old man,but he w as determined to assert the suz era
of Rome , and , after hesitat ing whom to entrust withdifficult task
,despatched his relat ive Caius with
authority to the East .The Murder of Phraates IV. , 2 B. C .
,and the Treaty
Rome,A.D . 1 .
—Everything seemed to po int to a new
CH . xxx111 THE STRUGGLE FOR ARMENIA 4 03
of strength between the tw o great powers,when the situa
tion w as ent irely changed owing to the murder of Phraatesby his son Phraataces — the word is a diminut ive of
Phraates— the child of his old age , whose mo ther w as
an Italian slave called Musa. The parricide seized the
throne , and although Augustus at one t ime refused to
recogn ize him ,it w as ultimately arranged that he
should meet Caius on an island in the Euphrates . Thishistorical interview took place in A .D . 1
,and Phraataces
,
whose posit ion must have been part icularly insecure,agreed
to withdraw ent irely from the affairs of Armen ia. On
these terms , which were loyally observed , a treaty w as
made,and celebrated by a series of magnificent festivit ies .
Phraa taces, Vonones, and Artabanus I I I .— Phraataces
w as hated by his subjects , partly at any rate owing to the
official honours paid to his mother , who se efligyw as placedon the co inage . Before long he w as put to death , as
w as also his successor Orodes , w ho w as an Arsacid electedto succeed to the throne . The M egistanes then applied toRome for Vonones , the eldest son of Phraates , w ho w as
sent back to Parthia . At first he w as warmly welcomed ,but his foreign habits and his fore ign favourites , whomhe promoted to most of the high posts , brought himunpopularity
,which w as increased by his dislike of hunt ing
and drinking bouts . A revolt soon broke out,on this
occasion in favour of an Arsacid , named Artabanus,w ho
w as King of Media Atropatene . His first effort failed ,but at a second attempt he drove Vonones out of the
country . The refugee monarch fled to Armenia, wherethe throne w as vacant , and he w as elected King ; butArtabanus threatened w ar
,and Vonones then quitted
Armenia and fled to Syria, where he w as accorded Romanprotection .
R ome, Parthia , and Armenia , A .D . 1 8— 35.— Rome now
stepped in again to assert her suzerainty over Armenia,and German icus , the nephew of Tiberius , w as sent on an
extraordinary mission to the East , where he arrived inA .D. 1 8 . H e at once marched with a large force to
Artaxata and there selected a fore ign prince acceptable tothe Armenians , and pro claimed him KIng under the name
4 04 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
of Artaxias . Germani cus then returned to Syria,where
he w as visited by Parthian ambassadors , w ho proposed a
meeting on the Euphrates similar to that between Phraataces and Caius but the proposal w as not accepted .
Artabanus during the ensu i ng years w as so successfulin his various enterprises that In A .D . 34 ,
upon the deathof Artaxias , he entered Armen ia and appo inted his eldestson
,known only as Arsaces
,to the throne . At the same
t ime he despatched a provo cat ive embassy to Rome . To
this Tiberius replied by sending back one of the survivingsons of Phraates IV . to Syria
, as he w as assured that therew as a strong party in Parthia ready to r ise in his favour .But this scheme w as fo iled by the death of the prince
,and
perhaps it w as in exultation over this that Artabanus wrotethe famous letter to Tiberius
,g iven in the heading to this
chapter, in which he strongly advised the gloomy recluseof Capri to grat ify his subj ects by commit ting suicide !Incensed by this ep istle
,Tiberius not only despatched a
second pretender to the throne of Parthia in the personof Tiridates , nephew of the prince w ho had died , butalso st irred up the Iberians and o ther neighbouringtribes against his enemy . Strengthened by th is supportin A .D . 35 Pharasmanes
,King of Iberia
,contrived the
assassination of Arsaces and then marched into Armen ia,where he took the capital . Artabanus sent another son
,
Orodes,to fight the pretender, but after a hard-fought
battle the Parthian army w as routed .
The Vi cissitudes of Artabanus I I I . ,A .D . 36
—
37 .— Arta
banus in the fo llowing year (A.D . 36) took the field inperson
,whereupon the Roman Governo r of Syria, by name
Vitell ius,marched towards the Euphrates . This caused
Artabanus to retreat from Armenia with such loss of
prest ige that his nobles, with Roman support , conspiredagai nst him and forced him to flee to the wilds of Hyrcania.
There he spent his t ime hunting and wai ting , as he himselfput it , “ unt il the Parthians
, w ho could judge an absentk ing fairly
, although they could not cont inue for longfai thful to a present one
,should repent o f their treatment
of him .
”11 Tacitus
,Annales
,vi. 36.
4 06 HISTORY OF PERSIA
fo r Armenia again became acute after the death o f
Go tarz es . His successor, Vonones I I . , reigned but a fewmonths
,and Volagases I .
,his eldest son by a Greek con
cubine,determined from the commencement of his reign
to conquer Armenia,which he wished to bestow on his
brother Tiridates . That unfortunate country w as st i llruled by M ithradates , bro ther of Pharasmanes of Iberia ;but the latter had an ambit ious son named Rhadamistus ,and
,to occupy his energies
,Pharasmanes suggested to him
that it would be easy to murder his uncle and usurp the
throne . This nefarious scheme w as successfully carriedout , Volagases, finding Armenia in this disturbed con
dit ion, immediately after his succession in A .D . 51 invadedit and carried all before him . But an outbreak of sicknesscaused by a famine fo rced him to evacuate the country,whereupon Rhadamistus returned and for three years w asleft in peace .
The Parthian monarch w as for some t ime occupiedwith Ad iabene
,with whose vassal-king he had quarrelled ,
and w as about to invade it , when an inroad of Dahae
and o ther nomads called him away to defend Parthia.
When he returned after successfully beating off“
the ~
invaders,Izates o f Adiabene had died , and with his bro ther
Monobazus, w ho succeeded him ,
Volagases had no quarrel;He w as consequent ly free to devo te all his energies tothe permanent annexat ion of Armen ia . Rhadamistus
w as again attacked and again fled,leaving Armenia to
Tiridates .
Volagases and Nero,A .D . 55
— 63 .— These campaigns had
caused considerable uneasiness in Rome , where Nero hadrecently ascended the throne of the Caesars , and it w as
decided to make strenuous efforts to restore Romansuzerainty over Armenia. Indeed , had Rome acquiescedin the proceedings of Volagases , her prest ige would havesuffered a heavy blow .
In A .D . 55the Roman leg1ons under Corbulo , esteemedthe best general of the day, were ready to take the field ,but Volagases , who se po sit ion w as temporarily weakenedby a rebellion headed by his son Vardanes
,yielded for
the t ime being and gave hostages to Rome . Three years
THE GORGE OF THE ZAB .
(From Wigrams‘Crad le of fl/anhzna
’
4 08 HISTORY OF PERSIA
the terms of the surrender of all the fo rtresses held bythe Romans and the evacuat ion of Armenia, pending freshnego tiations with Rome . The disgraced legions ret ired tothe Euphrates
,where they met Corbulo and the relieving
army .
Once again the Old Roman spirit reasserted itself,the
ambassadors from Parthia were dismissed , and Corbulo
w as given full powers to conduct the w ar. H e marchedinto Armenia, where negotiat ions were again opened , andpeace w as made on the terms that Tiridates should proceedto Rome and receive his crown from the hands of the
Emperor . This treaty w as made in A .D . 63 and w as
duly observed,although Tiridates did not reach Rome
unt il A .D . 66 .
The Investi ture of Tiridates byNero, A .D . 66 .
— Tiridates
travelled to Rome by land in great state,with an escort
of three thousand Parthian cavalry, his journey cost ingthe Roman treasury some six thousand pounds dai lyfor a period of n ine months . The actual ceremony of
investiture w as of extreme magnificence , and Tiridates,
duly crowned , returned to Armenia in triumph . AsRawlinson po ints out
,the acceptance by Rome of an
Arsacid ruler in Armenia far outweighed the nominalbestowal of the crown by Nero . In any case, the peacebetween the tw o great empires w as not again brokenfor over half a century
,and , as the course of events
showed,Rome w as mo st ready to come to terms with
her formidable opponent , w ho on her side w as unwillingto incur the host il ity of the Western Empire .
An Obscure P eri od of Parthian History, A .O . 66— 108 .
After the treaty with Nero,the history of Parthia, owing
mainly to the peace between the tw o great emp ires , i s soobscure that even the names of the Kings become un
certain . A few facts , however, illuminate this dark period .
In A .D . 69 Vespasian ,w ho w as governor of Judaea, decided
to bid for the empire,and Volagases offered to place forty
thousand Parthian cavalry at his disposal but his generalshad already w on the day in Italy, and he courteously refusedthe offer . Again , in A .D. 7 1 , Volagases sent Titus a crownof go ld to commemorate his conquest of the Jews .
xx q THE STRUGGLE FOR ARMENIA 4 09
In A .D . 75 the Parthian Empire w as overrun by theAlani
,a nomadic people
,w ho
,i n alliance with the Hyr
canians , poured through Media and Armenia. Volagases
appealed to Rome for help,but Vespasian re sed it , and
the Alan i after devastat ing far and wide returned to theirow n country with immense booty. In A .D . 77 Volagases
ended his eventful re ign,which upon the who le had been
successful , although the inroad of the Alani and the breaking away of Hyrcania brought failure at the clo se .
His successor,Pacorus
,had a most disturbed reign ,
and it appears that the Parthian Emp ire w as divided betweenthree or four monarchs
,all of whom claimed to be the
King of Kings .” Pacorus , w ho i s believed to have diedabout A .D . 105, w as succeeded by Osroes
,during who se
troubled rule the long peace with Rome came to a close .
ARTABANUS V.
CHA PTER XXXIV
TH E DECL INE AND FALL OF PARTH IA
Trajan w as ambitious of fame and as long as mankind shall continue to
bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, thethirst of mi li tary glory w i ll ever be the vice of the most exalted characters .
G I BBON, Decline and Fa ll.
The Roman Emp i re at its Zeni th.— At the beginning of
his great work,Gibbon lays down that Rome enjoyed “
a
happy period of more than fourscore years ’ ’ during the
reigns of Nerva, Traj an,Hadrian
,and the tw o Anton ines ,
and that from the death o f Marcus Antoninus the declineset in . Consequently in deal ing with this period w e haveto remember that the Parthian Emp ire w as facmg Romeat the zenith of her power and efficiency , whereas in herow n case decay had already begun .
Trajan and Armenia,A .D . 1 14
— 1 15.— It i s remarkable
with what monotonous frequency Armenia const ituted thecasus belli between Rome and Parthia . Upon the deathof Tiridates , about A . D . 100,
the Arsacid monarch Pacorushad placed one of his sons
,Axidares
, on the throne without applying to Rome for recognit ion
,and this const ituted
a grave infringement of the rights of the Western Power .Unfortunately for Parthia
,Rome w as at this period ruled
by the great so ldier Trajan , w ho from A .D . 10 1 to 107 w as
engaged in conquering Dacia, the distri ct to the nor thof the Danube , which roughly corresponds to modernRoumania . In A . D. 1 14 the Roman Emperor had con
sol idated his military power, which had been increased bythe training his legions had received in w ar, and he w as
4 10
HISTORY OF PERSIA cxxp .
province . He also received envoys from the surroundingtribes , on whom he impressed the might and majesty o f
Rome . From Armenia he marched to Nisibis , the capitalof Osrhoene
,now the fanat ical town of Urfa
,where he
received the submission of Abgarus , and,meeting with
success wherever he turned his arms,he organized Meso
potamia into yet another Roman province . The winterw as spent at Antioch , which during the period of hisresidence w as destroyed by an appall ing earthquake
,
accompanied by terrible lo ss of life . In the spring of
A .D . 1 16 he returned to Mesopo tamia,where ships had
been constructed in sections,and were afterwards put
together on the Tigris . Adiabene w as next invaded .
As Osroes did no t come to the rescue no defence w as
attempted,and it w as occupied and made into a Roman
province . Instead of marching down the Tigris,Traj an
recro ssed it,and , after capturing Hatra
,made for the
Euphrates , which he followed down to Babylon . Herealso no resistance w as offered
,and in a short t ime Seleucia
and Ctesiphon were successively captured . As a result , thewhole reg i on watered by the tw o historical r ivers submitted , and so secure did Trajan feel that he travelleddown the Tigris to the Persian Gulf
,on whose waters the
Roman standards had never yet been reflected .
The Retrea t of Trajan, A .D. 1 16 .— As might have been
expected , Osroes did not intend to submit tamely, althoughhe w as too prudent to face the Roman legions . He madesuccessful efforts to raise the country
,and suddenly Trajan
rece ived reports that rebellions had broken out at everycentre in his rear and that his lines of communicationwere threatened . Realizing that he could not hold hisconquests , he attempted to retain Roman suzerainty , withwhich purpose he installed an Arsacid prince as King of
Parthia,and then began his retreat . His first object ive
w as Hatra,which had revo lted
,but he w as repulsed and ,
to his deep chagrin,w as forced to retire .
In the following year Osroes reappeared at Ctesiphonand drove out the Roman nominee ; but Adiabene , Mesopo tamia
,and Armenia remained Roman provinces which
the King of Kings dared not invade, and consequently
xxxrv DECLINE AND FALL OF PARTHIA 4 13
Trajan’
s campaign resulted in substantial additions to theRoman Empire .
The Ev acua ti on of Armenia and M esop otamia byHadrian, A .D . 1 17 .
— Fo rtunately for Parthia, Trajan died
in A .D . 1 17, and Hadrian,his successor
,decided that the
boundaries laid down by Augustus were the best . In pursuance of this policy , he gave orders for the evacuat ion ofthe three new provinces and withdrew the Roman legionsacross the Euphrates . In A .D . 122 the Emperor met the
King of Kings at a po int on the front ier, and , as the
po licy of Hadrian w as entirely favourable to Parthia,the
most cordial relat ions were maintained between the tw o
monarchs .The Inroad of theAlani , A .D . 13 3 .
-The internal historyof Parthia w as one of unusual tranquillity for some yearsafter these events . The mo st important event w as the
inroad of the Alani , whom Pharasmanes,King of the
Iberians,encouraged to pour through the Caucasus
,of
which he held the passes . One sect ion of the hordeswarmed into Cappadocia, whence they were driven out
by Arrian,the great historian , w ho w as its governor .
The re igning Parthian monarch , on the o ther hand,re
sorted to the fatal pol icy of buying off the invaders,and
thereby exposed his weakness .The Inv asion of Syr ia by Volaga ses I I I .
,A .D . 16 1 .
— In
A .D . 16 1,when Marcus Aurel ius became Emperor , Parthia
w as ruled by Volagases I I I . , w ho had ascended the thronesome fourteen years before , and w ho w as determined onceagain to challenge the Roman Empire as soon as he saw
a fitt ing Opportunity. As had happened so o ften in the
past,the first blow w as struck by the invasion ofArmen ia ;
the king,w ho ruled under the aegis of Rome , w as expelled ,
and a certain Tigranes of the old royal family w as set on
the throne .
Aelius Sever1anus , legate of Cappadocia and a Gaulby birth
,immediately took the field at the head of one
legion ; but he w as overwhelmed by numbers , and hiscommand w as annihilated by the deadly Parthian arrow .
The Parthians then swa rmed across the Euphrates and
overran Syria once more.
HISTORY OF PERSIA can .
The Camp a igns of Av idius Cassius, A .D: 163— 165.
— It
w as not unt il the autumn of A .D. 162 that the armies o fRome were ready to take the field . Avidius Cassius
, w ho
commanded in Syria, first stood on the defensive,but
before long he w as able to assume the offensive, and in
A .D. 163 he defeated the Parthians in a great batt le nearEuropus and drove them in headlong fl ight across theEuphrates . In Armen ia, where the country favoured theRomans , Statius Priscus met with no opposit ion and
captured Artaxata,which he apparently destroyed .
Sohaemus,the fugitive king , w as recalled from Rome to
occupy the throne once more,and the fo rmer posit ion of
affairs w as restored . No t content with this,Cassius
, w ho
w as ambitious to rival Trajan , invaded the ParthianEmp ire and marched to Babylon
,gaining ano ther victory
on the w ay. H e captured and plundered Seleucia, the
strongho ld of Eastern Hellen i sm,and Ctesiphon . H e
even ascended the historical route into Media,and thereby
surpassed the achievements ofTrajan . A terrible pest ilencew as brought back by the victorious army and swept acrossthe entire empire ; butWestern Mesopotamia
,with Nis ibis
as its capital , w as regained , and the campaign had provedconclusively to the world that Parthia w as now no matchfor Imperial Rome ,
The Eastern Camp a igns of Severus, A .D . 194— 197 .
The unsuccessful Volagases I I I . died in A .D . 19 1 and w as
succeeded by a prince known as Volagases IV . In the
civil w ar which rent the Roman Empire after the death ofPertinax
,Pescinnius Niger w as saluted as Impera tor by
the leg ions in Syria . Volagases in the first instanceappears to have offered his congratulat ions and a force of
Parthian troops to Niger, and his Vassal-kings followedhis example . But when news came that Severus hadbeen acknowledged as Emperor in Rome
,Volagases
prudently played a waiting game . At the same t ime,
with typical Oriental inconsistency , he apparently permitted the Vassal-king of Ha tra to despatch a body of
his famous archers to the help of the Syrian claimant . In
A .D . 194 the province of Western Mesopotamia, takingadvantage of the civil w ar, revo lted , and the outlying
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
annexed Adiabene, and from this period onward it w as
permanently incorporated in the Roman Empire . Parthiamade no subsequent at tempt to wrest back her lostvassal— states , and w as evident ly nearing her end .
Artabanus and Volagases , the last Kings of Parthia , A .D .
209— 226 .
— Upon the death of Volagases IV . in A .D .
208 — 9 , tw o of his sons,Artabanus and Volagases , fought
for the inheritance , and so evenly matched were theirforces that after the initial success of Vo lagases theypract ically divided the empire , Artabanus ruling in the
West and his bro ther in Babylonia. Of the course of thiscivil w ar w e know very l ittle
,but i t is on record that
Caracalla s,w ho succeeded his father Severus in A . D . 2 1 1
,
w as able to congratulate the Senate in the fo llowing yearon the fact that hostile Parthia w as st il l rent by internaltroubles .
The Treachery of Caracallus, A . D . 2 16 .— In A .D. 2 15
Caracalla s,
w ho had at first acknowledged Volagases ,opened up nego t iat ions with Artabanus . H e sentambassado rs provided with gifts of great value and
demanded the hand of a Parthian princess in marriage,
po int ing out that by this alliance Rome and Parthia, the
tw o emp ires which governed the known wo rld , would beirresist ibly strong
,to the benefit of both powers .
Artabanus w as aware that Caracallus had entrappedthe King of Osrhoene by treachery and had acted in a
similar manner towards the King of Armen ia. Con
sequently he w as afraid that treachery w as intended and
gave a po litely vague and evasive reply, of the kind inwhich Orientals have ever been adepts . A second embassy
,
however,persuaded him of the sincerity of the Emperor
and he wrote to invite Caracallus to fetch his bride .
With detestable treachery the Roman Emperor attackedhis ho sts
, w ho were taken at a disadvantage ; Artabanus
barely escaped his army w as massacred , and his territorieswere plundered . But Caracallus did not enjoy his successfor long , as in A .D . 2 17 he w as murdered near Carrhae .
The last Battle betw een Rome and Parthia , A . D . 2 17 .
Artabanus after his escape had co llected an army to
avenge the treachery of which he had been the vict im .
DECLINE AND FALL OF PARTHIA 4 117
Upon reaching the frontier he heard of the death of
Caracallus and w as met by the envoys of his successor,
Macrinus . Artabanus insisted on the restoration of
Mesopo tamia and an indemnity, and these terms beingout of the quest ion the tw o armies met near Nisibis .The battle w as fought on the old l ines ; the Romanssuffered from the deadly arrow and also from the chargesof the mai l-clad lancers , w ho were in this case mountedon camels . They retreated , but saved themselves bystrewing the ground with caltrops . On the second day,too
,there w as no decisive advantage on e ither side ; but
on the third day the Romans were defeated and fled
back into their camp . Both sides were now weary of
the contest and the heavy losses , and peace w as concludedby the payment of about to the victors .Thus
,although this sum of money w as ostensibly a gift ,
and although some of the outlying Parthian provinceswere no t given up
,the long roll of campaigns between
Rome and Parthia clo sed with dishonour to the WesternPower .
The Dow nfall of Parthia , A .O . 226 — Artabanus w as
now at the zenith of his power , and there w as little to
indicate that the downfall of his dynasty w as at hand .
But about A .D . 220 Artaxerxes , known to his countrymenas Ardeshir
,the Vassal-king of Persia, rebelled and after
a series o f campaigns,in which three great battles were
fought,Artabanus
,or Ardaw an as he i s termed by the
Persian historians , w as utterly defeated and slain on the
plain of Hormuz , a few miles east of Ahwaz . With himfell the Parthian dynasty .
4 ‘
The Intercourse of China w ith P ersia , A .D. 25— 220 .
In Chapter XXIX . reference w as made to the earliestintercourse between China and Persia. It is of interestto know that
,after an interval of about a century , Chinese
embassies were once again despatched to the West ; and
from the reports given in the later H an history w e learnthat Rome
,or
,more correctly, the eastern part of the
Roman Empire,now came within the ken of China . In
97 B.e . the celebrated Chinese general,Pan Chao , despatchedhis lieutenant
,Kan Ying , to Parthia and Rome . This
VOL . I 2 E
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n:
worthy travelled to Babylonia by w ay of H ecatompylus
and Hamadan . M oreover, he contemplated a voyagedown the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean
,and
apparently up the Red Sea to Aelana at the h ead o f the
Gulf of Akaba,_
to Petra and Syria. But as he w as assuredthat the o cean might take tw o years to cross , he prudentlydecided no t to undertake the enterprise . I t . i s clean ghgthe captains to whom Kan .Ying , applie
’
d iw'
ere unw illiii'
gthat a Chinaman should learn ‘
the secrets of f the.
-
profitable
trade which w as being carried on .
The informat ion brought back by _a later embassy .w as
that they (of Ta- tsin or Rome) trade with An-Sih
(Parthia) and Tien—Chu ( India) in the middle of the Sea,
making tenfo ld profits . 'The (Ta- tsin) King alwayswanted to open up missions with H an
,but An-Sih wished
to do t rade with them in H an silk goods , so that xhe w as
obstructed and could not get at us until the n inth year ofthe Emperor H w an
’
s period (A . D . when An-tun
(Antoninus),1 King of Ta-tsin
,sent an envoy.v ia the parts
beyond Jihnan ( i .e. v ia Indo-China) with o fferings of
ivo ry,rhinoceros-ho rn and torto ise-shell .” This so—called
embassy,bearing products of the Straits
,w as , as Parker
po ints out , obviously but the arrival of some adventurousRoman merchants with gifts
,and no mission from Imperial
Rome . Even so,however
,these few details are of extreme
interest , i f only as show ing how the central posit ion of the
Parthian Empire caused it to be affected not only by theWest
,of which so much mention is made in history , but
also,albe it to a lesser degree
,by .the Extreme East . I t is
to be'
no ted that this official intercourse Was invariablypeaceful , and w as
,in every
- case,initiated by.China.
The'
Cult of M ithra s in Europ e.-The influence
'
of
Iran on the West,appears most strongly
x in'
the cult . of
Mithras, or .Mithra,which consequent ly calls for special
noti ce .,Mithras 1"w as . ,
one of the most ancient of."the 2Aryan deities
,and in the Vedic hymns w as invoked with
1 Marcus Aure l ius Anton inus w as Emperor at th is period, and Ari -tun is, as Parkerstates, inv it ingly sim ilar in sound.
2 I have consulted Cumont’s great work
,Les Mystéres de M i thra , and also the
art icle on M ithras in the Ency. Bri t . M ithras is a lso referred to in Chapters V I I I .,IX .,
and XXX I I .
xxx1v DECLINE AND FALL OF PARTHIA 4 19
Ahura Mazda. In the Avesta he occupied an in termediateposit ion between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman as thegreatest of the Yaz atas
, beings created by the SupremeGod to aid in the destruct ion of evil and the go vernmentof the world . H e w as the god ofLight , and , as light i s heat ,he w as also the god of increase
, of fert ility and of prosperity. By a further development
,more especially in the
reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon , he became the protector ofmonarchs , the Lord of Hosts
, and the god of Victory .
The seventh month and the sixteenth day of every monthwere sacred to Mithras , whose name appears in Mi thradates and o ther royal names .As the Persian Empire spread
,centres of the cult
were established in Babylon and elsewhere . In Babylonthe god w as ident ified wi th Shamash
,the god of the
Sun,
and the cult of Mithras w as affected in o therways . After the break—up of the empire of Alexander theGreat , the dynast ies established in Pontus
,Cappado cia
,
Armenia and Commagene claimed descent from the
Achaemenian Kings,and , in pursuance of these claims
,
worshipped the gods of Iran .
For a long while the cult made no progress outsideAsia . It w as never at tract ive to the Hellen i c mind
,
and this w as the cause of its slow progress ; yet it w as
Greek sculptors w ho executed the famous bas- reliefs of
Mithras, whom they ident ified with Helio s ( the Sun).It appears that Mithraism w as introduced into Rome
by the Cili c ian pirates captured by Pompey ,1 and , likeChristianity
,it w as at first confined to the lower classes .nd of the first century of the Christ ian era
nsiderable w ay in Rome and began to spreadespecially among so ldiers , merchants , and
slaves . From the end o f the second century the emperorsencouraged the cult , because it supported the theory of thedivine right of monarchs . At this period it made suchprogress that M ithraea ,
or temples of Mithraism , havebeen found all over Germany , and as far away as Yo rkand Chester . But the rise of Christ ianity w as dest ined tocrush the Iran ian religion . Constant ine dealt it a stagger
1 Vide Chapter XXIX .
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
ing blow ,and
,although it revived under Julian
, the
victory of Theodosius the Great In 3 94 brought it virtually to an end 1n Europe .
It must no t be supposed that Mithras w as the only
god imported from Persia . A t the head of the divinehierarchy stood Cronus or Saturn
,representing Infinite
Time . Heaven and Earth were his offspring and they inturn begat Ocean . Mithras w as miraculously born out of
a rock and immediately undertook to subdue all createdbeings . His mo st famous explo it w as an encounter withthe sacred bull of Ormuzd
,which he finally overcame and
sacrificed ; from the dying animal sprang the life of the
earth . In the sculptures Mithras is represented as slayingthe bull a dog is leaping to drag it down ,
and a serpent,
a symbo l of the earth , i s being made fertile by drinkingthe blood of the vict im .
To turn to the mysteries of the religion,there were
seven degrees co rresponding to the seven planets ; an
oath or sacramentum w as admin istered to all in itiates, and
women were excluded absolutely . Special ceremonies included a sacred communion of bread , water, and possiblywme .
The rel igion of Mithras appealed to mankind throughits myst ic ceremon ies , but st ill more through the expectat ion of a better life beyond the grave . As in the parentdoctrine of Zoroaster , truth , courage , and purity wereneeded for the everlast ing struggle against the powers ofevil . M ithras w as the champion o f Go od and the faithful were assured of final victory . Towards the close of
the third century of our era, Mithraism ,a purely Iran ian
rel igion,and Christ ianity , a religion of Jewish origin
,
but no t without Iranian elements derived probably fromJudaism
,stood face to face . But , owing largely to its
exclusion ofwomen,its to lerat ion of polytheism in a mono
the ist i c system , and a certain barbarous note , Mithraismrapidly fell before the attacks of Christ ian ity , after a
struggle which w as the more obdurate because of the manydoctrines w hich the tw o religions po ssessed in common .
Summary— The Parthian dynasty cannot claim to be
great in the sense that it bestowed on the world any of the
CHAPTER XXXV
THE R I SE OF THE SASAN IAN DYNA STY
Then quoth king A rdaw an to his adviser,What w as th is mountain-sheep wh ich ran beh ind them
Answered the o ther, “ That Roya l Splendour,
Wh ich,by his lucky star
,leads him to lordsh ip .
FI RDAU S I’
S Shahnama (ed . M acan).
The Origin of the Sasanian Dynasty — The Sasaniandynasty
,under which the inheri ted glories of the Achae
menians were revived,marked a new and splendid epoch
in Persian history . It is held illustrious by all Persians,
not only because of its intrinsi c greatness , but owing to
the fact that under it Iran recovered its independence ,instead of const itut ing one of many provinces ruled by a
Parthian King of Kings . From the po int of view of the
European historian it i s important , as for the first t imePersian chron icles become histor i cal in place of legendary ,although
,as maybe supposed , the o rigin of the dynasty is
wreathed in the mists of the past .
The death of Rustam ment ioned in Chapter XI I .brought us pract i cally to the end of the hero ic age of
Persia,Isfandiar
,whom he slew in his last great fight
,
having left a son Bahman, ident ified with the ArtaxerxesLongimanus of history . This late Achaemenian monarchi s thus the first histori cal Great King in history so far as
Persian histo rians record it,and the Sasanian dynasty
claimed descent from this illustrious stock . Followingthe legend as embodied in Firdausi
’
s famous epic , w e
learn that Bahman married his sister Humai , w ho bore4 22
CH . xxxv RISE OF THE SASANIAN DYNASTY 4 23
him Dara, a posthumous son . His bro ther Sasan,dis
appo inted of the succession by the birth of an he ir,ret ired
to the mountains of Kurdistan and became a shepherd .
It i s from him that the Sasanian dynasty sprang .
As mentioned in ChapterXXVII . , the Parthians , knownas the Ashkanian dynasty and generally referred to byPersians as the M uluh-u-Taw a if, or Kings of the Tribes ,are almost ignored in the National Epic
,which devotes bu t
a few stanzas to the many centuries of thei r overlordship .
On the o ther hand , the Alexander romance referred to inChapter XX . made so great an impression on the Eastthat it i s no t surprising to find it woven into Persia’s epic
,
Dara being represented as marrying the daughter of Philipof Macedon, and Alexander himself as be ing the offspringof the marriage .
These legends embody a vague recollect ion of a lateAchaemenian king , from whose brother the Sasaniandynasty claimed descent . It i s to be reco llected thatthe Parthians equally claimed an Achaemenian descent
,
although Persian wr iters would never acknowledge the
claim in the case of hated M uluh—u-Taw a if . The romanceof Alexander i s brought in from an entirely foreign source ,and by an ecclesiastical and po l itical secret
,
”as Masudi
terms it, the period of five hundred and forty-nine yearswhich elapsed between the death of Alexander in 323 B . C .
and the rise of the Sasanian dynasty is reduced to tw o
hundred and sixty — six years by the Persian historian .
From these facts w e can understand without much difficulty how very inaccurate i s the knowledge of historyamong Persians
,and also how much that is unsurpassed in
histo rical splendour has thereby been lost to the inheritorsof the glor ies of Cyrus and Darius .1
1 Tw o Arab historians,Tabari and Masudi
,treat of the Sasan ian period. Abu Jafar
M ohamed Tabari,w ho flourished from the m iddle of the n inth to early in the tenth
century of our era, in his great work, general ly known as TheAnnals but more correct lytermed TheHistory of the Prophets a nd Kings, dealt w ith the historyof mankInd from the
creat ion down to A .D. 9 15. I t has been translated and pub l ished 1n French byProfessorde Goeje . Abul H asan Ali M asudi
,w ho l iv ed somewhat later, completed hIS famous
hi story,The M eadow s qf Gold and M ines of Precious Stones, in A .D. 94 7 .
'
TI' HS has beentrans lated into French by Barb ier de M eynard. Both works possess conslderable value .
The gréat poem of F irdaus i also begins to be h istorica l in the Sasan ian perIOcl. The ch ef
European works are The Sev enth Grea t Or iental M onarchy, by G . Rawl inson Geschichteder Perser and Am ber zur Zei t der Sasaniden, by Prof. Th . NOldeke and the translat ion
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
The Coming of Ardeshir .—The birth of all ancient
dynast ies,more especially in the East , has ever been
attended by extraordinary events,
and the coming of
Ardeshir or Artaxerxes is no except ion . It is surroundedby charming legends . So far as can be ascertained
,
Ardeshir,son o f Papak , l ike his mighty predecessor Cyrus ,
w as a Vassal—king w ho ,finding or making the opportunity
,
killed his bro thers and overthrew the Parthian King of
Kings . But the Pahlavi wr iters were not content wi thso simple a story . According to the Karnama/e, referredto in Chapter XLI . , and Firdausi
,Iran w as divided up
into tw o hundred and forty states under kings , of whomArdaw an ( the class ical
w Artabanus ) w as the chief. Acertai n apak
, w ho w as King 0 ars and dwelt at Istakhr,
had no son . One night he dreamed concern ing Sasan,
w ho w as his shepherd, that the sun from his head illumin
ated the entire world . On the following n ight he dreamedthat he saw Sasan riding on a white elephant and receivinghomage and blessings and on the third n ight he saw howthe Sacred Fires waxed great in the house of Sasan and
illuminated the world . Amazed at these dreams,Papak
summoned the wise men, w ho unan imously declared that
the kingship would be attained by Sasan or his son .
Papak , upon hearing this interpre tat ion ,sent for Sasan
,
w ho to ld him of his illustrious descent . H e w as thereupon clo thed with a royal robe and w as married to Papak
’
s
daughter , w ho bo re him Ardeshir . Ano ther delightfullegend is that when Ardeshir reached man ’s estate he fledfrom Ardaw an
’
s capital at Rei to Pars or Fars,taking
with him a wise and beaut i ful damsel w ho had hithertobeen Ardaw an
’
s adviser,but w ho deserted him from love
of Ardeshir . The enraged monarch pursued the fugit ivesand
,upon inquiring at a certain village whether they had
passed through,he w as info rmed that they were riding
like the wind and that a large ram w as runn ing behindthem . On the second day Ardaw an w as informed by themembers of a caravan which he met that the ram had been
ofAmm ianus M arce l linus,by Yonge . In the last-named work the fi rst th irteen chapters
are unfortunate ly m iss ing. M uch informat ion has been obtained from coins,especially
from Dorn’
s Collect ion des monna ies sassanides.
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
to all Parthian fugit ives . But in the o ther provincesArdeshir appears to have made good his t i tle withoutany great difficulty ; and Babylon ia, with Ctesiphon the
Parthian capital , w as also subdued .
Ardeshir and SeverusAlexander,A .D . 229
— 232 .— Arde
Shir w as in consequence firmly established,and believing
himself to be in a po sition to throw down the gauntlet tothe Roman Empire
,he decided
,about A .D . 22 8 , to cross
the Euphrates . From his po int of view he w as the victorover Ardaw an
, w ho had forced a great Roman army topurchase an ignominious peace . H e might thereforereasonably hope for success against the recently defeatedlegions . Moreover, in all probabil ity he w as no t onlyurged by his natural ambit ion and love of glory
,but
fo rced by circumstances also,to declare himself the in
heritor of the kingdom of the Achaemenians .Severus Alexander , w ho sat in the seat of the Caesars at
this t ime, w as a singularly well- inten tioned and well—mean
ing youth . Hearing of the Persian invasion ,and perhaps
realizing that to gain time w as necessary before a Romanexpedit ion could be o rgan ized
,he despatched a letter to
Ardeshir exhorting him to keep to his ow n territor ies andno t to at tempt to revo lut ionise Asia . The letter added
that it w as unsafe,merely on the strength of vague hopes
,
to begin a great w ar that Ardeshir would find a contestwith Rome very different from confl i cts with barbaroustr ibes like his ow n
,and that he should remember the
victo ries ofAugustus,ofTrajan
,and of Sep timius Severus .
To this monit ion Ardeshir replied by despatching a
splendid embassy consist ing of 4 00 Persians speciallyselected for thei r fine physique , and magn ificentlyequipped with golden trappings and weapons . Theydel ivered an arrogant and provocative message summoning the Romans to evacuate Syria and the restof Asia
,to permit the Persians to regain the ir ancient
inheritance,and to content themselves wi th the undis
turbed possession of Europe . So insolent did this demand appear that the ambassadors , in spite of theirpr ivileged and indeed almost sacred pos it ion, were se izedand treated as prisoners of w ar. Meanwhile preparat ions
xxxv RISE OF THE SASANIAN DYNASTY 4 27
for the coming campaign were pushed on without delay,
and in the autumn of A .D . 23 1 a fo rmidable force hadassembled at Antioch .
The Roman plan w as to divide the ir forces into threearmies . The northern army w as sent to invade MediaAtropatene in all iance with Chosroes of Armenia ; the
southern army w as o rdered to threaten Persia Proper or
more probably Susiana and the third,commanded by the
Emperor in person , w as destined to operate against theheart of the country . The bad strategy of employingthree detached forces which could no t possibly supportone ano ther effectively met with the failure i t invited . The
northern army w as successful in its raid into Media Atropatene , where it w as probably unopposed owing to the
absence of the Median troops . But on the return marchits losses were severe
,and nothing of importance w as
accomplished . Ardeshir, wisely concentrat ing his troops ,attacked and annihilated the i so lated southern force .
Severus , alarmed by this disaster , o rdered a general retreat .
1 It might have been thought that after this victoryArdeshir would have invaded Syria . But as in real ity thecampaign had been undertaken by the Persians for the
po ssess ion of Armenia, dest ined under the Sasan ian as
under the Parthian dynasty to be the bone of contentionbetween the tw o empires
,Ardeshir prudent ly con tented
himself with his VIctory, and apparently peace w as con
cluded in A . D . 23 2 .
The Conques t of Armenia by Ardeshir .— By the with
draw al of Rome Armen ia w as left to its ow n resources tomeet the Persian army . The mountain state rose to the
o ccasion , and , aided by the fact that the Persian armyw as almost ent irely composed of cavalry , Chosroes defended himself so wel l that Ardeshir , despairing of successin the field
,offered the second place in the kingdom to
whoever should make away with his enemy . A Persiannoble in whose ve ins ran the Arsacid blood agreed to
assassinate Cho sroes,and gained his confidence by repre
sent ing himself as a refugee flee ing from the vengeance
1 Nb ldeke,w ho decl ines to re ly on Herodian, states that when Severus marched
against Ardesh ir, the latter gave w ay.
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
of Ardeshir, w ho , to suppo rt the fict ion, sent a fo rce to
pursue him . The murder w as accomplished,and , as the
assassin w as drowned in the Araxes while fleeing fromArtaxata
,Ardeshir achieved his object without paying the
price for it . H e speedily overran and annexed Armenia,
but failed to se ize the infant son of Chosroes,w ho w as
safely conveyed out of the country. This successfulcampaign ended the military career of the founder of theSasaman dynasty .
Ardeshir , the Rev iv er of the Good Religion.- It has been
shown in Chapter XXXII . that the Parthians w ho adoptedthe tenets of Zoroastrianism had part ially fo rsaken it and
had gradually ceased to carry out its precepts ; indeed ,the ir religion had rather become a worship of the Sun , of
the Moon, and of ancestral images , in combinat ion with
many old Semit ic incantat ions and invocat ions . In con
sequence,the fire—altars had fallen into ruins , and in many
cases the sacred flame had .been ext inguished ; nor werethe Magi any longer a power in the land .
Ardeshir began by restoring to the Magi their privileges
,and it w as laid down that the monarch w as clo sely
connected with the teachers of the Good Religion, w ho
formed the council of the nat ion . He also not only gavethem broad lands but inst ituted t i thes for their benefit .
As a result images were destroyed , the worship o f the Sunand Moon w as swept away
,and the whole nat ion rallied
to the ancient faith of Zoroaster .
To ensure a united people , an Assembly of the Magiw as convoked and seven of the ho liest priests wereselected
,w ho in turn chose Arda—Viraf
,a young M obed
of noted sanctity , as the ir representat ive . According tothe Persian narrat ive
,the chosen priest , after undergo ing
elaborate ablut ions , w as given an Opiate,under the ih
fluence of which he slept for seven days, watched by theKing and seven great nobles . Upon awaking he dictatedthe entire faith of Ormuzd to a scribe , and this w as
accep ted as who lly authoritative by the priests and people .
As may be supposed , the zeal of Ardeshir and o f the
M obeds would not tolerate o ther fo rms of religion , and
this led to religious persecut ions, directed especially against
xxxv RISE OF THE SASANIAN DYNASTY 4 29
the Christian Church which the dynasty found in existence,
and which , after the Eastern Empire had become Christian,
w as regarded with marked disfavour in Persia.
His Achiev ements and Character.-Of the administra
t ion ofArdeshir few de tai ls have reached us, but it appears
that he used every cfl’ort to abo l ish the Vassal-kingswhose semi- independence w as so dangerous to the powerof the Great King . His system w as
,indeed
,that of
Darius rather than that of the Parthians,inasmuch as he
maintained a standing army and kept it under the com
mand of offi cers w ho were independent of the SatraOne of his sayings ran : There can be no poweran army , no army without money
,no money
agriculture , and no agriculture wi thout j usti ce .
”
that his successo rs on the throne had always observed thismaxim ! As a monarch Ardeshir stands out as a sane
,
wide-m indedfi
ruler, w ho w as ever anxious that hIS
i
subjectsshould be happy, w ho real ized that the basis of goodadm i n1stration w as just ice
,and w ho worked incessantly
to carry out his principles .Firdausi gives what may be described as the polit ical
testament of the dying monarch , addressed to his son
Shapur . In it Ardeshir says , “ Consider the altar and
the throne as inseparable ; they must always sustain one
another . A sovereign without rel igion is a tyrant .
”
Again,
“ M ay your administrat ion be such as to bringthe blessings of those whom God has confided to our
parental care upon bo th your memory and mine !Such w as the splendid impression and tradit ion left by
Ardeshir the founder of a C! nasty , and , evenif the mists have to some extent gathered round his hero i cfigure , it is yet permissible to believe with confidence thatArdeshir
,son of Papak, w as worthy of a high position in
the Temple of Fame .
E s t/7 129 7p m; 0M o‘L‘
27 m A 7 527)
C 9 575n 27 4 4 465 1
PAHLAVI INSCR I PTION AT NAKSH-I -RAJAB.
CHAPTER XXXVI
SHAPUR I . , TH E CAPTOR OF VALERIAN
Th is is the image of the Ormuzd-worsh ipper, the G od,Shapur
,K ing 01
K ings Aryan and non-Aryan, of the race of the Gods, son of the Ormuzdworsh ipper, the God A rdesh ir
,King of K ings A ryan
, of the race of the Gods,the offspring of the God Papak, the King .
The Success ion of Shapur I . , A . O . 24 0.—Shapur 1 or
Sapor I .,as the western writers term him
,succeeded to
his great father in A .D . 24 0 or 24 1 . According to Persianaccounts h is mo ther w as the daughter of Ardaw an
,w ho
after her marriage to Ardeshir attempted to po ison her
husband in revenge for her father ’s death . The plo thowever
,failed and the guilty woman w as o rdered away
to execut ion . As she w as pregnant , her l ife w as sparedby the Vizier
,w ho kept her and the son that w as bo rn
hidden away . One day Ardeshir complained of be ingwithout an he ir , and w as overjoyed to hear of the existenceof a son . To test his breeding
, the lad w as summonedwith a number of his compan ions to play polo in the
presence of the monarch,whose prowess at this ancient
game w as famous . A ball w as intent ionally thrown nearthe Great King
,w hich Shapur alone dared to fo llow up ,
and he w as promptly recogn ized by his delighted father .Seeing that Ardeshir reigned only for abou t fourteen yearsafter the death of Ardaw an , this account can hardly beaccepted
,as it makes Shapur only thirteen at the tim
his succession . On the other hand,i t would be a mis
to ignore a legend which shows how spirited and manlywere the ideals o f the founder of the great dynasty .
1 The name means Son of a Shah .
HISTORY OF PERSIA C ’ IAP.
at Resaina,1 between that strongho ld and Carrhae . The
pursuing army even crossed the Tigris and threatenedCtesiphon
,but failed to follow up these successes . The
murder of the young Emperor caused the withdrawal Ofthe Roman legions , and Philip the usurper, speedily makingpeace with Shapur on favourable terms , quitted the East1n A .D . 24 4
The Second Camp a ign . the First Phase,A .D . 258
— During the fourteen years which elapsed before Shapuragai n invaded the Roman Emp ire
,the history of Persia 1s
obscure . I t appears that the distant province of Balkh,
where a campaign w as carried on,successfully maintained
its independence, as later on its rulers opened up negot ia
t ions with Rome .
Shapur,as in his first campaign against the western
Power,carried all befo re him at the outset
,Antioch on
this occasion being surprised while its ci tizens, to tally
unaware of any peril , were enjoying a play .
The Capture of Valerian, A .D . 260 .—As before
,a Roman
army came at length to the rescue, this t ime under theaged Empero r Valerian , w ho retook Ant ioch and droveShapur out of Syria. But treachery w as at work for t he
Praetorian prefect,Macrianus
,w ho w as the actual Com
mander- in—Chief,aspired to the throne
,and , in pursuance
of a scheme of personal ambit ion,he arranged for the
Roman army to be invo lved near Edessa in such a mannerthat Shapur cut off all hop e of escape . One desperateat tempt at breaking through w as repulsed wi th heavylo ss
,famine ensued , and Valerian , after trying in vain to
purchase safe ty,w as apparently se ized at a conference
exactly as Crassus had been; although,less fortunate
than his predecessor,he survived his disgrace for some
years .Few if any events in history have produced a greater
moral effect than the capture of a Roman Empero r bythe monarch of a young dynasty . The impression at
the t ime must have been overwhelming , and the newsmust have resounded like a thunder — clap throughout
1 Vide Ammianus M arcel linus, xx ii i. 5. 17, where Julian refers to th i s cam
paign in his speech to the army.
4 3 4. HISTORY OF PERSIA'
emu».
him valleys filled with dead bodies and driv ing off thousandsof men
,women ,
and children .
Shapur ana’ Oa’ena thns of Palmyra , A .D . 260— 263 .
Who has no t heard of Palmyra,situated in the desert
almost exactly half—w ay between the Euphrates and
Damascus at a distance of about one hundred and thirtymiles from bo th ? Founded by Hadrian as a Romanfrontier strongho ld and with a V iew to opening up a
southern route between Syria and Mesopo tamia, Palmyraat this period had become a flourishing trade empor iumunder a semi independent chief
,Odenathus by name .
Upon the invasion of Shapur, Odeii athus had sent a letter ,together with a caravan of camels bearing gifts to the
Sasanian monarch , w ho, in displeasure at the independenttone of the letter
,ordered the offering to be thrown into
the Euphrates,and exclaimed
,Who i s this Odenathus and
of what country that he ventures thus to address his Lord 9Let him now
,if he would lighten his punishment , come
here and fall prostrate before me with his hands t iedbehind his back .
”
Shapur had bitter cause to regret his arrogance ; forOdenathus , w ho had watched events in safety
,protected
by the almost waterless desert , saw his opportunity whenShapur returned eas twards laden with spo il . Co llect ing a
large force of wild horsemen ,he cut off i so lated parties of
stragglers and harassed the Persian army with such successthat he captured not only much of the loot taken in the
campaign,but even some of the wives of the Great King .
So demo ral ized did the Persian forces become under hisattacks that
,even when they had crossed the Euphrates
and were out of reach of the Arab horsemen , they wereglad to purchase a safe- conduct from the people of Edessaby the surrender of all the co ined money they had carriedoff.
Odenathus w as evident ly a great man, and no mere
glo rified raider . Not content with driving the Persianarmy across the Euphrates
,in A .D . 263 he invaded
Mesopotamia, defeated Shapur in a battle,
and evenbesieged Ctesiphon . His short career w as extraordinarilybrill iant . He seized Syria and other provinces which
xxxvx SHAPUR I ., CAPTOR OF VALERIAN 4 35
Shapur had overrun and forsaken,
and he retainedMesopotamia. Moreover, he w on the confidence of
Gallienus , to whom he showed the utmost respect , withthe result that the Senate conferred on him the t itle ofAugustus and thereby legalized his position . Consequently
,
before assassinat ion cut short his career,Palmyra had
become, through his exert ions, a powerful buffer state
,
hostile to Persia and allied to Rome .
Zenobia — Zenobia, his beauteous widow, in whose veinscoursed the blood of the Pto lemies and w ho ranks among thegreat women ofall t ime , maintained her power over the conquered provinces and even added Egypt to the kingdomof Palmyra. For a few short years her career w as dazzling
,
and,had she appreciated the genius of Aurelian
,she might
have kept her state but she refused to bend, her power
w as broken , and , chained in fet ters of gold,the proud
Zenobia graced a Roman triumph . The semi- independentkingdom of Palmyra w as swept away
,and the frontiers of
the Persian Emp ire once again marched wi th those of
Rome .
The Pahlie [Works of Shap ur .— The later years of Shapur
w ere devoted mainly to the arts of peace . Fortunatelyhis greatest achievement
,the dam at Shuster
,which I
visited many years ago ,
1 st ill defies the forces of the
Karun,although it sadly needs repai r. In connexion with
the construct ion of t e—em divertedto an art ificial channel
,which sti ll exists under the name
of Ab- i-Garger, and the river—bed w as so l idly paved . The
dam is composed of blocks of granite cramped together ,and i s fitted with sluice—gates to regulate the watersupply . The to tal length of the bridge rest ing on the
dam i s 570 yards . It appears that Shapur employed hisRoman prisoners on these works , and it is of singularinterest to note that the name Band-i—Ka isar , or
“ The
Emperor ’s Dam ,recalls the capt ivity of Valerian .
Near Kazerun,half-w ay between Bushire and Shiraz
,
are situated the important ruins of Shapur, which w as
originally termed Bishapur , or“ The good (deed) of
1 Ten Thousand M iles, 252 . Curzon gives a detai led descript ion of this work invol. 11. p . 37 1 . I t w as used as a second residence by the Sasan ian monarchs.
4 3 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
Shapur . Situated on both banks of one of the rarerivers o f Persia
,at the mouth of a gorge
,its ruined fo rt
(known as Dunbula) w as extremely strong . No buildingsin the ruins can be ident ified with any certainty , but forthe magn ificent series of bas-rel iefs and the un ique statueof Shapur I . to w hich reference will be made later it i swell worth visit ing .
1
Nishapur,once the chief: city of Khorasan
, w as alsofounded by Shapur I . ,
although it w as refounded byShapur II . In 1909 I discovered tw o ancient and now
almost obliterated sites which were locally believed to be
the first and second Sasanian foundat ions . If correct ,this identification is of considerable interest . At anyrate , the site is one that deserves the attention of somearchaeologist of the future .
2
The M anichaeans .— Among the rel igions of the East
which have profoundly influenced mankind must be
reckoned that which Manes or Mani founded .
3 Someaccount of this remarkable man and of the tenets hetaught i s called for
,as his religion
,which to a certain
extent succeeded Mithraism, w as not only a power in the
East for many centuries,but spread westward into Europe
also .
Manes w as born , Al-birun i tells us , in A .D . 2 15 or
A .D . 2 16,and w as lame in one leg. H e proclaimed his
mission at the onat ion of Shapur,and for some years
his 111W Court . Later on he fell fromfavour
,w as banished
, and entered upon a series"
of
wanderings,during the course of which he is believed to
have visited India,Tibet
,and distant China .
He returned to Persia in A .D. 272 upon the death OfShapur I . ,
and w as received by his successor, Hormisdas,
with much favour and venerat ion . Permit ted to preachhis do ctrines freely he taught especially the Christians of
Mesopotamia, and in a very short t ime founded the
Manichaean sect , which spread with such rap idity that it1 Vide Ten ThousandM iles, p . 3 17 also the Lands of the Ea stern Calipha te, p. 262 .
2 Vzde yourna l Roya l Geographical Sociegr for February 19 1 1. N ishapur alsosign ifi es “ The good (deed) of Shapur.”
3 The best brief accounts of the M an ichaeans are given in the Li terary History ofPersia, p . 154 , and in the Encycl. Bri t . ; Al-biruni’s Chronology of Ancient Nat ions shou ldalso be consulted.
4 3 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
Manichaean beliefhad no material body , and his antagonist,“the Son of the Widow,
”w ho w as crucified . It is of
peculiar interest to no te that Mohamed adopted this view,
as is shown clearly in the Koran .
1
The sect did not die with its Prophet . Far from i t .With a Pope of i ts ow n
, seated for many centuries at
Babylon and later at Samarcand,this pessimist ic creed
flourished . Even after the advent of Islam it maintainedits posit ion and extended over Central Asia to Tibet . In
Europe , too ,it spread as far as Southern France where
,in
1209 , a crusade w as led against the Albigenses,as its
adherents were termed,by Simon de Montfo rt . St .
Augustine belonged to the sect for many years before heembraced Christianity .
The Death of Shap ur I . , A .D . 27 1 .— The Sasanian
dynasty w as fortunate , indeed , in having tw o greatmonarchs in success ion to lay the foundat ions , and to
erect the structure of the new empire . Ardeshir and
Shapur compare with Cyrus and Darius,although they
were hardly such splendid characters as the tw o foundersof the Achaemen ian dynasty . Shapur
,like Darius
,although
a great and successful so ldier,shone chiefly as an adminis
trator . His great works at Shuster , his sculptures and
o ther buildings at the city which he founded and elsewhere ,prove his devot ion to and successful pursuit of the artsof peace . According to Persian belief he w as of strikingbeauty , as indeed the bas - reliefs suggest
,of a noble
character,and renowned for his generosity and when he
died in A .D . 27 1 he must have been lamented throughouthis wide empire .
Hormisdas and Bahram I .,
A .D . 27 1— 275.
— In all
dynast ies the founder is necessarily an except ionally ableman
, and the second and third generations usually remainvirile . But the Sasanian dynasty, after its tw o brilliantfounders
,produced a series of relat ively feeble monarchs .
Shapur I . w as succeeded by Ho rmisdas , w ho had served asGovernor of Khorasan . He w as fo llowed after one yearby his bro ther Varahran, or Bahram I .
, whose reign lasted1 Sura IV . v . 156 . The passage runs :
“ And for their say ing, ‘V eri ly w e s lewthe M ess iah
,Jesus the son of M ary
,the Apost le of God ; but they d id not s lay H im
or crucify H im,but a sim i l itude w as made for them .
xxxv1 SHAPUR I . , CAPTOR OF VALERIAN 4 39
from A .D . 272 to A .D . 275. Bahram w as apparently a man
o f small capacity ; for, when Aurelian attacked Zenobia,
instead of leading all the forces of the empire to her assistance , as the situat ion clearly demanded , he adopted a fatalpo licy of half measures , sending only an insign ificant force ,and allowing the invaluable buffer state of Palmyra to bedestroyed . Realising that he had incurred the just resentment of Rome
,Bahram for the time being averted host ili
t ies by the despatch of an embassy laden with valuablegifts among them figured purple cloth
,so rich in texture
that the Imperial purple of Rome looked common whencompared with it .
In A .D . 275, the year after his triumph , Aureliandecided that the time w as ripe for a Persian expedit ion .
The forces of the Empire were set in mo tion,the Alan i
were subsidized to make an inroad into Persia fromthe north
,and Aurel ian himself reached the neighbourhood
of Byzant ium . There he w as assassinated in consequenceof the intrigues o f a secretary w ho had forged an orderdooming to death many of the leading Officials . They inimaginary self-defence killed Aurelian . Persia, under theSasanian dynasty , w as fortunate in this for Aurelian wouldprobably have annexed what be conquered . Bahram diedthe same year as Aurel ian .
The Early Camp a igns of Bahram [I .,A.D . 275
— 2 8 2 .
Of Bahram w ho succeeded his father, w e know a gooddeal
,both from the Persian historians and from the bas
reliefs . H e i s s tated to have ruled so tyranicallyat first thata conspiracy w as formed to put him to death . The chief,M ahoa
'
,how ever
,intervened ; the monarch confessed his
faults,and
,taking the lesson to heart , ruled justly during
the remainder o f his re ign . H e fought the Sakae of
Sistan and secured their submission . H e then penetratedfurther east and w as engaged in these distant campaigns ,
provinces of the Empire .
The Camp a ign of Carus , A . D. 2 8 3 .
-
j-The m111tary
prowess of Rome , which had been so splend1dly rev1ved byAurelian,
had not materially suffered when,eight years
later,Carus decided to undertake the expedition planned
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
by that great soldier . His army , which had been trainedin w ar against the formidable Sarmat ians , w as led to the
Persian frontier , where Carus encamped on a hill,po inted
out the fert ility of the plains stretching away to the southeast which were to const itu te the rich prize of success .The Persian monarch , whose main force w as manyhundreds of miles distant , attempted to nego tiate . Hisenvoys , instead of be ing conducted to an Emperorenthroned in state and surrounded by his great officers
,
were brought simply 1nto the presence of an old man seatedon the ground , enjoying a piece of mouldy bacon and a few
hard peas . This w as Carus, w ho could be recognized as
the Emperor only by his purple robe . N0 t ime w as
wasted in compliments . Carus came to the point at once,and , taking off the cap which he wore to conceal his baldness, swore that , unless the Great King submitted , hewould speedily make Persia as naked of t rees as his ow nhead w as of hair . And he w as as good as his word for
,
sweeping away all opposition ,he conquered Mesopotamia
,
and captured Ctesiphon . But his career w as cut short .
A violent thunderstorm broke over the camp, and the
Emperor w as found dead . Whether he died as the resultof the act of God , of illness , or of foul play is not known .
Publi c opinion,however
,inclined to the view that he w as
struck by lightning,and that he w as thereby proved to be
the object of the wrath of Heaven . Alarmed by thisbaleful porten t
,the legionaries clamoured to retreat
,and
once again Persia w as saved by extraordinary good fortune .
The Seizure of Armenia hy Tirida tes,A .D . 2 8 6 .
—In
the long duel between the Roman and Persian empiresArmen ia w as again and again dest ined to furn ish a causefor w ar . For mo re than a generation it had remained a
Persian possession ,but during that period the Sasan ian
dynasty had not been in any w ay accep ted by the proudmoun taineers
,owing partly
,at any rate , to the intolerance
shown towards the nat ional rel igion . A striking instanceof this sp irit w as exhibited in the destruct ion of the sacredimages of the Sun and Moon which had been erected byVal-Arsaces
,more than four centuries previously .
1 In
1 Vzde Chapter XX IX .
4 4 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
by n ight . Narses escaped with a wound,but , as his army
w as almost annihilated in a panic-stricken stampede,and
his family and many leading noblemen were captured,he
w as compelled to sue for terms .His ambassador, at tempt ing to make out a good case
for his master, compared Rome and Persia to the tw o eyesof a body which ought mutually to adorn and illustrateeach o ther . But Galerius lost his temper and
,referring
to the treatment of Valerian , dismissed the envoy with ananswer to the effect that in due course of t ime his masterwould be informed Of the terms which would be fixed .
Ultimately a Roman ambassador demanded (a) the cessionof five provinces beyond the Tigri s ; (h) that the Tigr i sshould const itute the boundary instead of the Euphrates
( c) the addit ion to Armenia of territory up to the fort ofZentha in Media (d) that Iberia should become a Romanpro tectorate ; and ( e) that Nisibis should be the onlyemporium at which commercial transact1ons betw een the
tw o peoples could take place . This last clause w as waivedat the request of Narses , and w e are therefore concernedonly with the o ther art i cles .
There i s some doubt as to what districts were ceded toRome
,but that they were on the left bank of the Tigris i s
unquest ionable . Arz anene,Corduene, and Zabd icene
were adjacent to the uplands of Media, Corduene be ingthe land of the Carduchi or Kurds but the identity of theo ther tw o districts is quite uncertain . The Tigris becamethe boundary below the section where Rome held bothbanks
,and this of itself shows the importance o f the
acquisit ions made by the Western . Power . The cessionto Armenia o f terri tory up to the fo rtress of Zentha isfor us vague
,as this site has no t been ident ified . I s it
possible that there is a reference to the Praaspa whichAntony unsuccessfully besieged ? The fourth art i clemeant that Iberia, whose king held the passes across thegreat Caucasus range , passed under Roman influence .
The contest wi th Rome which Narses himself hadprovoked had ended in disaster for Rome now came intopermanent o ccupat ion o f distri cts valuable in themselvesand of st ill greater importance because the ir possession by
SHAPUR THE GREAT.
CH APTE R XXXVI I
SHAPUR THE GREAT
A t daybreak everyth ing, as far as w e could see, gli ttered w i th sh in ing arms
and cavalry 1n armour fi lled the plains and the h i lls . And Shapur h im self,m oun ted on his charger, and being taller than the rest
,led his who le army
wearing, instead of a crown,a go lden figure of a ram
’
s head inlaid w i th jewels,
being also sp lendid from the retinue of men of h igh rank and of d ifferent
nat i ons wh ich fo llowed him .— AMM I ANUS M ARC ELL INUS
,x ix . 1.
The Birth of Shap ur I I .
,AD 309 .
-The father of
Shapur the Great w as Hormisdas w ho reigned fromA .D . 30 1 to 309 and w as no ted for his activity in buildingand also for setting up a court ofjust i ce at which
”
the poorwere encouraged to make complaint i f oppressed by therich . Upon his death
,Hormisdas, his natural heir, w as
set aside by the nobles,w ho disliked his incl ination
towards Hellen ic culture,and a posthumous son
,the
famous Shapur I I .,w as elected to occupy the throne even
befo re he w as born,the co ronat ion ceremony be ing per
formed immediately after the M ohea’ ’
s declaration that theembryo w as of the male sex l This monarch re igned forthe extraordinarily long period of seventy years and w as
consequently a contemporary of ten Roman Emperors,beginn ing with Galerius and ending with Valent in ian I I .His M inority and Early Campa igns, A .D . 309 3 37 .
This long re ign may conveniently be divided into periods,the first of which covers the twenty- eight years precedingthe wars with Rome . During the long m i no rity, whichcontinued until the young monarch had attained hiss ixteenth year
,the Persian Empire stood upon the de
4 4 4
CHAP. xxxvu SHAPUR THE GREAT
fens ive, with the result that it w as raided by its neighbours,
more especially by the Arabs inhabit ing Bahrein,which
,
at that period, included El-Hasa,El—Katif
,and adjacent
districts . From Mesopo tamia,too
,a sudden raid w as
made and Ctesiphon w as captured . However, when the
young monarch grasped the re ins of state,an active
po licy w as adopted, and almo st for the first time since theexpedit ion of Sennacherib w e read of a naval expeditionin the Persian Gulf, headed on this occasion by the Kinghimself. His arms were completely successful
,and in
revenge for the frequent raids he o rdered that his Arabcaptives should have their shoulders pierced and then bet ied together with ropes . This brutal treatment earnedhim the title of a ahtaf, or
“ Lo rd of the Shoulders,
by which he i s known in o riental hi storyThe FirstWar w i thRome
,A .D. 3 37 350 .
— The relationsbetween Persia and the Roman Empire had not beenaltogether sat i sfactory for several years . In 323 A .D.
Ho rmisdas had escaped from prison,and had taken refuge
with Constantine,w ho had rece ived him with every honour.
Moreover,s ince under this Emperor Christianity had
become the official religion of the Roman Empire,and he
had assumed the rOle of pro tector of Christians in Persia,
1
Shapur may have felt that unless he went to w ar soon hemight be faced with internal troubles . His successes inw ar and h is youth incl ined him to an adventurous po l icy ;on the o ther hand
,to throw down the gauntlet to the
founder of Constantinople,w ho w as the leading soldier of
the age, w as no light thing . Shapur apparently hesitatedbefore taking defin ite action
,and
,most fortunately for
him,the Great Emperor died in A .D . 3 3 7, while bound for
the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire .
Constantine divided up the Roman world among histhree sons
,and consequently, apart from the probability
of civil dissens ions,Shapur w as now oppo sed to a monarch
who se resources were far less than his ow n, instead of
1 A letter written by Constant ine to Shapur con tains the fo llow ing passage : “ Y ou
can imag ine then how de l ighted I am to hear that Persia too, in some of its best regions,is adorned and i l lustrated by this class of men
,on whose behalf I write to you— I mean
the Christ ians — a th ing most agreeable to my wishes .”—Eusebius, Vi ta Constantznz
M agni, iv. 9 .
4 4 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
facing the ~master of the who le Roman Empi re . O therconditions
,too
,were favourable ; for Tiridates of Armenia,
w ho had at one time persecu ted Christians, had become a
fervid convert, and by fo rcing the new religion on hissubj ects had provoked intense discontent . H e had diedin A .D . 3 14 , and his successors were weak rulers, fromwho se nerveless hands the territo ry surrendered byNarseshad been recovered . Moreover
,the legionaries displayed
a mutinous spirit after the death of Constantine .
Consequently Shapur w as j ustified in deemin the
oppo rtun ity favourable,and m A .D . 3 37 his bands of
8l1gbt
horsemen crossed the frontier . At the same t ime he
incited the pagan party in Armen ia to rise,and the Arabs
to raid . acro ss the Roman border . Constantius , w ho w as
but twenty years old at his succession,hastened to the
eastern frontier,where he found his army weak in numbers
and mutinous . Shapur,how ev er;‘at first contented himself
with raiding,and so ga enro l
recruits and re 11Armen ia the Romanparty regained year thus clo sed morefavourably than might have been expected for Constantiu s .
In A .D . 3 3 8 Shapur invested Nisibis, the chief centreof the Roman power in M esopo tamia. The s iege lastedfor tw o months
,and Shapur w as compelled to withdraw
,
baffled ( i f w e may bel ieve Theodoret1
) by the prayers ofSt . James
,its bishop
,i n answer to which miraculous swarms
of fl ies appeared to harass the bes iegers . The w ar thencontinued
,in guerilla fashion
,l ittle progress being made .
Shapur raided the country and defeated the Romans inthe field
,but w as unable to capture the numerous Roman
strongho lds . In A .D . 34 1 he made a treaty with Armen ia,by the terms of which Arsaces , son of Tiranus
,whom he
had captured and blinded,w as placed on the throne . This
made the position more favourable, and in A .D . 3 4 6 a
second attempt w as made on Nisibis,but again without
success .Tw o years later Shapur invaded Mesopo tamia with an
immense force and found the army of Constant ius in the
ne ighbourhood of the modern town of Sinjar,the ancient
1 Theodoret 11. 30.
xxxvn SHAPUR THE GREAT 4 4 7
Singara. The Roman Emperor at first stood on thedefensive, clinging to the hills
,whereupon Shapur pre
pared a fortified camp , from which he sallied forth to
attack him . The challenge w as accepted,and the legion
aries carried all befo re them,even storming the Persian
camp, which w as scarcely defended . Careless after theirsuccess, the Romans were surprised by the l ight troops ofShapur, w ho finally gained a s ignal V icto ry which endedin a massacre . The Roman soldiers
,before they died
,
tortured to death one of the Great King’s sons w ho hadfallen into the ir hands . The result of the battle of Singaraw as not decis ive
,as Constantius w as no t captured
, and the
w ar continued until A .D . 350, when Shapur made his thirdand last attempt to takeM s . Constant ius had departedfor Europe
,probably taking some troops with him
,and
Shapur,w ho w as supported by a body of Indian all ies
,
with w ar e lephants,again invested the great fortress . H e
dammed the plain and created round the city an artificiallake
,on which ships were placed . The defenders resisted
stoutly unti l a breach w as made by the pressure of the
water . Shapur ordered an immediate attack,which w as
headed by heavy cavalry,supported by elephants with
armour-plated howdahs . Evidently no reconnaissance hadbeen made
,
'
and,as might have been expected
,bo th the
horses and elephants sank into the mud . The defendersshowed the greatest hero i sm
,and built a new wall behind
the breach . Shapur,after los ing twenty thousand men
,
abandoned the siege . A Turan ian invasion drew him to
the north- east confines of his empire, and, as Constantiusw as also engaged in civil w ar
,ho stilities between the tw o
empires ceased for a period of e ight years .The Grea t Persecution of the Chris tians.
—The fact thatChristian ity became the official religion of the RomanEmpire under Constant ine w as undoubtedly the maincause of the hostil ity shown to the members of the
Eastern Church by Shapur, a hostil ity which w as in
creased by Constant ine ’s somewhat tactless assumptionof a protect ing interest . This must have been keenlyresented by the Great King and his councillors, and
suspected of ,covering po l itical designs, very much as
8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
European interest in the Christ ian inhabitants of Turkeyis resented by the Turks to-day. Nor w as Shapur without j ust ificat ion
,for he knew that the Christ ians looked
to the Roman Empire, glo ried in i ts successes, and werein consequence disloyal to his rule . In short
,religion
,
then as now in the East,proved a deep gulf separating
men of the same stock .
The Persian po int of V iew is fairly expressed in the
following words “ The ChrisQGLnL destnqy our ho lyteaching
,and teach men to serve one God
,and no t to
honour the sun or fire . They teach them,too
,to defile
water by their ablutions ; to refrain from marriage and
the procreat1on of children ; and to refuse to go out
to w ar with the King of Kings . They have no scrupleabout the slaughter and eating of an imals ; they burythe corpses of men in the earth and attribute the originof snakes and creeping things to a good God . Theydespise many servants of the king, and teach witchcraft .
”1The first order issued again st the Christians w as that
they should pay double taxes as thei r contribu tion to
the co st of the w ar in place of personal service . M ar2
Shimun,the Cathol icus
,w ho w as re u ired to co llect the
money,foo l ishly refused
,on the tw o old ground that the
people were too poo r and that a bishop w as no t a tax
co llector . H e w as arrested with many of his colleaguesand on Good Friday A .D . 3 3 9 M ar Shimun
,fiv e bishops
,
and one hundred priests were executed at Susa,the
ancient capital of forgotten Elam . The persecut ionthus in it iated w as continued by massacres and the de
struction of churches for fully forty years , monks and
nuns especially being subject to pit iless persecu tion,
because they conspicuously v iolated the sane tenets of
Zo roastrian i sm . The persecution flamed up again after theinvas ion of Julian and the resto rat ion by Jovian of Nisibisand the fiv e provinces
,and until Shapur concluded his
long reign there w as no peace for the unhappy Christian s .
1 Acts of Akib— Shima, Bedj , 11. 351, quoted from The Asyrzan Church by DoctorW. A . W igram,
whose authoritative work I have consu lted more than once . I havealso con sulted The Cradle of M ankind, an exce l lent work by the above author and M r.
E. T. A . Wigram . The latter has generously p laced his sketches at my disposal.2 M ar s ign ifi es Lord.
4 50 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
Sun and Moon,sends salutation to his brother Constantius
Caesar . Your ow n authors are witness that the ent iretract within the river Strymon and the borders Of Macedonw as once held by my ancestors ; if I required you to restoreall this
,it would no t ill become me but as modera
t ion delights me I will be content to receive Mesopo tamiaand Armen ia which w as fraudulently extorted from mygrandfather . I warn you that if my ambassadorreturns i n vain
,I will take the field against you ,
as soonas the winter i s past
,with all my forces . War w as
certainly intended by Shapur,as this ep i stle clearly demon
strates,and the return embassy sent by Constantiu s w as
unable to avert it .
The Great King w as guided in principle by the adviceof a Roman refugee of po sit ion
,who se plan of campaign
w as no t to w aste time and strength on the reduct ion of
the fortresses of Mesopo tamia,but to invade defenceless
and opulent Syria. The Roman historian AmmianusM arcellinus graphically describes how
,being despatched
on a reconno itring expedition,he saw from the summit
of a high peak which overlooked the great plain,
all the
circu it of the earth which w e call the ho rizon filled withcountless ho sts of men .
”H e recogn ized Shapur and also
Grumbates,the famous King of the Chion itae or Huns
,
and,after watching the army begin the passage of the
Tigris,hastened back to warn his general . V
Shapur marched steadily westwards towards the
Euphrates without attempting to besiege Nisibis,and
would certainly have invaded Syria but for the fact thatfloods had made the Euphrates impassable and thusupset his plans . H e consequently turned north eastacro ss M ons M as ius
,and having gained a victory near
Amida,the modern Diarbekr
,he apparently gave up his
main obj ective and decided to besiege this importantfortress . Amida occup ied a site of great natural strength,s ituated on the right bank of the Tigris
,and w as defended
by a fo rce of e ight thousand men . Shapur hoped to
terrify it into submiss ion,but in vain
,and an attempt
to carry it by assault resulted in the death of the son
of the Hunn ish King . Regular siege operat ions were
xxxv 11 SHAPUR THE GREAT 4 51
perforce undertaken, and after a hero ic defence,in which
the Roman historian took his part,the efforts of the
garri son were frustrated by the giving w ay of an innermound which filled up the ditch . Shapur forced hisw ay in, and exasperated by his heavy lo sses
,gave orders
for a massacre . The Roman leaders w ho were capturedwere either crucified or so ld for slaves . After the takingof Amida, Shapur retired for the winter .
In the following spring he captured Singara with ease,
and, s till avo iding Nisibis, marched north and besieged
and took Bezabde . As in the case of Amida,a stout
defence w as requited by a vindictive massacre . Con
tinu ing his career, Shapur laid siege to Virta,the site
of which i s not known but i s described as be ing “on
the mo st distant border of Mesopo tamia.
” Ultimately,
however, he retired unsuccessful from before its walls .During thi s period Constant ius w as unable to devo te
himself entirely to the Persian w ar owing to fear of hiscousin Julian
,whose army had insisted upon promo ting him
to the rank of “ Augustus,
”and he therefore moved very
slowly . After a lei surely progress through Asia Minorhe summoned Arsaces of Armen ia to his presence and
endeavoured to keep him true to the Roman party bymeans of gifts . H e then decided to recapture Bezabde,bu t after desperate assaults failed signally . This w as thelast military Operat ion of Constantius for at the end of
the following year,A.D . 3 6 1, during which Shapur did
no t cro ss the Tigris,he died after a re ign of forty years .
The Great Exp edi tion of 7ulian, A .D . 3 63 .—Julian suc
ceeded his cousin, and one of the mo st dramatic campaignswaged between Rome and Persia followed . The new
emperor had already displayed military talent of a b1gh
order while commanding in Gaul, and only the death of
Constantius had saved the empire from a civil w ar.
Julian ’s hero w as Alexander the Great, whom he resembledin many ways and
,had his valuable l ife
.
been spared, theRoman Emp ire would have benefited 1mmensely;
for,
although he had forsaken Christianity, he w as Imbuedwith many noble qualit ies , among which w as the V irtue,rare in those days, of toleration .
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
No sooner w as the soldier - l ike and philo sophicalEmpero r seated on the throne than he determined to
fo llow the example of Trajan and invade the EasternEmpire . H e moved his headquarters to Ant ioch and
pressed on his preparations with strenuous activ ity .
An embassy from Shapur appeared at his Court,bu t
w as speedily dismissed,according to some . accounts
,with
great discourtesy . Shapur learned from his envoyshow determined the Emperor w as to engage in the
campaign,and how fo rmidable an enemy he w as likely
to prove .
Julian w as of too imperiou s a nature to be popular ortactful in deal ing with hi s allies . The Saracen chiefsobeyed his orders and jo ined him with contingents
,but
as he expressly forbade the bestowal of the pay and
presents to which they were accustomed,on the lofty
ground that “a warlike and vigilant empero r had iron
,
no t go ld,
”it i s no t surpris ing that they changed sides
during the campaign,and no t only deprived the Romans
of an arm in which they were always weak,but infl icted
upon them heavy lo sses . Arsaces of Armen ia w as alsotreated with a haught iness that w as pecul iarly impo l it i cfor
,he and hi s people
,be ing Christians
,were naturally
disincl ined to assist -the apo state Julian,apart from the
fact that it w as the Obvious po licy for the ruler ofArmen iato remain neutral and congratulate the winner . In the
event,an Armen ian contingent did j o in the Roman
force under Procop ius and Sebastian,and served in an
attack on an outlying district of Media ; but withoutany warn ing it suddenly quitted the camp and madefor home
,much to the embarrassment o f the Roman
generals .The great expedition
,which numbered about one
hundred thousand combatants,started from Antioch
early in March A .D . 3 63 and made with all speed forthe Euphrates . The river w as crossed
,and the march
cont inued to Carrhae,where a sho rt halt w as made .
Jul ian,w ho had kept his final dispos1t1ons a secret ,although
the construction of a fleet on the Euphrates must haveindicated that river as his main l ine of advance
,detached
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
important and strongly defended city,S ituated on an arti
ficially- constructed island
,which he determined to capture .
The city wall w as soon breached and the town occupiedbu t the citadel
,of great natural strength
,defied all
attempts at storming,although the Emperor in person
led an attack on one of its gates . Julian,l ike mo st great
generals,w as a student
,and he reco llected the design of
the helepolis,”
or high movable tower invented byDemetrius Poliorcetes . H e immediately gave o rders toconstruct one
,and the garrison w as so terrified on see ing
it rising stage by stage that it surrendered on terms .After this success the army proceeded dow n the river
till i t came to the “ Royal Canal,
”which connected the
Euphrates w ith the Tigris . Artificial inundations and
the ever—present enemy delayed progress along this canal ,and a second fortress
,M ahoz Malka
,barred the w ay, bu t
w as captured by mining . The Roman army then marchedforward until it reached the Tigris near Coche
,oppo site
Ctes iphon,a separate town from adjacent Seleucia
,which
w as apparently in ruins .Julian
,to his di smay
,found that the Royal Canal
entered the Tigri s below Coche,and
,as he w as extremely
anxious to un ite with the force which he bel ieved to be
marching down the Tigris,and real ized that he could no t
work his fleet upstream between Coche and Ctes iphon,
the s ituat ion w as diffi cult . Again his studies bore fruit,
as he had read of a canal wh ich came out above Coche,
and after inqu iries this disused branch w as discovered and
reopened,and the fleet proceeded along it to the great
r1ver.
It w as evident that the Persian army w as prepared todispute the passage of the Tigris
,for serried ranks of
panoplied warriors,supported by elephants
,of which the
Romans never lo st the ir dread,were seen drawn up along
its bank . Instead of imi tat ing the tactics employed byAlexander against Porus
,Julian decided on a direct attack
by n ight . His first detachment suffered from burn ingdarts which set fire to the Ships
,but finally the army made
good its po sit ion on the left bank . At dawn the Romansattacked
,and the Persians, after standing the ir ground for
XXXV I I SHAPUR THE GREAT 4 55
twelve hours, fled to Ctesiphon,the Romans pursuing as
far as the gates . The spo il w as rich,large quant it ies of
go ld and s ilver, together with o ther property,falling to
the victo rs .His R etreat and Dea th
,A .D . 3 63 .
— It would have beensuppo sed that after defeat ing the Persian garrison of
Ctesiphon with but one—third of his army, and after trans
port ing the remainder acro ss the Tigri s,Julian would
Immediately besiege Ctes iphon,which possessed no natural
advantages of s ituat ion . The fact that he,the bravest of
the brave, never thought of taking thi s step seems difficult to understand . It i s true that he w as disappo intedof the re inforcements he expected down the Tigris ; bu teven so
,a veteran Roman army
,sixty thousand strong
,
encouraged by success,and possessing a powerful siege
train carried on board ship,appears strong enough to have
undertaken the operation,and thereby to have compelled
Shapur to fight a decisive battle . The explanation maybe that
,j ust as Julian found the fortresses on the
Euphrates more strongly fortified than he expected,so
now he real ized that Ctes iphon w as too formidable to be
attempted . In o ther words,the Sasan ian dynasty, which
w as served far better than the Arsacid , had studied the
art of fortification,and had made Ctesiphon almo st im
pregnable . This V iew is supported by Ammianus .But even though the s iege of Ctesiphon may have
been impracticable,it seems extraordinary that Julian did
no t seek out the army of Shapur, as Alexander with hislesser resources would have done . Had it been foundand defeated
,Ctesiphon would in all probability have sur
rendered . The mo re the facts are studied the clearer itseems to become that Julian had no strategical plan to
meet what w as,after all
,the mo st probable and natural
p osition o f affairs for,in V iew of his speed and the com
p arativ ely Short distance to be traversed, he could hardlyanticipate that he would meet the army of the Great K1ngbefore reach ing Ctes iphon ; and he should surely haverealized that in o rder to succeed he would have to defeatthat army .
Bu t his pro ceedings were w ho lly 1ncons1stent W1th
4 56 HISTORY OF PERSIA
such reasonable calculations . For, after deciding to
leave Ctesiphon alone,instead of seeking out Shapur
he hurriedly burned his sh ips — an act calculated in
itself to encourage the enemy — and then retreated on
Kurdistan . H ow differently would Alexander hay eacted ! Gibbon accepts the V iew suggested by someau tho rities
,that before the retreat w as begun Shapur sued
for peace,and w as haughtily refused . Rawlinson po ints
out that Ammianus makes no mention of any embassyfor this purpose
,but it i s possible that informal propo sals
were made with a V iew to sounding the enemy and gaining valuable information as to the strength and moral of
the Roman troops and it i s at least equally poss ible that,
if made,Julian refused to entertain them
,j ust as Charle s
XI I . did in equally diffi cult circumstances . Both generalshad a strong fantast ic strain in their characters
,l ike that
which has been no ticed in the i r far greater predecessor,Alexander .
The fatal retreat began on the 16th of June in the
hottest season of the year,and scarcely had the army
moved off when a dense cloud of dust appeared on the
southern horizon . Saracen all ies,or a herd of wild asses
were suppo sed by some to be the cause,but it w as
obvious to Julian that the Great King w as in pursuit .
Not merely w as the retreat harassed,but before long a
battle w as fought, and although Roman valour gainedthe day, the quest ion of suppl ies became urgent . Julianmust have bitterly rued his impo litic treatment of the
Saracens,w ho would have kept the Pers ian l ight horse
at a distance and secured provis ions for the army . Asit w as
,the slow moving legions were unable to prevent
the supplies from be ing burned in front of them as theyadvanced
,and famine stared them in the face within a
few days after quitting Ctesiphon .
On the 26th of June they were slowly moving northin the neighbourhood of Samarra
,with apparently few
or no scout s thrown out,when Julian w as hast ily
summoned from the front to the rear by news of an
attack . No sooner had he reached the rear than he w as
again summoned to the front,where the main attack w as
xxxvu SHAPUR THE GREAT
suddenly del ivered on the right . The Emperor,w ho
in his haste had no t pu t on his breastplate, w as hero icallyfighting to rally the shaken legionaries
,and appeared to
be gain ing the day when he w as struck by a javelin inhis right side and w as carried back to camp mortallywounded . His soldiers
,thirsting to avenge him
,charged
the Persians again and again,and drove them off with
heavy lo sses . Julian,meanwhile
,had attempted to
mount a horse,but finding it impo ss ible had yielded to
the inevitable . When he died thus valiantly on the
field of battle he w as in the thirty-first year of his age,and truly
,as Ammianus wro te
,Julian w as
“a man to
be classed with hero ic characters . The impression thathe made upon his gallant enemies is shown with sufli cient
clearness by the fact that in Persian paintings Julian w as
represented as a furious lion emitting fire from his j aws .The l ion w as
,and i s
,the Persian symbo l of valour .
The Restoration of the Fi ve Prov inces and of Ni s ibis toShap ur, A .D .
.
3 63 .— Jovian
,a popular ofli cial, w as chosen
Emperor in Julian ’s place,and on the day of his election
fought ano ther battle with the Pers ians, w ho throughoutshowed splendid spirit ; and he then marched on to
Samarra. Four more marches covered only eighteenmiles in all
,so fierce were the onslaughts of the enemy,
and the Roman troops became discouraged and clamouredto be permitted to swim the Tigris, in the belief that theywould thereby evade the Persians and reach the Romanfrontier by a few forced marches . Yielding to necessity,Jovian o rdered a band of five hundred Gauls and
Sarmartians to make the attempt, which w as successful,and thereupon the army halted and hastily prepared raftsand bladders for the cro ss ing .
Shapur,whose troops had suffered severely 1n the1r
attacks on the Roman veterans, had counted on.
fam1ne
to give him the victory, and w as no t in a po s1ti on to
drive home a fresh attack . H e therefore opened upnego tiations
,which were welcomed by the harassed
Romans . The terms w ere hard, and swept away all thatD iocletian had gained . First, the five provinces beyondthe Tigris which had been surrendered by Narses were
4 58 HISTORY OF PERSIA
resto red . Secondly, Nisibis, Singara, and a third fortressin Eastern Mesopo tamia were ceded to Persia
,and
thirdly Armenia w as declared to lie outside the Romansphere of influence .
Thus glo riously for Iran clo sed the long series of
campaigns waged by Shapur, w ho w as deservedly termed
Great,
”and w ho rai sed Persia to a po sition higher than
any i t had occupied since the conquests of Alexander theGreat . For Rome
,the surrender of the five provinces
w as a heavy blow,but no thing in compari son with the
evacuat ion and handing over of Nisibis,which had been
the centre of Roman power for nearly tw o centuries andpo ssessed a large European population ,
which had to be
uprooted and removed .
The P olicy of Pers ia and Rome in Armenia and
I beria — It might have been thought that after hissplendid success and the treaty s igned by Jovian
,Shapur
would have had a free hand in Armen ia ; bu t this w as
no t the case . Jov ian’
s re ign,had lasted only a few
months in all,and his successor Valentin ian divided the
Roman Empire into eastern and western division s,bestowing the former on his bro ther Valen s . The situat ion had therefore changed . There w as no open re
pudiat ion of the treaty,but the Emperor w ho had
nego tiated it w as dead and a new family wore the purple .
Shapur,w ho w as anxious to bring Armen ia under his
influence wi thout delay,lured the hapless Arsaces to his
Court,where he w as immediately bl inded ; bu t as a mark
of respect hi s fetters were made of s ilver . After th issuccessful piece of treachery, Shapur overran Armen ia,where the fortress of Artogerassa, in which the Romanwife of Arsaces had taken refuge with the treasure
,alone
held out . In the course of the same campaign he alsoinvaded neighbouring Iberia
,drove out Sauromaces
,w ho
had rece ived hi s invest iture from Rome,and placed a
cousin of the depo sed ruler, a certain Aspacures , on the
throne of the valley of the Kur . Shapur then returnedto Persia
,leaving a force behind to complete the
conquest .
H ad Rome loyally observed Jov ian’
s treaty,there
4 60 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
name,w as employed to murder the unfortunate Prince
at a banquet .The Conclusion of Peace betw een R ome and Persia
,A .D.
3 76 .
— A truce,fo llowed by nego tiations which were
broken ofl’ and succeeded by fresh ho stil ities,finally led
to a treaty of peace,the terms of which are Obscure
,but
which may have bound the tw o contract ing powers toleave Armen ia and Iberia free to govern themselves .Bo th these countries were now divided from Persia bydifference of religion , and consequently the peace wouldleave them attached to the West and ho stile to Persia.
The Death of Shap ur , A .D. 3 79 .— The last campaign
against Rome had now been fought by Shapur the Great,w ho passed away
,after an exceptionally long and success
ful re ign,full of years and honours . We know little of
his personal character,bu t he w as essent ially a pui ssant
monarch of superb phys ique and remarkable valour, and
w as well served by a devo ted -people . The manner inwhich he conducted the long fight with Rome to regainthe five provinces lo st by his grandfather Narses and to
secure po ssession ofNisibis— a struggle which he kept freefrom disaster— proves that he po ssessed no t only militarytalents of a high o rder
,but also a tenacity of purpo se
that w as lacking in many members of the dynasty . Hiscampaigns against the Huns
,so far as these are known,
afford further evidence of military and diplomat ic achievement . H e appears to have left no sculptures or inscript ion s
,but he founded many cities ; and the second
foundation of Nishapur is bel ieved to have beenundertaken by hi s o rders .
To j udge by results,Shapur left Persia at the zenith
of her power and glory,in po ssess ion of a favourable
treaty with the greatWestern Power, at who se prestige hehad dealt a deadly blow
,and with no powerful enemy
threaten ing the eastern boundaries . A quo tat ion fromAmmianus Marcell inus which embodies contemporaryforeign opin ion
,may fitly end thi s chapter . Writ ing of
Shapur’
s campaign s against Constantius, he says :“ The
fo rtune o f the East sounded the terrible trumpet of
danger . For the King of Persia, be ing strengthened . by
xxxvu SHAPUR THE GREAT
aid of the fierce nat ions whom he had lately subdued,being above all men ambit ious of extending his
territories, began to prepare men and arms and supplies,mingling hell i sh wisdom with his human counsels, and
consulting all kinds of soothsayers about futurity .
”1
1 xvi i i . 4 .
ifitub éfi s imhflxl é bzfib afifl ofl w fl
p ygw m «assumié‘bp b hi Phfl hfl
Varahran, King of Kerman, the son of Ormuzd,w orship p er, d iv ine Shapur,
King of Kings of Iran and Aniran,of cele s t ia l orig in from God
AM ETHYS ’
I‘ SEAL OF VA RAHRAN OR BAHRAM IV.
( From R .A .S . journa l, vol. i i i . , New Series ,
CHAPTE R XXXVII I
THE STRUGGLE W ITH THE WH ITE HUNS
Thou shalt ascend and come l ike a storm , thou shalt be l ike a cloud to
cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people w i th thee . . And
thou shalt com e from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many peoplew i th thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company
,and a m ighty
army.— Ezekiel x x xvi i i . 9 , 15.
Ardeshir I I .
,A . D . 379 3 8 3 , and Shap ur II I .
,A .D .
3 8 3— As o ften happens after a long and glorious
reign, the immediate successors of Shapur the Greatwere weak and unen terpri sing . Of Ardeshir I I . l ittle 13
known except that he remitted all taxation and therebyearned the ti tle of “
the Beneficent .
”H e reigned for
only four years , from A .D . 3 79 to A .D. 3 8 3 , in which latteryear he w as depo sed . His nephew Shapur I II . concludeda treaty with Rome the year after h i s success ion , and ledan expedit ion aga in st the tribe of Yad Arabs .1 H e com
memorated hi s re ign by a rock sculpture represent ing thegreat Shapur and himself, which is st i ll to be seen at
Tak- i-Bistan near Kermanshah he died in A .D. 3 8 8 .
1 M asudi, Pra iries do’r, vol. 11. p . 18 9 .
4 62
4 64 HISTORY OF PERSIA a p .
the headpiece to this chapter . During his reign Chosroes,
the Satrap of Persian Armen ia, elated by his appo i ntmentto govern the Roman provinces
,attempted to revo lt from
Persia,trusting to the support of Theodo s ius . That
sagacious empero r,however
,w as no t inclined to provoke
w ar l ightly , and Chosroes, left to his fate, w as seized and
confined in the i ll-omened Castle of Oblivion— the stateprison of Persia — and his brother Bahram- Shapur succeeded him . Little else i s reco rded of the re ign of
Bahram IV . w ho w as killed by his ow n so ldiers in a
mutiny .
Yez digird the PVi ched,A .D . 3 99
—
4 20 .-Yezd igird I .
succeeded to the throne and proved to be of a peacefuldi spo sition . H ad he inherited his ancestors ’ love of w ar
,
he wo uld have found a great opportun ity . The RomanEmpire w as in a welter of barbarian invas ions
,revo lt
,and
intrigue,the sack of Rome by Alaric
,in A .D . 4 10, fall ing
within this period . Indeed,Syria and Asia Minor would
have been an easy conquest,and Yezd igird could prob
ably have w on back all the provinces which had fo rmerlybelonged to the Achaemenian dynasty . As it w as
, 'the
relat ions between the tw o emp i res were mo st friendly,
and when Arcadius,the Emperor of the East
,died he
committed his son Theodos ius to the pro tection of
Yezd igird . The Persian monarch accepted the trust,
selecting a learned eunuch to be the guardian of the
youth,and throughout hi s reign there w as no quest ion
Of w ar with the Eastern Roman Empire .
His Policy tow ards the Christians.— The Christian
commun ity, which had been crushed and almo st annihilated by the long and ferocious persecutions of Shapurthe Great
,gradually recovered after his death . We hear
of the election of a Catholicus of Seleucia during the
reign of Shapur I I I .,but it w as not until that of Yezdi
gird I . that the po sition of the Christians w as ofli ciallyamel iorated . M arutha
,a Mesopotamian bishop
,w as sent
with an embassy which announced the succession of
Theodos ius I I . to his guardian . H e w on the GreatKing’s favour by curing him of a malady
,and gained
cons iderable influence over him . The royal favour soon
xxxvm STRUGGLE WITH WHITE HUNS
bore fru i t, and in A .D . 4 09 a firman w as i ssued permitting Christians to w oW ild theirchurches . This decree w as as important to the Eas ternChurch as the more famous Edict of M ilan w as to the
Church of the West . It !JESSIE conferred upon the
commun ity the status of what i s known to-day in Turkeyas a mi l/a t
,or Christ ian subject people, organ ized as a
Church and deal ing with the Government through itsreligious head, w ho i s a Ointed b that Government .
Th is edict w as fo llowed by the Council of Seleucia,
held in A .D. 4 10, at which the decrees and the creedof the Council of Nicaea were aM pted .
Wigram ho lds that no representat ive from Persia 1 hadattended thi s famous Council
,which w as convened in
A.D. 3 25 mainly in o rder to combat the doctrines of
Arius . That eccles iastic taught that there w as a difference between the Father and the Son
,inasmuch as the
Father w as from all time,whereas the Son had had a
beginning . In o ther words,the Son w as 7 6 duocozfo
-cov, of
l ike nature,rather than 7 2; duooéa cov, of one nature
with the Father . These tw o words differ only by a s ingleletter ( iota) in the Greek language
,and the difference
represented by this letter divided and convulsed Christendom . At the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius, w ho w as the
moving spirit,secured the adoption of the formula that
“the Son i s of one Essence with the Father
,
”and the
Council anathemat ized every one w ho declined to acceptthis. V iew . Wigram is of opin ion that Persia w as not
only untroubled by the Arian controversy, bu t w as even1gnorant of it,which, in V iew of its precarious posit ion,Was most fortunate .
Yezd igird at this t ime po ssibly contemplated bapti sm,
and even Wm persecute the M agians, w hobestowed on him in consequence the opprobrious epithetby which he i s known to history . After a time, heapparently real ized that he had gone too far for prudence,and
,return ing to the Old the des truc
tion of the Christian sect, with the result that a terrible1 The A ssyr ian Church,
p. 58 .
— James of Nis ibis w as present at the Counc il, butN1sibis, at that t ime, formed part of the Roman Emp ire. A John of Pers ia
”appears ,
but this is pos si bly a misreading for Perrha.
”
VOL. I
i “
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
persecution raged for fiv e years in circumstances of specialcruelty.
The Curious Legend of his Death.— Little else i s known
of this monarch,w ho 1s credited with having founded the
city of Yezd .
1 His death at the o tter-haunted Lake of
Sovar or Su,now known as Chashma- i Sabz
,or Green
Fountain, romantically situated 1n the heart of the Nishapur mountains
,i s described by Firdausi . According to
this story a white horse “ with round thighs and shortlegs like a w ild ass came out of the lake . The monarchgave o rders for its capture
,but no one succeeded in the
attempt . H e h imself then took a saddle and approachedthe horse
,which‘ moved ne ither fore nor hind leg.
When '
he placed the saddle on i ts back and tightened thegirth
,that new crocodile did not stir .” When, however,
he passed behind its quarters that stony—hoofed one
became enraged,thundered and kicked him with bo th
hind legs so that his head and crown fell into the dust .
The horse then disappeared into the w aters of the lakeand w as no more seen .
The Contested Succession of Bahram Gur,A .D . 4 20 .
Upon the death of Yezdigird I . the nobles attempted topass over both hi s sons, Bahram and Shapur
,the former
because he had been brought up among the desert Arabs,
and the o ther for the equally inadequate reason that hehad left Armen ia
,which w as under his rule
,to push his
claims to the throne . Bahram,however
,w as a virile
personality,and being supported ‘by a force of Arabs
prevai led on the nobles to submit to him without the
horrors of a civil w ar. The Persian legend represent shim as placing the crown between tw o raging lions
,and
when Khusru,or Cho sroes
,his cousin
,w ho w as the cho ice
of the nobles,declined to make the attempt
,Bahram
,with
the courage which w as so conspicuous throughou t hiscareer
,attempted to take po ssess ion of 1t and succeeded .
His Camp a ign aga inst R ome,A .D . 4 20
—
4 2 1 .— The per
secution of the Christians which Yezdigird had in itiatedduring the lat ter years of his reign w as cont inued with
1 According to Pers ian legend,wh ich w as possibly insp ired bythe hope less steri l ity
o f the p lace, Yezd original ly served as a prison t o wh ich Alexander sent his enemies.I t owes its prosperity ent ire ly to its s ituation at the junction of several routes.
xxxvm STRUGGLE WITH WHITE HUNS4 67
zeal by the new monarch . So fierce w as its characterthat a large body of refugees crossed the border andplaced themselves under Roman pro tect ion . This incensed Bahram, w ho demanded the surrendermsubj ects, and when this w as refum aTe d w ar.
The Romans were the first to take the field,and
cro ss ing the Tigris ravaged Arz anene, one of the five
provinces w on back by Shapur the Great . The ir leaderArdaburius
,an Alan by descent
,then marched into Meso
po tamia and besieged Nisibis . Bahram,however
,came
to the rescue with a large force and the Romans withdrew. Mo ses of Chorene 1 refers to the thirty days ’
S1ege, by Bahram in person,
of Theodo siopolis ( themodern Erzerum), in the Roman province of Armen ia.
According to hi s account the Persians were beaten back bythe exertions of the bishop
, w ho no t only encouraged thedefenders bu t personally worked the halista with signalsuccess
,and killed a Persian prince .
In the field,Bahram and the Roman general agreed to
be represented by champions . The Romans cho se Areohindus the Go th
, w ho eluded the thrust of his adversary ’sspear and then entangled him in a net and killed him .
Bahram accepted the result and withdrew . Meanwhile,
in Mesopo tamia Ardaburius annihilated a Pers ian forcewhich he had lured into an ambush . The Arab alliesof the Persians had also suffered disasters . ConsequentlyBahram w as ready to make terms and received a Romanenvoy . The proud “ Immortals begged to be allowedto make a final effo rt
,hop ing to find Roman precaut ions
relaxed during the nego tiat ions ; but , after they hadsecured a temporary advantage at the beginning of the
battle,re inforcements arrived to support the legions, and
the “ Immortals were cu t off to a man .
1 Ammianus M arcellinus carries his valuable work no further than A .D. 378— the
year of the batt le of Adrianop le ; consequent ly inferior author1t1es have to be used In
deal ing with this period.
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
secution . On the Roman s ide,Zoroastrians were also
secured frthi s noble act of the
bishop of Amida, w ho melted down and sold all the
church plate in his diocese . With the proceeds heransomed seven thousand Pers ian prisoners and sentthem back to Bahram . Po ssibly thi s act of true Chri stiancharity had its influence in inducing the King of Kingsto cease hi s persecut ions
,which were in fact as impol it ic
as they were cruel .The Decla ra ti on of the Indep endence of theEastern Church,
A .D . 4 24 .— These persecut ions had one impo rtant result
in causing the leaders of the Eastern Church to realizethat it w as better for them to be independent of the
Western Church,and thereby at any rate avo id the charge
of disloyalty to their sovereign . Con sequently,in A .D. 4 24
the so- called Council of Dad—Ishu w as held,at which the
Catho l icus,Dad-lshu
, w as begged to resume. his throneas Patriarch
,and i t w as decreed that in future abso lute
obedience should be rendered to him and that thereshould be no appeal to
“ Western Patriarchs . The
results fully j ust ified this pol icy ; for thereafter lessis heard of persecution of the Christians .
Persia n Armenia reduced to a Satrapy, A .D . 4 2— In the
same year that peace w as concluded with Rome,Bahram
,
whos e milure before Theodo si opo li s had weakened hisposit ion in Persian Armen ia and made him ready to meetthe wishe s of its inhabitants, appo inted a son of BahramShapur to be its king . Again
,however
,the turbulent
nobles were dissati sfied, and,after s ix year s’ disconten t
,
petit ioned for the appo intment of a Per sian Satrap .
The ir wish w as acceded to,and thus
,by the act of its
ow n leaders, even the l imited independence of PersianArmen ia w as brought to a close . It i s interesting to
no te how leading a part the Patriarch Isaac took inoppo s ing thi s act of po l it i cal suicide
,which brought a
Christian people under the yoke of a Zoroastrian power .The Coming of theWhi te Huns.
—Reference has alreadybeen made to the Yue—Chi 1 as having in 163 B.C . dis
1 Chap ter XX IX .
4 70 HISTORY OF PERSIA
Persia and constituted the principal preoccupation of its
monarchs for several generations .The story of Bahram
’
s expedition to India,where
the Indian King, in return for hi s services against the
common enemy,i s bel ieved to have presented to him
the provinces of Sind and Makran,canno t be regarded
as authent ic ; but I do no t rej ect i t as entirely devo idOf historical bas is . At any rate it i s un iversally believedin Persia that
,as narrated by F irdaus i
,Bahram intro
duced twelve thousand Luris or Gypsies into Persia fromIndia to provide music and dancing for his people . TheseLuri s are bel ieved to have been the ancestors of the
Persian gypsies,and the legend po ints to cons iderable
intercourse between Persia and India at thi s period .
Bahram Gur, the M ighty Hunter .-The affection with
which Bahram 1s Stlll regarded by Persians is mainly dueto the fact that he remains for all t ime the model of a
mighty hunter . So much is this the case that he i sinvariably referred to by the sobriquet of Car
,or Wild
Ass,that beast having been his favourite quarry . In
pursui t of it,indeed
,he ultimately lost his l ife in a bog
or uncovered well in the neighbourhood of Persepo lis .1'
As FitzGerald’
s translat ion of Omar Khayyam2 runs
And Bahram,that great Hun ter— the Wi ld Ass
Stamp s o ’er his Head, but canno t break his sl eep .
His Achievements and Character .-The reign of thi s
great monarch may be summarized by say ing that heconcluded anW ith Rome on honourableterms
,he settled the affairs of Armenia and he decisively
defeated theW min istered
j ustice without part1ali ty, he encouraged agriculture,
science and letters,and did no t allow his love of sport
to interfere with his duties . When he died, in A.D . 4 4 0,
Persia w as at the zen ith of her power and prestige .
1 I have brought out th is intense love of Sport which Persians inherit and theiraffection for Bahram Gur in The Glory of the Shia World, chap . iv.
2 The orig inal runsBahram w ho
,all his l ife, w as capturing the wi ld ass (Gur)
See how the grave (Gur) has captured Bahram .
In this instance the orig inal is of ful ler meaning than the translation .
S ILVER D ISH OF BAHRAM GUR .
(From Trea su're of the Ox us .
HISTORY OF PERSIA emu».
TheUsurp ationofHormisdas,A .D . 4 57, and his Overthrow
hy Firuz , A .D . 4 59— Yezdigird I I . died in A. D. 4 57 and
Hormisdas,the younger son
,seized the throne in the
absence of his elder bro ther Firuz— the Peroz es of the
European writers— w ho w as Governor of Sistan . Hearing of this usurpat ion the latter fled to the White Huns
,
w ho gave him sanctuary and furnished him with a forceby the aid of which he defeated and captured Hormisdas .H e subsequently regained po ssession of the province of
Alban ia to the west of the Caspian Sea,which had taken
advantage of the civ il w ar to revo lt . H is admini strat ionw as renowned for its high standard of efli ciency, and it i srecorded that
,although at this period the Pers ian Empire
from the Oxus to the Tigri s suffered from a terr iblefamine last ing for several years
,supplies were imported
from every uarter by the capable monarch and there w as
no loss of l ife .
The First Camp a igns of F iruz aga inst the White Huns .
— As in the case of hi s predecessors,the wars against the
White Huns were the leading preoccupation of Firuz .
His first campaigns were unsuccessful and he consequentlymade peace
,one of the terms being that Khush-New az
,
or The High -M inded — the Persian t itle for the Kingof the White Huns— w as to receive one of his daughtersin marriage . H e foo li shly insulted his formidable enemyby sending a female slave to act the part Of a royal princess ,and when the imposture w as discovered there w as naturallyinten se indignation . By w ay Of revenge
,Khush-New az
asked Firuz to lend him some officers to direct a
campaign,and when they arrived, to the number of
three hundred,they were se ized and a few of them
were pu t to death . The remainder were mu tilated and
sent back,with a message explain ing that this w as
done to avenge the insult put upon the royal house of
the White Huns .War again broke ou t and Firuz fixed his headquarters
at the city of Gurgan,close to w hich I examined the ruins
of a wall which ran from the Caspian Sea,north of the
River Gurgan,and which Rawlinson believes w as built
by this monarch as a defence against the White Huns
xxxvm STRUGGLE WITH WHITE HUNS
it i s now termed Sadd— i—[sleandar,
The Barrier ofAlexander,
”1or Kiz il Alang, the Red Wall .
From this base Firuz invaded the enemies ’ countryand w as lured by a fe igned pan ic and fl ight into a steepwooded valley with no exit
,the entrance to which w as
occupied after the passage of his army . When he real izedthat he w as trapped he opened negotiations . Len ientterms were accorded by his humane foe and a treaty w as
made on the condi tions of perpetual peace and of homageby pro stration .
2 To this latter humil iation the GreatKing agreed under compulsion but
,by performing the
ceremony at sunrise in the direct ion of the East, he w as
advised by the M oheds that he might be considered to
have adored the Persian d ivin ity and no t a mortal .The Rev olt of Armenia , A .D. 4 8 1
—4 8 3 .
— The pol icy of
Zoroastrian iz ing Armen ia had been continuously appliedby renegade Armen ians and Persian offi cials unt il thecountry w as goaded into revolt . An opportunity forrebellion occurred when Firuz w as defeated by the
Kushans,
w ho at this period inhabited the maritimeprovinces of the Caspian Sea. The Armenians sprangto arms and captured Artaxata and Sahag, of the nobleBagratide family, w as elected King . In the followingyear tw o Persian armies operated aga1nst both Armeniaand Iberia
,which had jo ined the revolt but through the
detestable treachery of the King of Iberia,the Armenians
w ho had come to his aid were defeated and the ir Kingslain . Vahan
,the Commander- in—Chief, however, escaped,
and for a long time w as hunted as a fugitive ; bu t thedeath of Firuz changed the who le situat ion and resultedin the restorat ion of Christianity .
The Defea t of Firuz by the White Huns and his Death,
A.D. 4 8 3 .-Firuz suffered intense mortification from the
humiliation infl icted on him by Khush—New az , and burnedto wipe out the stain . I t had been laid down in the treatythat he would never pass a certain pillar with h1s armyand in order to get round his engagement he resorted tothe casu ist ical device of digging it up and draw mg 1t
1yourna l R .O .S. for January, 19 1 1.
0
According to Tabari,Firuz w as lured across a desert i n w h1ch he lost almost
the who le of his army and w as thus ob l iged to subm it .
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
in front of his troops . With a large fo rce,including
500 w ar elephants,he marched eastward to Balkh
,where
the White Huns awaited him . When the Persian armydrew near
,an appeal w as made to the soldiers not to
perj ure themselve s,and thi s
,according to Tabari
,caused
the desertion of half the force . The remainder,advanc
ing with Firuz at their head, were enticed over a trenchmasked by boughs of trees and were ignominiously defeated
,Firuz himself be ing among the slain . Thus fell
Firuz,known by hi s countrymen as the brave
,
”after a
long re ign marked by a series of failures and defeats .P ers ia tr ihntary to the White Hans
,A .D. 4 8 3
—
4 85Firuz w as succeeded by his bro ther Volagases , known to
the Greeks as Balas . The task of making terms with theWhite Huns w as confided to the Governor of Sistan
,
w ho co llected a large force to impress Khush—New az,
whom he furthermore aston i shed by his ow n skill inarchery . The negotiations were so far successful thatthe prisoners were released but theWhite H un monarchimpo sed a tribute on the Great King
,which w as apparently
paid for tw o years .flhe flgreement w i th Armenia .
—Volagase ,s whose pol1cy
w as eminently concil iatory,turned his attent ion to Armen ia
,
where Vahan propo sed terms which included the destruct ion of all flre altars
,full l iberty for Christian worship
,
and an edict of to lerat ion . Before the nego tiations werefinally concluded
,Volagases became invo lved in a civil
w ar through the claims to the throne of Zaren,a son of
Firuz . The astute Vahan came to his rescue with a strongforce ofArmen ian cavalry which w on the day, and Volagases
thereupon promptly ratified the terms of the agreement ;Shortly afterwards Vahan w as made ruler of Armen ia ;and then for the first t ime Armen ia and Iberia becamecontented provinces of the Persian Empire .
Controvers ies on Doctrine among the Chr is tians in P ers ia .
— During the re ign of Firuz the quest ion of the natu reof God w as again convuls ing the Christian wo rld, and
thi s t ime the church i n Pers ia took s ides in the con
trov ersy. I do no t propo se to treat of these confl ictson theo logical questions with any fulness, bu t it i s
HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP . xxxvm
the letter had fallen,betrayed the wri ter into the hands
of Firuz,by whom he w as executed .
Bar- Soma w as now all powerful in the Church,and
marched through the land armed with the royal autho rityto establish the doctrine of the “
tw o natures in God .
”
Firuz probably felt that this act would produce a finalseparation from a Monophys itic Church
,and aided Bar
Soma,w ho used force freely . On the o ther hand
,i t
appears that hi s do ctrines were generally approved,the
mass of the people feel ing that,if there w ere oppo sit ion
and ho st il i ty to the Church of Constant inople,there
would be no further persecutions in Persia . And so the
event proved . Another important rule now introducedw as that permit ting the clergy to marry ; and thissweeping away of the unhealthy idea of cel ibacy w as
certainly influenced by the sane,if material
,ideals of
Zoroastrian ism . Tod ay the i llogical custom prevails inthe Assyrian Church that the clergy may marry, bu t thatbishops must be strictly celibate .
Yet ano ther task,and one of much impo rtance, w as
carried through by Bar-Soma. In A .D. 4 8 9 the Empero rZeno broke up the co llege at Edes sa on account of i ts
Ne storiani sm,and Bar- Soma at once e stablished it at
Nisibis . As Wigram po ints ou t,this w as a great deed ,
and,as the Nestorians taught the Arabs , through whom
so much of medieval culture reached Europe, the debtw e ow e to Bar-Soma i s no t a small one .
To conclude this brief account,Armen ia at the
Council of Vagharshapat, held in A .D.0 4 9 1, formally re
pudiated the Council of Chalcedon , and thereby apparentlydeclared in favour of monophysit i sm ,
but in real ity declined to acknowledge the primacy of the Patriarch of
Constantinople . This declaration separated Armen ia, andseparate it s till remains from every o ther church .
KOBAD .
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE CRUSH ING OF THE WH ITE HUNS
After passing a desert and a morass, they ( the H uns) penetrated throughthe moun ta ins and arrived, a t the end of fifteen days’ march
, on the confinesof M edi a . They encoun tered the Persian army in the p lains of M edia
and the air,accord ing to their ow n expression, w as darkened by a cloud of
arrows . But the H uns were obliged to retire, before the numbers of the enemy.
— G I BBON, Decline a nd Fall.
The Accession of Kohaa’,A .D. 4 87 .
—Kobad (the name i sa later form of Kavad) w as a son of Firuz w ho tookrefuge with the White Huns after making an abort iveattempt , to se ize the throne. H e w as kindly receivedby Khush-New az
,bu t it w as not until three years after
hi s arrival that a force w as prepared to aid him in substantiating his claims . It would appear that this changeof policy w as connected with the refusal of Balas tocon tinue to pay tribute ; but there w as no civil w ar
,as
that monarch opportunely died in A .D. 4 8 7, or accordingto ano ther account, w as blinded and thereby renderedunfit to reign . Kobad w as then recognized as the Great
His Camp a igns aga i nst the Kha z ars .— A campaign
against the Khazars, a barbarou s tribe which raided acrossthe Caucasus. into the valley of the Kur, w as the earliestexplo it of Kobad ’
s long reign . This Turkish , tribe whichhas impres sed i tself so, deeply on Persian history that theCaspian Sea i s st ill known by Persians as the Khazar
477
4 7s HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
Sea,
1w as defeated with ease in the first encounter
,a large
number being killed and immense boo ty captured .
The R ise of M azdak— Just about this period,Mazdak
,
an inhabitant of Persepol i s,or according to Tabari of
Nishapur,began to convert thousands to his doctrines ,
which were an early form of Communi sm . Acco rdingto these
,all men were born equal and had the right
to maintain the ir equality through life . Consequentlyproperty and women should be held in common . On
the more spiritual s ide he taught abstemiousness,devo t ion
,
and the sacredness of an imal l ife . For the propagationof . h i s tenets he resorted to imposture . A tube w as
constructed from a cavern beneath the fire - altar,and
with the help of a confederate,Mazdak professed to
converse with the sacred element . H e carried out the
fraud with such complete success in the presence of the
sovereign that Kobad enro lled himself among his disciples .So encouraged were the fo llowers of the new religion bythe royal support that even Christ ian Armen ia w as almo stgoaded into rebellion by the ir into lerant pro selytism .
The Dep osi tion of Kohaa’and his Imp r isonment, A .D.
4 9 8 50 1 .—As a result of the monarch ’s conversion to the
tenets of M azdak,his unpopularity became so great that
a conspiracy w as formed by the ch ief M ohed,the nobles
,
and the army ; Kobad w as depo sed and Zamasp , hi sbro ther
, w as placed on the throne . In sp ite of the
general clamour for the death of Kobad,his kindly
brother refused to order h is execut ion,but confined him
instead in the famous Castle of Oblivion .
His Seeona’ Reign, A .D . 50 1—
53 I .—Kobad
,however
,
by the aid of his wife,w ho
,according to some accounts
,
carried him off concealed in her bedding, escaped to theWhite Huns , and they espoused his cause with vigour .Zamasp declined to fight for the throne and Kobad inconsequence rece ived the submiss ion of his refractorysubj ects . At the same t ime he prudently withdrew officialsupport from Mazdak
,although as an individual he still
adhered to his doctrines .His Firs t War w ith Rome, A .D. 503
—
505.— Under !
1 Vzde Chap . I I . p . 2 8 .
xxxrx CRUSHING OF THE WHITE HUNS
Kobad the s ixty years’
peace with Rome came to an endand the almost cont inuous series of campaigns w as begunwhich, by exhausting bo th powers
,paved the w ay for the
Arab conquest . Among the terms of the peace concludedin A .D . 4 4 2 between Yezdigird I I . and Theodo s ius I I . , asmentioned in the previous chapter
, w as one by which Romeengaged to pay a certain sum annually towards the ex
penses of the Derbent garrison . During the years ofpeace which had existed between the tw o powers
,this
subsidy had no t been paid,and Kobad
,being in urgent
need of money with which to reward his Ephthaliteall ies, demanded the whole amount due . The EmperorAnastasius no t unnaturally res isted the claim on the groundthat it w as obsolete
,and w ar w as the consequence .
The campaign opened with a sudden invasion of
Roman Armen ia which w as entirely successful,Theo
dosiopolis, which w as unprepared for a siege,surrender
ing almo st at once . After laying waste the country,
Kobad marched to Amida,famous for its siege by Shapur
the Great . Thi s great fortress w as also taken,after e ighty
days,although at a heavy cost of men
,and these
successes were followed up by the annihilat ion of a
Roman army . Unfortunately for Persia, an invasion bythe Ephthal ites caused the Great King to hasten withmo st of his troops to Khorasan in A .D. 503 . Hearing of
his departure,the Romans took heart, cro ssed the Tigri s,
and besieged bo th Amida and Nisibis . At this j uncturean embassy arrived from Kobad, and the Romans, unawareof the straits to which Amida w as reduced, paid one
thousand pounds ’ we ight of go ld in exchange for it . On
the terms of the sta tus gno ante a peace w as concluded inA .D. 505 for a period of seven years .
The Final Camp a ign aga inst the Whi te Hans,A .D . 503
513 .
— The w ar with the White Huns lasted for ten
ears and w as,so far as can be surmised, ent irely success
nown . From this period onwards,le nomads ceased to be of primary importolicy of Persia, and when they are againthe reign of Noshirw an, they are no longerut are invaded by the ever-victorious Great
4 80 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
King . In short,theWhite Hun peril
,which had threatened
Iran for so long,had passed away .
The M assacre of the M az dakites,A .D . 523 .
—TheMazdakites s ince the restorat ion of Kobad had steadilyincreased in numbers . But they felt the ir po sit ion to be
very insecure ; for, on the death of Kobad,his successor
might,and indeed probably would
,o rder them to be
extirpated . They therefore engaged in a conspiracy to
pers uade Kobad, now an old man,to abdicate in favour
of hi s son Phthasuarsas , w ho agreed to establish the irreligion as that of the State if he succeeded to the throne .
Kobad,hearing of the plot, feigned w illingnes s to abdi
cate,summoned the leading M azdakites to assist at the
so lemn ity,and then had them massacred .
The Rebellion in I heria .— Freed from the w ar with the
Whi te Huns and from internal troubles,Kobad w as able
to turn his attention to his relat ions with Rome . He
w as, however, deterred from act ive ho sti lities,by a rebellion
which broke out in Iberia ow ing to hi s fo lly in revokinghis predecessor s po licy of to leration and insisting on the
renunciation of Chri stian i ty 1n favour of Zoroastrian ism .
Gurgenes, the Iberian monarch, applied to Rome for help .
This w as promised bu t no t effectually given,and in
consequence Gurgenes fled to Lazica, the modern Imeretia
and M ingrelia, a country which w as destined shortly tobe the theatre of a w ar between the tw o great powers .
The Second War w ith R ome,A .D. 524
—
53 I .—During
the ten years of the wars with theWhite Huns , Rome hadsteadily encroached on the frontier of the Persian Empire
,
more especially by building a great fortres s at Dara or
Daras, on the southern slopes of Mons M as ius,within a
day ’s march of Nis ibi s . Kobad despatched an embassyto complain of this vio lat ion of the treaty
,but obtained
little sati sfaction from Anastas ius . The latter died inA.D. 5I 8 , and w as succeeded by Just in, the Captain of the
Guard,w ho continued the Roman po licy of aggressi
H e made an alliance against Persia with a king of the
Huns w ho dwelt north of the Caucasus,and al so accep ted
the allegiance of a prince of Lazica, a state w hic
held to be a Persian dependency . War w as not
xxxxx CRUSHING OF THE WHITE HUNS 4 8 1
immediately , and w e read that about A .D . 520 Kobadpropo sed that Justin should adopt his favourite son
,
Chosroes, w ho
,although not the eldest
,w as destined to
succeed him ,and to re ign as the illustrious No shirw an .
Kobad probably hoped that j ust as Theodosius hadbenefited by the guardianship of Yezd igird, so his ow n
favourite son would benefit by the propo sed arrangementand be accepted with greater readiness as Great King .
Just1n, however, declined .
Consequently when Iberia w as invaded and a Persianforce entered Lazica
,Rome
,in A .D. 526, invaded Persian
Armen ia, the renowned Belisarius holding a command inthe expedition . This campaign ended in defeat for theRomans
,w ho were also unsuccessful in M esopotamia.
Next year l ittle w as attempted on e ither side ; and in
A .D . 52 8 the Romans,
now under the command of
Belisarius,were again defeated . The Emperor Justin ian
,
realizing that the forces at the disposal of Belisarius hadbeen too weak
,appo inted him General of the East and
organized a powerful fo rce of 2 men,including
many M assagetae . The Persian General,Firuz the
Mihran,advanced on Dara, and it i s interesting to be
able to read,after the lapse of many centuries, the
correspondence which passed between the tw o commanders .Both appealed to heaven to aid the right, and Firuz withtrue Persian arrogance clo sed the final letter w ith the
demand that a bath and breakfast should be prepared forhim ins ide the walls of Dara .
1
The Roman army,act ing on the defensive, occupied
carefully prepared position , pro tected in front by a deepditch .
Firuz,whose numbers were double those . of
Belisar1us,began the battle with storms of arrows, his
army being superior in archery . But apparently there
w as no adequate reserve of arrows, and a hand to handcontest followed, in which the Roman left, hard pressed,w as saved by a charge ofMassagetae cavalr
‘
y . Immediatelyafterwards the Immortals broke the ranks of the leg1on
aries on the Roman r1ght, where F1ruz had del1v ered h1s
1 Vide The Sev enth M onarchy, p . 369 , where the letters are given in ful l .VOL. I 2 I
4 82 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
the cavalry of the M assagetae charged, and cut the Persianpursuing column into tw o . This decided the hard-foughtday. The Persian lo sses were severe
,but there w as no
pursuit,Bel isarius being content w ith the repulse of the
enemy .
This battle i s of considerable interest as showing howthe Roman legions had deteriorated and how the Persianforces had improved . In no previous battle which isrecorded do the Persians fight hand
’
to hand with suchdiscipline and organization ; and
,but for the brill iant
cavalry charges of the M assagetae, Rome, although fighting with every advantage of situation
,and in the manner
which best suited the legionaries,would have been defeated .
It i s , of course, possible that , had the battle been foughtout on the l ines of envelopment by mounted archersadopted at Carrhae
,the Roman army would have been
overwhelmed without a clo se encounter and it must beremembered that the Pers ian army w as double that ofRome .
In Armen ia,too
,the Roman forces defeated the army
of Kobad in tw o battles,and thus the season clo sed
disastrously for the Great King, w ho w as now too old to
direct his armies in person . The year 529 w as importantonly for the raid of the savage Saracen Mundhir
, of
Hira,
1w ho ravaged Syria up to Antioch
,and whose
bloody sacrifice of 4 00 nuns to the goddess Al-Uzza,the
planet Venus,must have sent a thrill of horro r through
out Christendom .
In A .D . 53 1, after negot iations which led '
to nothing,
an attempt w as made to invade Syria,in all iance with the
Saracens under Mundhir . Information,however
,reached
the watchful Bel i sariu s,w ho by dint of fo rced marches
w as able to interpo se his army between the invaders andAnt ioch . Fo iled in its main obj ect
,the Persian
retreated,and Belisarius
,who se ranks were filled
Isaurians,Lycaonians , and Arabs, decided to permit the ir
retreat unmolested . His men,however
,clamoured to be
allowed to pursue,with the result that a battle fought
1 The rise of this state is narrated in A t ow ry History of the Zrahs,by R. A .
Nicholson, p. 38 ff. Vzde also Chapters XLI I . and XLIV . of the present work.
4 84 HISTORY OF PERSIA cm .
for more than tw o centuries, until in the middle of the
fifth century the reign ing member of the Toba Wei
dynasty,which ruled Northern China from A .D . 3 8 6 to
584 , despatched an envoy to Po—sz . The Persian monarchsent a return mission with gifts Of tame elephants
,which
w as detained by the people of Khotan,but w as finally
released . In all,some ten missions passed between Persia
and the Northern China dynasty between A .D . 4 55 and
513 . The description given by the Chinese i s Of con
s iderable value and merits free quo tat ion . It runs“ PO- sz state has its capital at Suh- l i (Ctesiphon)with Over househo lds . The land is fairly leveland produces go ld
,silver
,coral
,amber
,very fine pearls
,
vitreous ware and glass crystals,diamonds
,iron
,copper
,
cinnabar,mercury damask
,embro idery
,cott
and tapestry . The climate i s very hot,and fami
keep ice in the i r houses . The land is stony sand for thegreat part
,and for 1rr1gation purposes water has to be
conducted . The ir five cereal s,birds
,beasts , etc.
,are
pretty much as in China. The land produces famoushorses
,large asses
,and camels . Then they produce
white elephants,l ion s
,and great bird eggs ; there i s a
bird shaped like acamel,
1 having tw o wings which enableit to fly along but no t to rise; It eats grass and flesh
,
and can al so swallow fire .
”
An account of the King sitting on a go ld lion thronewith his splendid crown
,and a description Of the nat ional
dress and of the custom Of succession are given . Eventhe t itles of the Court are mentioned
,the M oh—n- tan being
evidently the M ohecls, and the Sip ahhna
’or Commander
in - Chief being disguised under the form of Sieh—
p o
p nh. Special reference IS made to the marriage of brotherand sister
,which is reprobated
,to the expo sure of the
dead,and even to the class which to the present day i s
kept apart and looked upon as unclean by the Z
astrians on account of i ts bearing corpses to the n’ahma
tower of expo sure .
Apart from thi s most valuable general description
1 I t I s interesting to know that In modern Pers ian the ostrich Is termedb ird.
”Every Chinese ambassador w as especially struc
xxxxx CRUSHING OF THE WHITE HUNS 4 35
Pers1a,
as seen through Chinese eyes, w e have the
follow mg account of var1ous special embassies Duringthe period Shen-Kwe i (A .D . 518 their state sentenvoys to bring up a letter accompanying articles Oftr1bute
,w h1ch runs The Great Country’s Son ofHeaven
is born of Heaven . We hope that the place where the
Sun comes ou t will always be of the Son of Heaven in
Han ( land). The PO-sz State King Ku—hw o—tu (Kobad)makes 1000 and respectful Obeisances . ’ The
Court accepted thi s approvingly,and from this t ime
onward they Often sent to make Oflferings at Court . In
the second year ( A .D . 555) the i r King2again sent envoys
to offer lo cal articles .These delightful chronicles hardly require comment
,
and the more they are examined the more their accuracyis proved
,as the pages of this work show . There i s
no thing Of greater interest in histo ry than to find thatthe descript ion of a country and of a people which hasbeen co llected from many various
, yet in the main similar,sources is suddenly confirmed from a wholly differentquarter .
1 Kobad,as detai led above, sat on the throne of Pers ia from A .D. 4 87
— 53 1. He
w as also known as Kavad or Kavat,which closely resembles the Chinese form .
2 The famous Noshirw an w as reign ing at this t ime.
NOSH IRWAN THE JUST.
CHAPTE R XL
NOSH IRWAN THE JUST
The slave w ho can be bough t and sold is freer than the m iser : the formermay become free, but the latter never.
— From the Max ims of Noshirw an.
The D isp uted Success ion of Noshirw an,A .D . 53 1 .
— The
story run s that when Kobad w as flee ing to the WhiteHuns
,he married the daughter of a peasant at Nishapur
,
w ho bore him Anushirw an or No shirw an,termed Chosroes
by western writers,and Kisra by the Arabs
,w ho i s j ustly
held to be the mo st i llustrious member of the Sasan iandynasty . H e w as the favourite son of his father
,w ho
regarded him as a talisman because it w as at Nishapur 1
that he heard of the death Of Volagases , and thus helooked upon him as bo rn under a lucky star .Upon the death of Kobad
,Kao ses
,the eldest son
,
assumed the insign ia of royalty . But M ebodes,the Grand
V izier,produced the will of Kobad in favour of Noshir
w an, w ho w as thereupon proclaimed Great King . Therew as
,however
,a strong party which supported Zames
,the
second son of Kobad,and
,as he w as blind in one eye and
consequently ineligible for the throne,his adherents decided
to crown his son and appo int the father to be regent .This consp iracy be ing discovered
,No shirw an took ruth
less action and put to death all his bro thers together withthe ir entire male Offspring
,the son Of Zames
,by name
Kobad,alone escaping .
1 The late Nasir-u-Din Shah possessed a similar ta lisman,a Kurdish boy w ho w as
not related to him . I t is extraordmary to what lengths this superstit ion is st i l l carriedin Pers ia.
4 8 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA can .
Bel i sarius would overwhelm Persia. His fears wereincreased by ambassadors whom he rece ived from the
Ostrogoths in I taly and from Armen ia in A .D . 53 9, w ho
po inted out that,unless he declared w ar immediately
,
while Bel isarius w as still engaged in I taly,it would be
too late . Urged by these weighty reasons,Noshirw an
abruptly ended the so-called eternal peace .
The Cap ture and Sac/e of Antioch hy Noshirw an,A .D .
7 54 O .— Rome w as totally unprepared for the invas ion of
No shirw an, w ho , instead of wasting his strength in
attacking the fortresses of Mesopotamia,cro ssed the
Euphrates below Circesium,the frontier fortress already
referred to in connexion with the expedit ion of Julian .
H e treated with p iti less cruelty the first town that hecaptured in order to strike terror throughout Syria
,and
marched towards rich Antioch,ravaging the open country
and extorting ransoms as he proceeded . Antioch had
suffered from a series of earthquakes little more than a
decade previously,its fo rtifications were badly des igned
and in a broken-down condition,
and there w as no
adequate garrison for its defence . Conse uently the
cap i tal of Syria with its priceless treasures(
fell an easyprey to Noshirw an , w ho , 1n pursuance Of his po l icy whichaimed at insp iring terro r
,destroyed every house and
building that w as not ransomed . As w as invariably the
case under the Parthian and Sasan ian Monarchs alike,
there w as no idea of annexation and admin istration, bu tonly of raiding and destruction .
Having attained his chief Obj ect,the Great King w as
ready to make peace,and terms w ere finally agreed upon
by which he w as to rece ive (a) five thousand pounds ofgo ld as a w ar indemnity ; and (h) fiv e hundred poundsof go ld to be paid annually towards the upkeep of the
Derbent and o ther garri sons . Pending ratification of
the treaty,No shirw an visited Seleucia
,the port of
Ant ioch,where he bathed in the blue waters of the
Mediterranean Sea,and in unconscious imitat ion Of the
old Assyrian conquerors erected altars and offeredsacrifices . On his return march
,he extorted contribu
t ions from Apamea,Edessa
,Dara
,and o ther cit ies
NOSH IRWAN THE JUST 4 8 9
along the northern route, although it would appear thathe received no t1ce Of the rat ification of the treaty at
Edessa . As a result Of this flagrant breach of faith,
entire responsibil ity for the rupture upon Noshirw an .
The Great King, w ho had certainly Shown to littleadvantage in these proceedings
,spent the following
winter in building a Grecian city on the model of Antiochin the neighbourhood of Ctesiphon . According to
Tabari, SO exact w as the copy of the original that theAntiochene capt ives found their w ay to their new houseswithout any difficulty I
The Campa igns in Laz ica,A .D . 54 0
—
557 .- Reference
has already been made to Lazica,the ancient Colchis
,
which in A .D . 522 had rece ived Roman protect ion . Astime went by, an irksome commercial monopo ly hadbeen imposed by the Roman Governo r
,w ho had
established himself at the port of Petra. At first therehad been no tribute demanded and no question had beenrai sed of admitt ing a Roman garrison . Consequentlythe Laz ic King felt aggrieved
,and in A .D . 54 O appealed
to the Court Of Persia. Noshirw an,on this occasion
,
displayed considerable imaginat ion,i f no t insight . H e
real ized that to ho ld Lazica would impose a heavy drainon his resources ; but he dreamed of the day when he
might launch a great fleet on the Black Sea and attackthe Roman po ssessions
,if not Constantinople itself, and
on this account he agreed to grant his protection to the
suppliant King . Giving out that he w as summoned torepel an invasion of the Huns in Iberia, be rapidlymarched through that country, and before 1t w as poss1ble
for Roman re inforcements to arrive he had besieged andcaptured Petra
,with the result that Lazica became for
the t ime be ing a Persian province and the Po
ers1anEmpire reached to the Black Sea. AS may read1ly be
understood,the yoke of the Great King w as soon found
to be heavier than that of Rome, more especially as the
Laz ic nat ion had been converted to Christian ity .
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
No shirw an,real izing the hopelessness of ho lding the
country without effect ing radical changes,determined to
remove the ent ire population and to fill their place withsubj ects of his ow n . In pursuance of this stupendousscheme
,he attempted to procure the assass inat ion of the
Laz ic King Gubazes . The plot,however
,failed
,and
the intended victim appealed to Justin ian, w ho affordeg
him pro tect ion . Thus w ar again broke out in 54 9 fie .
and it raged for e ight years . Petra w as besieged by the
Romans,and its garrison w as so reduced in numbers that
a mine which had been dug would probably have resultedin the capture of the place . Bu t the Roman Generaldelayed
,hop ing for the promise Of a specific reward from
Justin ian,and in the meanwhile a Persian army thirty
thousand strong suddenly appeared on the scene and
drove Ofl"the besiegers . The country being unable to
maintain a large force,only fiv e thousand Persians were
left to suppo rt the garrison,and this field army w as
completely dispersed with very heavy lo sses by an alliedRoman and Laz ic fo rce .
In the fo llowing year a decis ive action w as fought inwhich Rome gained a complete victory owing to the
death of the Persian general,w ho w as shot by an arrow .
Petra w as then again besieged,and this t ime
,after a
memorable defence in which the utmost gallantry w as
displayed b the hero ic Persian garri son,practically every
member of},
which w as killed or wounded,the great
fortress fell . Yet once mo re the po sition changed ; fora large Persian force , supported by elephants
,appeared
on the scene and reduced Lazica,except a few districts
to which Rome clung . Thi s w as the state of affairs in “
A .D. 551, when peace w as concluded . But inasmuch as lbo th Lazica and the country of the Saracens were ex
cluded from the operat ion of this peace,it afl
’
orded no
rel ief to the sorely—tried Gubaz es and his people .
In A.D . 552 the balance of success lay with the
Persians,and bu t for the i r lack Of capacity they would
have driven the Romans out of the country . Gubaz es
had complained to Justin ian against the Roman generals,and the latter
,in self-defence
,had accused the King of
4 92 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
have felt any serious lo ss Of prestige from a paymentwhich secured the po ssession of a ferti le and strategicallyvaluable province .
The Coming of the Turhs .— The Turks
,the Tu-chueh
of the Chinese,derived the ir descent from the Assena
clan of the H u ing-nu or Huns .1 In A .D . 4 3 3 , owing to
the aggress ion of the third Toba Emperor,five hundred
families migrated to the borders of the kingdom of the
Jw en—Jw en,where they derived their name of Turk from
a hill shaped like a helmet,which i s still termed Durko
in some Of the many Turkish dialects . They served theJw en Jw en as i ron—workers
,and gradually became so
strong, that their chief, Tumen, demanded a princess of
the paramount tribe in marriage . The demand w as
refused,and in the w ar that ensued , the Jw en-Jw en w ere
SO u tterly defeated that the ir name i s never even hearda a1n .g
The Turks first appear in Persian history about themiddle of the sixth century
,at which period they were
organized in tw o divis ions . The Eastern Turks ownedthe northern districts
,from Mongol ia to the Ural Moun
tains,and the Western Turks held sway from the Altai
Mountains to the Sir Daria. Tumen,the first I l—Khan
or“ Chief of the Tribe
,
”2 died in A .D. 53 3 , and w as
succeeded by his son Ko lo,whose reign w as very short,
and it w as his brother,Mokan Khan
,w ho entered into
relat ions with Noshirw an, in A .D. 554 .
The Subjugation of the White Hans.— TO return to the
White Huns,i t would appear that Noshirw an , l ike
Justinian after the first peace,w as able to take advantage
Of the truce and the treaty of peace which followed itto wage the series of campaigns that have placed himon the p innacle of fame . But, as there are no detailedchron icles to which reference can be made for dates, a
general ou tline only can be given .
The Ephthalites,w ho had been crushed by Kobad,
were again invaded 1n their ow n country by Noshirw an,1 Vide E. H . Parker’s A Thousand Years of the Tar tars, Bk. IV . also The Heart of
A sia, p . 29 .
2 This t it le i s st ill app lied to the ch iefs of the Kurdish tribes of Kuchan and
Bujnurd.
xx. NOSH IRWAN THE JUST 4 93
aided by the I l-Khan of the Turks . The Persian
Noshirw an and his all ies . So far as i s known, the
Oxus w as made the boundary once again,and by this
agreement Persia recovered historical Balkh . Noshirw an,
to seal the treaty, married a daughter of Mokan Khan,
and his he ir w as the offspring of this marriage .
The Camp a ign aga inst the Khaz ars .-Of less import
ance than the campaign against the Ephthal ites w as theattack on the Khazars . This people
,which had already
been defeated by Kobad, w as attacked by No shirw an
,
w ho ravaged the ir territory and massacred the wildtribesmen by thousands .
The Arahian Camp a ign, circa A .D . 576 .—About the
beginn ing of the s ixth century of our era,the Abyssinians
,
w ho were a Christian people,had invaded and taken
possess ion of the Yemen, which became a province of
Abys sin ia. Under Abraha, a famous warrior,the hold
of the conquerors w as greatly strengthened and severalchurches were erected
,among o ther places at Sana. The
results of these campaigns were naturally pleasing to
Rome,and j ust as naturally displeasing to Noshirw an
,
w ho thirsted for fresh conquests and decided to reduceArabia and incidentally to drive out the Abyssin ians . At
his court there happened to be a refugee prince of the
old Himyarite stock,w ho had escaped to Persia and
repeatedly urged Noshirw an to add to his laurels byexpelling the invader . An expedition w as prepared whichsailed down the Persian Gulf, doubled Ras-ul—Hadd
,and
,
coasting‘
along the southern side of Arabia,reached Aden
in safety . There the Himyarites rallied in large numbersto their Prince, the Abyss in ians were attacked and de
feated,and the Himyarite prince w as placed on the throne
as the Noshirw an . Truly a remarkableexpedit ion especially, if, as stated by Tabari, it cons istedof only e ight hundred prisoners commanded by an
same chron i cler, No shirw an alsoIndia which resulted in the
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
gain of some provinces . There does not seem to be
any certainty as to such a campaign,but there may well
have been an expedition in .this direction .
The Camp aign w i th the Tarhs .— We are on more
certain ground with regard to the wars with the Turks,
who se Khan, Dizabul, in A .D. 567 sent an embassy to
the Great King with proposals for an all iance . No shirw an,
in deep perplexity, adopted the foo l ish course of po i son ingthe ambassadors and stating that they had died fromnatural causes ! Enraged at this outrage Dizabul despatched an embassy to the Court of Just in , w ho madea treaty and sent a return embassy in A .D. 569 . Mean
while the Turks invaded Persia,bu t apparently fled at
the approach of a Persian army . Fail ing to succeed ' byforce of arms
,Dizabul sent a second embassy to the
Court o f Byzantium in A .D . 57 1, and begged Just in to
denounce the peace with Persia,which had run only nine
ears .YThe Thira
’War w i th Rome,A .D. 572
—
579 .— Curiously
enough,Just in broke the peace with Persia for almo st
exactly similar reasons to those which impelled Noshirw an
to invade Syria after his first treaty of peace with Rome .
In o ther words,he w as afraid that the rival power w as
becom in too strong . Furthermore,the Great King w as
already fgully seventy years of age and it w as hoped that
hi s powers were fail ing . But the old l ion w as still adangerous antagoni st
,and no sooner w as his kingdom
menaced than he took the field in person with a largearm
'
y,drove off the Roman force which w as besieging
Nisib is and pursued it to Dara,which he invested .
Meanwhile a flying column,s ix thousand strong
,raided
Syria,burned the suburbs of Antioch, destroyed Apamea,
and after ravaging far and wide rejo ined Noshirw an
before Dara.
This great fortress w as surrounded by l ines of circumvallation
,its water- supply w as diverted
,and towards the
clo se of A .D . 573 i t surrendered, with the result that theEmperor Justin
,overwhelmed by the disaster
,abdica
in favour of Count Tiberius . The new Emperor pchased a year’s truce at the c
and the time w as employed in the recruiting and organization of large forces from the Rhine
,the Danube and
the front ier provinces . But the heart of Tiberius failedhim,
and he purchased an extension of the truce for threeyears
,at
.
the rate of go ld pieces per annum,with
the cond i t i on that Armen ia w as not to benefit by it .The mountain province w as invaded immediately
after the conclusion of the partial truce,and Noshirw an
speedily subdued Persian Armenia. H e then attackedRoman Armen ia ; but his progress w as checked by a
part ial reverse and the capture of his baggage by a
Scythian Chief, Kurs, w ho w as in the service of Rome .
Shortly afterwards, the Great King avenged this reverseby surpris ing a Roman camp by n ight . H e then withdrew for the winter and the Roman leader took advantageof his absence to plunder Pers ian Armenia. In A .D. 576a Roman army suffered a crushing defeat. In thefollowing year there w as no important military event
,
and in A .D . 578 the rival armies devastated far and wide,
unoppo sed by one another . On this occasion Maurice,
destined to succeed to the purple,after ravaging Persian
e Armen ia,entered Arzanene and Eastern Mesopo tamia.
He furthermore despatched a raiding band into Kurdistanwhere the aged Noshirw an V iewed their ravages from the
high mountains of his summer retreat. H e fled to
Ctesiphon,and there shortly afterwards died .
The Chri stian Communitynna’
er Noshirw an — In ChapterXXXVII I . w e saw how the declaration by the Church inPersia afli rm ing the “
tw o natures”in Christ had cut it
off from the ne ighbouring empire,which w as mono
phys itic so far as its Eastern half w as concerned . UnderJustin
,however
,there w as a return to dyophys itism on
the part of the Eastern Roman Empire and a reconcil iae . Thi s might have led to a revival ofPersia
,but, fortunately for the Church
,
the Great, a converted Zoroastrian, w as
and although Noshirw an, upon the rebellionristian son, Nushishad, threatened to blind M ar
to throw him into a sand p it, the fearlessw as able to clear himself before the Great
4 96 HISTORY OF PERSIA
King,w ho though severe w as j ust
,and sincerely ad
him .
The activity of the Persian,or Nestorian
,
'
c
at this period w as indeed wonderful .bishoprics had been founded at HeratIn the following century the first efloof China w as made . Thi s mission
,
to attain considerable success,w as so
that the Nestorian churches it foun“ Persian temples .” The same religious enterpr
also respons ible for the legend of Prester John .
too,w as a scene of fruitful missionary labour
,the res
of which are st ill vi sible .
1
During the s ixth century a Persian bishop,Ivon
name,i s said to have visited England . In 100 1
body w as miraculously discovered by a ploughman in
Huntingdonshire,and a church w as dedicated to the
saint,w ho has given its name to St . Ives .2 This i s
,I
bel ieve,the earliest recorded connexion between I ran and
England . About the same time a certain Hormisdas,or
The Gift of Ho rmuz,
”w as elected Pope
,and there i s
l ittle doub t that this const itutes an early l ink betweenPersia and Europe .
The Chara cter ana’
Achiev ements of Noshi rw an.“
Noshirw an the Just is undoubtedly the mo st illustriousfigure in the history of Iran, so far as it i s known to the
Persians,w ho
,as al ready stated, are profoundly ignorant
of the achievements of Cyrus the Great,of Darius
,or
indeed of any ruler of the i r country before the Sasan iandynasty . H is character appears to have been a mixtureof strength and j ust ice ; and this i s what appeal s to the
Oriental,w ho despises kindliness in his ruler, if unac
compan ied by strength and capacity .
which are referred to in detai l in th
included the organ ization of a carefully gradedin money
,accompan ied by a regular annual assessment
the crops . H e al so organ ized hi s army for w ar
seeing that no one drew pay unless he w as efli cient,a
1 Daw n q odern Geography,vol. i . pp. 2 1 1-223 .
2 Words and Places, by I saac Tay lor,p . 23 1.
HISTORY OF PERSIA ca n .
Many are the stories of this monarch,and among
them Masudi gives the fo llowingThe Ambassador of the Roman Emperor w as shown
and admired the magn ificence of the palace of Noshirw an .
But having observed that the square in front of it w asirregular in shape
,he enquired the reason and w as in
formed that an old woman ow ned the adjacent land,
which she refused to sell at any price and that the Kingwould no t take it by force . The Ambassador exclaimed
,
This irregularity 1s more beautiful than the mo st perfectsquare .
” Many of No shirw an’s maxims have been pre
served . One of them is to the effect that the mostprecious treasure and the mo st u seful in time of needis a benefit conferred on a generous man . Ano ther runs
,
“ The days of good fortune flee in the twinkling of an
eye, but the days of ill fortune appear to last for months .”
Ment ion has been made of the dazzling victoriesthi s illustrious monarch
,and w hen beside them w e
hi s equally splendid achievements in o ther spheraction
,his j ustice
,his capacity for organizat ion
,hi s Wide
minded to leration and hi s sagacity,the impress ion pro
duced i s of a character of surpassing grandeur,which is
rightly cherished by all true son s of Iran .
Buzurgmihr .— No account of Noshirw an would be
complete without a reference to his celebrated Vizier,Buzurgmihr. This remarkable man first attracted the
royal no tice when act ing as tutor to his son Hormuz,w ho at first resented the tutor’s zeal
,but finally showed
him intense respect and affection . Buzurgm ihr w as so
made Vizier and many of Noshirw an s reforms mayattributed to his s ignal capacity . The introduct ion of
chess 13 al so bel ieved to have been due to his influence .
In the“
famous stories of the East,it i s tol
w as once a conference of philo sophers in the
Noshirw an and the question of what const igreatest unhappiness w as discussed . A Greeksopher gave as his view an imbecile old age withpoverty ; and an Indian co lleague disease of the bodyadded to cares of the mind . Buzu rgmihr said, For mypart I ho ld that extreme misery is for a man to see t he
NOSH I RWAN AND BUZURGM IHR .
(From a Per51an MS . in the Brltish Museum . )
KING TRAMPLING A FALLEN FOEMAN.
(Sasan ian Gem in Brit ish Museum .)
CHAPTE R XLI
ORGAN I ZATION,LANGUAGE AND ARCH ITECTURE UNDERTHE SASAN IAN DYNASTY
There is a great ymage on horsbacke, seemyng to be of a boysterouse
man : w ho they saie w as SAM PSON about the wh ich arr many o therymages apparailed of the frenche facon
,w i th longe heares, and all those
ymages arr of halfe relieuo .— JOSAFA BARBARO, on the Sasanian Rock
Sculptures .
The Administra tion of the Sasanian Emp ire — Few pagesare mo re interesting than tho se in whichTabari 1 describesthe reorgan ization of the admin i strat ion by Noshirw an ;and his expo sit ion of the principles on which the GreatKing acted is corroborated by Masudi . As the systemw as adopted by succeeding monarchs
,and indeed by the
Cal iphs,I propose to describe i t in some detai l .
Upon his succession to the throne,Noshirw an, finding
that Persia w as suffering from tyranny, inj ustice , corrupt ion
,insecurity
,fanatici sm
,and crime, set himself with an
i ron will to the task of carry ing out reforms which wouldcombat these great evils . His first step w as to form fourgreat satrapies . (a) the East comprising Khorasan and
Kerman (h) theWest including I rak and Mesopotamia ;( c) the North including Armen ia and Azerbaijan ; and
(a’
) the South including Fars and Khuzistan . This1 Vol. 11. pp. 222-232.
500
service of spies which w as ubiquitous .and Tax
i— Of far greater importance than this
'd1V1s1on of the emp1re w as his financial settlement . Thecustom, dat ing po ssibly from Achaemenian times
,had
the crops could no t be reaped or the fruit collectedunt i l the tax- co llector w as ready to take the share dueto the state .
1
No shirw an, with keen insight, substituted a payment
money and in kind,each measure of ground being
taxed at a d’
irhem 2and one fixed measure of the produce .
These payments, which applied only to the sown land,
re never increased,and in consequence the cultivato r
s free to work for his ow n benefit,sure of reaping what
he sowed . It i s stated that an annual survey w as madeof all the land under cult ivation . Thi s is difficult to
believe because of the enormous staff the work wouldhave required ; but it i s certain that there w as a
remarkable advance in efficiency . In addition to the
land tax,there w as an assessment on fruit trees ; also a
tax on property,and a po ll- tax on Christians and Jews .
Payment of these taxes w as made in three instalments,at
of four months,and to prevent oppression the
were allowed to act as inspectors .Communications .
— Apartspecial reforms, Noshirw an w as constantlyhe water supply, on which then, as now , most
op s depended, by the construction of dams and in
11. p . I 52, tells an interesting story of how Kobad saw a child beaten by itsicking a bunch of grapes, which she took from it and t ied on to the vine .
in rep ly to the monarch‘s inquiry, explained that the King ’s share hadconsequent ly, they dared not touch their v ines.
bout 7d,
502 HISTORY OF PERSIA emu ».
o ther ways . H e promo ted the growth of populat ion bydowering the poor and by importing bodies of capt ives .Of equal importance w as his care for communications ofevery kind . The chief arteries of commerce wereguarded
,and ample provision w as made for the repair of
bridges and the upkeep of the roads . To the travellerfrom the West 1n Pers ia to-day no th ing 1s more strikingthan the utter neglect of roads and bridges
,and it i s sad
to think that the inhabitants are content to have i t so .
In the admin i stration of j ustice,although Noshirw an w as
pitiless when necessary,perhaps for the first t ime in the
history of the country sever i ty w as tempered with mercy,
more especially 1n the case of the young .
These reforms,it may be obj ected
,depended on the
prestige and incessant vigilance of one man,
and to
certain extent this is true . It i s,however
,equally true
that a great man,especially if spared to rule for a long
period,stamps an admini strat ion with his personal ity .
Not only would the cult ivators be less ready to to lerateextortion after enjoying the blessings of j ustice for morethan a generation
,but the tax-co llectors themselves must
have been more efli cient and less rapacious than indays which preceded these far-reaching reforms .
The Army— In no respect i s there a greater contrast
between the Parthian and Sasan ian dynasties than in the
compo sition of their armed forces . Under the Parthiansl ight horsemen carrying nothing but the bow con
st ituted the principal arm,heavy cavalry being but few 1n
number and rarely playing a decis ive role ; the infantry,as in modern Pers ia
,scarcely counted . Under the
Sasan ians there were four main arms . Most important of all w as the co rps of elephants ; next came the
heavy horse thirdly the archers,and fourthly the
spearmen .
As ment ioned in Chapter XXII .,i t w as at Arbela that
elephants first appeared in a recorded battle, bu t no
ment i on i s made of the part they played . From thattime fo rward the ir importance w as considerable, althoughthey were neglected by the Parthians . They were takeneven to remote Lazica by the Sasan ian troops, and, as will
504. HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
enormously in advance of the Parthians in everything thatbelonged to the scientific side of w ar.
In No shirw an’
s army no money w as paid except toefficient men w ho were completely armed, and, if membersof a cavalry corps, properly mounted . There i s a typicalstory that when the Great King appo inted a PaymasterGeneral with full authority, that ofli cialwould no t exercisehis funct ions until Noshirw an himself appeared on paradeto draw his pay. The Great King duly rode on to the
ground,w as carefully inspected, and, be in found to be
short of the tw o extra bowstrings whichn
formed part of
a mounted officer ’s equipment,w as directed to go to the
palace and return fully equipped . To his credit,Noshir
w an obeyed,and upon be ing finally passed w as given his
pay, fixed at four thousand and one a’
irhems,or
J£1 12 ,which w as the highest salary permissible .
The Pahlav i Language. The question of the
languages in use during the Sasanian period is somewhatcomplicated and obscure . An extensive l iterature
,est i
mated by West 1 to be equal in bulk to the Old Testament
,has come down to us in Pahlavi .2 This term applies
rather to the script than to the language,bu t it i s gene
rally employed to denote the ofli cial language of Persiaunder the Sasan ian dynasty . Its earliest u se has beentraced back to the fourth century B .C .
,and the latest work
written in it dates from the ninth century A .D . But
during the latter half of its existence the u se of Pahlaviw as confined to the copying of works already written in
that language . An amazing peculiarity of the languagei s that what w as read w as ent i rely different from what w as
written . For instance,for the t i tle King of Kings the
Aramaic M a lhan-M alha w as w ri tten,whereas
‘
Shahan—Shah
w as read. O ther common examples are Zahma ,written for
1 Ex tent,Language, and Age of Pahlwv i L i tera ture, p . Browne also deals briefly
with this quest ion in A Literary s tory of Persia . I wou ld here acknowledge mycons iderable indeb tedness to Professor Browne ’
s works .2 I t is des irable to exp lain the exact s ign ificat ion of various terms. The word
Pahlavi”means Parthian ,”from Parthava, the form in which that proper name
appears on the Behistun inscript ion s. By Pers ians it i s vaguely used to denote archaicPersian, whereas in European writers it s ignifies the Pers ian of the Sasanian period .
Huz w ar ish is the term which includes the Aramaic words appearing in Pahlav i texts .So numerous are these that “ the verba l term inat ion s, the sufli xed pronouns
,and the
construction of the sentence are frequent ly the on ly Persian part of the text .
m LANGUAGE505
bread, whereas nan w as read,and so forth . Such a pro
cedure w as no t unnatural to people whose scripts werecompo sed entirely of ideograms and symbo ls
,
1or rather
,
w ho always cont inued to treat these groups of letters asideograms . Browne, moreover, aptly po ints out that inthe siycih, or numbers ,
”used for accounts at the presentday throughout Persia, abbreviated and mutilated formsof the Arabic names for the different numbers are
employed .
In Chapter IX . I have dealt briefly with the Avesta,
which w as written in a special language termed Avestic,
and had been much neglected until the establishment of
the Sasanian dynasty,when it w as carefully collected and
compiled by Ardeshir . Here,again
,it w as in a great
measure owing to the explanations in Pahlavi that the studyof the Zo roastrian scriptures became practicable . Unti lcomparat ively recently the Zoroastrian scriptures weretermed the Zend—Avesta in Europe but it i s now understood that Zend is the “
explanat ion of the old text inPahlavi : Pazend
,a term w hich i s also used
,i s a re—ex
planation . It may be asked what i s the relation betweenmodern Persian and Pahlavi . The reply i s that Pahlavi isarchaic Persian as it w as spoken before the introductionof Arabic
,and
,i f read ou t to the educated inhabitant
of modern Persia,by which means the Huz vari sh
element disappears,it would be found to some extent
intell igible .
P ahlav i Roch Inscrip tion— The Pahlavi inscript ions
chiselled on the rocks, many of which have been de
ciphered,po ssess considerable historical importance . That
at the Nahsh—i-Rajah dates from the re ign ofArdesh1r.
2
I t i s written in tw o forms of Pahlavi and accompanied bya Greek translat ion . At the end of the e ighteenth centuryde Sacy made a successful attempt to translate it withthe aid of this but
,in spite of this brilliant success and
the labours of devo ted wo rkers in the field, much stillremains to be accomplished for the elucidat ion of these
old- t ime records .1 Persian servants w ho cannot write frequent ly keep their accounts by drawing a lamb,
a fowl, a duck, or grain s of rice in their account books .
2 I t is given as a heading to Chapter XXXV I .
HISTORY OF PERSIA a r .
Pahlav i Li tera ture — West divides Pahlavi l iteratureinto three divisions
,as follows
(a) Pahlavi translat ions of Avesta text s ;(h) Pahlavi texts on rel igious subj ects ; and
( c) Pahlavi texts on non-religious subj ects .D ivision (a) includes twenty — seven works ; bu t, as
We st po ints out,they cannot be regarded as specimens
of Pahlavi l iteratu'
re , because the Parsi translators havebeen fettered by the Avesta arrangement of the words .”
D ivision (h) i s represented by con
tain ing half a million words . Mu valuei s included in this class
,the “ Acts of Re
ligion,”and the Bandahishn
,or Grou
'
nd Giving,
”beingespecially impo rtant . Other works are given by West
,
bes ides numerous say ings,commentaries
,and tradit ions .
In the last division there are only eleven wo rks .Oldest of these i s the Ya thar - i - Zari ran
,a Pahlavi
romance,written about A .D . 500 . This story
,as Brown
po ints out,
“assumes throughout a certain acquaintance
with the who le epic cycle .
” It treats of only one episodein the National Ep ic
,but the essential features of the
legend are the same in the original,in Tabari
,and in the
Shahnama ; and this fact i s of great importance . Of stillgreater value i s the Pahlavi Karnamah— i —Artahhshatr - i
P ap a/can, or“ The Deeds of Ardeshir Papakan
,
”whichhas been translated into German by Noldeke . It w as
written about A .D . 600,and a comp ari son with the Shah:
nama again shows how carefully Firdausi fo llowed hisSasan ian authorities . Other works include treati ses on
the wonders of Sistan and on the game of chess . No
poems have come down to us from Sasan ian times .The M onarch ana
’
hi s Court — The Sasan ian monarchlived in a court who se splendour and luxury were un
surpassed by that of any dynasty in the world ’s history .
The bas- rel iefs have preserved for us a faithful repre
sentation of the splendid armour,the rich embro ideries,
and the superb horse trappings affected by the GreatKing . His surroundings were go rgeous
,and consp icu
ou s among h i s treasures w as the royal “ Paradise”
carpet, 70 cubits long and 60 broad . To quote Muir,
508 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHA P.
The recogn ition of Shapur I . when tested at this gamehas been already narrated .
Among the later monarchs,no t only Khusru Parv iz
,
but even Shirin and her ladies,played polo
,as the follow
ing l ines from Nizami prove :
When he (Khusru) reached the polo ground,The fairy
-faced ones curvet ted on their steeds wi th joy.
Th ey started p lay, w h en ev ery M oon
Appeared a Sun,and every partridge a haw k.
At
.
t imes the Sun bore off fhe bal l,
.
at timesthe Moon .
Now Shirin w on and now the Shah.
Of indoor games chess has already been referred to .
Music w as evidently held in high esteem,as the bas
rel iefs show ; and even while shoo ting the Great Kingkep t his orchestra clo se at hand to celebrate his prowess .Probably the music which is still played in the chief cit iesof Persia to greet the ri sing and the setting sun datesback to this period .
1
The M odels of the Sasanian Architects .—Little remains
o f the a rchitecture and art of the preceding Parthiandynasty
,and it i s impo ssible to prai se what there i s .
The Sasan ian kings indeed inherited the glorious monuments of the Achaemen ians in a very different condit ion
,from that in which w e see them to—day, bu t it
w as to Ctesiphon and Hatra that they turned to find
a model for their needs . In this connexion it i s to beremembered that the seat of Persian power w as no t in
Persia proper but rather in the Tigris and Euphratesvalley
,and that Ctesiphon, inherited from the Parthians
,
w as the real capital .TheM a in Fea tures of Sasanian Architecture.
‘
-The o lderSasanian
. , palaces, some of the best known of which Ipropose to describe very briefly, are practically all builton one plan
,which is extremely s imple .
The buildings,which were oblong rectangles
,generally
lay East and West,with a superb Porch or Arch in the
exact centre as its culminat ing feature,and this feature
i s still retained in Persian ecclesiastical and domest ic1 The Glory of the Shia World, pp . 86, 87 .
510 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
admiration of generations of travellers journeying up theTigris to Baghdad . Ornamentation w as given to the
facade by dividing it up by means of string courses andpilasters
,and
,as may be seen from the illustration
,the
result w as mo st effective . No sufficient indications -areleft to enable us to trace the ground plan of this magnifi
cent marble palace,the supreme architectural effort of
Noshirw an,but there i s l ittle doubt that it w as arranged
on the l ines of the palaces already described . Its ru i n i sused by Khak
'
ani to serve as a warn ing,in the l ines
Know,0 h eart Beho ld the w arning
Look from thy eyes and see in the
Ayman of Madain,1 the mirror of w arn ing.
At once by w ay of the Dijla, take up thy abode at M adain
And from thy eyes start a second
Dijla on the soi l of M adain .
The Palace of Khusru a t Kasr— i—Shirin.— Firuzabad and
Sarv i stan were comparat ively small , and were no t designedto accommodate large ret inues
,but w e now turn to a
palace of a different type . At Kasr- i Shirin,on the western
slopes of the Zagros, the Imara t—i—Khnsrn, or“ Palace of
Khusru,dat ing from early i n the sev entli century
,is set
in a park 6000 metres in circumference, of which the
walls,r i s i ng i n places to 6% metres, can still be traced .
Only the roots of date palms and of pomegranates arenow visible i n this vast pleasaunce ; but the
'
Arab writershave detailed the beauty of the gardens and the numberof rare an imals which wandered about the park in perfectfreedom .
The magnificent palace, in front of which glittered anartificial sheet of water, lay east and west its length w as
3 4 2 metres and its greatest width 187 metres . To the
east there w as a double ramp ris ing to a terrace 99 metresin width
,supported by vaulted chambers
,three of which
formed an entrance to a long corrido r on to which manyrooms opened . The main entrance w as by the ramp and
acro ss the terrace to a second incline adorned by twenty !
1 Madain,or The C ities, w as the name by which the Arabs des igned Ctesiphon .
According to tradit ion it w as founded by the fus ion of seven towns. The Dijla is theTigris .
ORNAMENTATION OF PALACE AT MASH ITA.
(From S even th Grea t Or ienta l Emp i re. )
matchless champion, and this error is still perpetuated inthe term “ F igure of Rustam”invariably used by all
classes in referring to the bas-reliefs . European travelle i shave
,of course, made mistakes in their accounts
,none
of w hich are so quaint as that of Jo safa Barbaro,the
Venetian traveller of the fifteenth century,who se delighté
ful descript ion fo rms the heading to this chapter . EvenNiebuhr
,at the end of the e ighteenth century
,accepted
the Persian identificat ion with Rustam,and it w as no t
unt il the middle of the n ineteenth that the error of
attributing half the sculpture s to the Parthian dynastyw as finally given up .
The bas—rel iefs at Nahsh- i—Rnstam are seven in number,
of which the fourth or central group i s the mo st important . It commemorates the capture of the Empero rValerian
,the crown ing military explo it of the
dynasty . The descript ion given by Curzon i s so masterly'
that I canno t do better than quo te it . He writes Thispanel i s '
3512feet long and 16 feet high
,its level at the
bo ttom be ing about 4 feet above the so i l . The centralfigure
,of more than human stature
,i s Shapur
,seated on
horseback and rece iving the homage of the tw o
the capt ive Caesar and Cyriadis o r M iriades,th
fugitive of Antioch , w ho w as elevated by the
the conqueror to the imperial purple . The Sasan ianKing presents the handsome features so familiar fromsculptures and co ins, with thick outstanding clusters of
curls,
and wears the mural crown surmounted by the
globe . His well- trained beard i s tied in a kno t belowhis ch in ; a necklet of large stones or ornaments hangsabout his throat ; and behind him in the air
,as
.
from his sword hilt and plaited charger’s tail,
floatdynastic fillets o r frilled ribands . His lower l imbsclad in the flowing shalw ars of the period while his 1hand grasps his swo rd hilt, his right i s outstretchedmeet the uplifted hands of the standing Cyriad is,whom he appears to be giving the cya
’aris or royal circl
The Syrikneeling
SHAPUR RECEIVING THE CYDAR IS FROM ORMUZD.
(Bas-re l ief of Nakhsh-i -Rus tam . )
(From Sarre and Herzfeld’
s I rani sche Felsreli efi. )
514 HISTORY OF PERSIA
a boat. Here again the game has been collectedenclo sure
,and musicians are still more apparent
,seat
in boats . In a c o rner the p igs are realistically shownthe pro cess of being cleaned and packed on elephan
Altogether,these pieces repay pro longed study .
The Statue of Shap ur - In a cave close to Sthe only Pers ian statue knownhas not been spared by the iconoclasts . Origicarved out of a s ingle block of stone and w as
the roof of the cave . Upon entering the huge o
the V i sitor sees a pedestal 4 feet high, cut outl iving rock
,on which the sandalled feet s t ill remain
statue itself lies behind,in a terribly mutilated
tion,bu t it i s possible to recogn ize the efligy as
Shapur I ., w ho would with much appropriateness
over the city which he had founded .
An Imp ress ion of Sasanian Architecture and Art.
brief account,which is supplemented by the i
records what is best in Sasan ian art,and i t
summarize the general impressions itto be rememberedwith a V iew to safety and also to ke
invisible . Within these l imitationscalled upon to construct a great hall incould remain concealed by curtains ,hold thousands ofministers
,nobles
,g
This great hall alone counted,and i
when w e take into considerat ionfavoured a building open at the fronarchitects deserve much credit . At any rate, a thouyears later the great mo sque at Meshed w as b uilt onmodel
,which is still the only one used in Persia.
Just as in thei r palaces,so also in their bas-reliefs
Sasan ian artists sought their models in the works of tpredecesso rs . Buton the ir models .Shapur I .
,are noble
,dign ified presentments
,and altho
the horses may strike the observer as clumsy in
tablets w here they are represented as standing still,
when portrayed at the charge they are full of l ife
KHUSRU PARVIZ.
CHAPTER XLII
KHUSRU PARV I Z AND HERACLIUS
A t dawn the Lady of the Cycle bareA boy w ith go lden head, w ith yellow hairThat M oon w as born at happy fortune’s ri se“ God aid him , cried the angels from the skies .
In tw o weeks Khusru grew to fu ll moon fair
A year, then as the Night of Pow er 1 his hair,His cypress on i ts foot began to stand
And cooed the pheasant of hi s meadow land .
Upon his rose-bud mouth there fell the dewAnd heart—sore for his cheek the tulip grew .
The Birth of Khusru Parviz(Trans . of Ahi by G ibbs, Hist . Ottoman Poetry, vol. 11. p .
The Continuation of the R oman War hy Harmi
IK— H ormazd,known as Hormisdas IV . to th
writers,w as the son of Noshirw an by th
the Khan of the Turks,and he succeeded to the throne
without oppo sition . At first he promised to rule in the
sp irit shown by his great father,but very soon he
developed the characterist ics of a tyrant . The w ar withRome continued its weary and indecisive course
,as the
new monarch declined to make peace on the conditionof exchanging Arzanene
,with Aphumon its ch ie
for Dara,which the Roman Emperors were
anxious to regain . Negotiat ions having fallenMaurice sent ou t raiding parties across the Tigri
1 The Night of Pow er is the night on which the koran w as sent down— the evening of the 27th day of Ramazan
ow ever,these desert
men proved treacherous,and the ir chief Adarman
a large force threatened Callinicus,thereby com
g the.
Byz antine general,whose l ine of communica
w as i n danger, to forgo his ambitious proj ect and
inst Adarman, whom he defeated . In A .D .
gained a signal victory over a Persian armyw as attacking Constantia but instead of fo llowing
his success he hastened to Constantinople,where the
ng Emperor Tiberius appo inted him his successor toe purple .
After the departure of M aurice from the seat of w ar,the Persians upon the whole had the upper hand
,although
ey were once defeated by Philipp icus, the brother- infather of the future Emperor
ame name,appeared on the scene
,but as only one
of the troops w as under his command, he w as
to effect anything of importance . In A.D. 58 8
as a serious mutiny in the Roman Army, but a
force which drove the invaders out of Arzanene
ultimately beaten near Martyropolis . In the followyear this important fortress w as captured by Romanchery
,and Philippicus, being defeated in his attempt
retake it,w as recalled . Comentiolus succeeded to his
st,with Heraclius as his second in command, and
cided to invade Mesopo tamia. In a battle near Nisibisw as wo rsted and fled ; but Heraclius restored the
and in the end w on a signal V ictory, kill ing the
rs ian general and seizing his camp .
The Inv asion and Defeat of the Turhs, circa A .D. 58 8 .
hile the w ar in Mesopotamia w as being waged yearer year in a who lly indecis ive manner, Pers ia w as
by an invasion of the Turks, w ho probably
pportunity inthe unpopularity of Hormisdas
Rome . But
SI S HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Hormisdas possessed a general of remarkable abil ity inBahram Chubin
,w ho
,contenting himself with a small
force of p icked veterans,aged about forty
,beat the Turks
in a battle in which the Great Khan himself w as slain .
This w as fol lowed by a second desperate struggle,in which
the Khan ’s son w as made prisoner . The boo ty capturedw as enormous
,and in the pages of M irkhond 1 i t i s
stated that camels were required to carry it !Tabari
,w ho tell s in a del ightful manner how the Great
Khan ’s w ar elephants and w ar l ions were compelled to
turn tail by fl ights of arrows and w ere then covered w ithfire
,which they carried raging into their ow n ranks, i s
more moderate and gives only 256 came! loads of goldand precious stones .2
The Camp a ign in Lazica,A .D . 589 .
—Immediatelyafter the defeat of the Turks
,Hormisdas ordered the
victorious general to invade Lazica,which w as found
to be unguarded . A Roman army,however
,speedily
assembled and Bahram suffered defeat in a battle. The
Great King, w ho w as madly jealous of his general, in hisfo lly took advantage of thi s reverse not only to supersedebut to insult Bahram
,to whom he sent a distaff
,some
cotton,and a woman ’s dress .
The Revolt of Bahram Chuhin and the Assassination
Hormisdas.— Stung to the quick by the insult offered
it in the person of its general the army in Lazica revolteand
,be ing jo ined by the army of M es
on Ctesiphon . A forceoff its allegiance to the tyrant ; and a pa
sealed his fate . Deserted by hi s subj ects,by his brothers—in-law Bostam and Bindoes
assassinated .
The Accession of Khusru Parv is , A .D. 590 .-His
son Chosroes I I .,known in Persian history as K
Parv iz or“ The Victorious
,
”and venerated as t
famous King of the Sasanian dynasty, w as placedthrone
,which it seemed mo st unl ikely that he
occupy for more than a few months .
1 M irkhond,the historian of the fi fteenth century, is referred to in Chaptc
2 Vol. i i . p . 262 .
520 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP .
Theophylactus tells us,he w as killed as
“the crown
of aH.
Marching down the Tigri s,the arm of Khusru
succeeded in effect ing a j unction with a fhrce rai sed inAzerbaijan by his uncles
,although Bahram
,it might be
supposed,should have strained every nerve to prevent
this . At the same t ime a detached force of Romantroops obtained po ssess ion of both Seleucia and Ctesiphon
,
which must have been a serious blow to the pretender .The first battle between the tw o forces ended in the
breaking of Bahram’
s centre by the Roman troops . H e
retreated to the hills,where he repulsed with loss the
efforts made by the Great King to pursue him . Thatn ight
,however
,he confessed his weakness by withdraw
ing to the mountains of Kurdistan, and taking up a
po s ition near the famous fortress of Canzaca or Shiz,
already ment ioned as having been besieged by Antony .
Khusru fo llowed up the retreating enemy, and the secondgreat battle w as fought after Bahram had rece ived a
detachment of w ar elephants and o ther reinforcements .The contest w as stubborn
,but in the end decisive .
Bahram attempted to break the right wing of the
Romans ; but they were reinforced by Narses, theirskilful general
,w ho finally
,as in the earl ier battle
,broke
the centre of the rebel army . Bahrain himself escaped 1
along the route followed by the fugitive Darius whenflee ing from Alexander the Great , and took refuge withthe Turks ; while the V ictorious Khusru marched in
triumph to Ctesiphon,where he dismissed his all ies with
splendid gifts and reascended the throne of his ancestorswhich w as now his by right of conquest .
His pos ition,however
,w as by no means secure
,
and conscious that he w as disliked by his subj ects, heretained a body - guard of 1000 legionaries . H e alsoattempted to strengthen himself in the estimation of hi ssubj ects by pun ish ing all tho se w ho were in any w ayresponsible for the death of his father
,not sparing even
his uncles to whom he owed so much . Furthermore ,1 There is an interest ing story of how Bahram during his fl ight discussed the
situat ion with an old woman w ho, ignorant of his identity, described h im as“a silly
fool w ho c laims the k ingdom,not being a member of the Royal House .
ssmat i on of Bahrain, whose return to Persia with an
y of Turks w as a contin enc th t 1 b ]much to be dreaded
g Y a w as a ways P03 3 1 e
The Outhrea/c of War w i th Rome, A .D . 603 .
—Duringre ign
.
of Maur i ce,the relations between the courts of
i nople and Ctesiphon were mo st amicable, and
A .D. 602, Maurice w as murdered
,Khusru deter
to avenge his benefactor. His task w as lightened‘
fact that Narses, w ho had commanded the Roman.
to whom Khusru owed his throne,had refused to
reat King took Dara after a siege lasting n ineThis s ignal success w as followed by the capture
of Amida and other fortresses in Eastern Mesopo tamia .
In A .D. 607 the Persian army captured Harran,Edessa
and other strongho lds in Western M esopotamia,and
cro ss ing the Euphrates took H ieropolis, Berhoea-f—theAleppo of to-day
— and other cities . Simultaneously a
second Persian force, after invading Armen ia, passed intone ighbouring Cappadocia and even ravaged peacefulPhrygia and Galatia.
The Battle of Zu—Kar, circa A .D. 6 10 — About this
period, between A .D. 604 and 6 10 according to Noldeke,
but in A .D . 6 1 I acco rding to M uir,there occurred a short
campaign which passed almost unnoticed at the t ime,bu t
w as recogn ized in later years as fraught with consequencesof grave impo rtance . On the eastern edge of the desertwhich separates the valley of the Euphrates from Jerusalem
,
the Arab state of Hira at this period w as ruled by a
chief named Noman .
Owing to a subtle intrigue woven by a deadly enemy,
w ho'
knew that the Arabs were unwilling to give theirdaughters to the Persians, Khusru Parviz heard of the
beauty of Noman’s daughter,and desire w as kindled to
add her to his extensive seraglio . The Arab princedeclined the honour
,and the Great King, incensed at the
1 He w as,however, eventually lured to Constant inop le and burned al ive in the
market-p lace .
522 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
refusal , sent an army under Iyas of the Tayy tribe,w ho
had aided him during his fl ight,with orders to seize
Noman and his state . News of the expedition precededit , and Noman escaped to the Shaybani
,to w ho se chief,
Hani,he confided his property . H e then came to plead
his cause in person before the Great King, by whom he
w as executed .
The Shayban i were called upon to surrender the
property of Noman,but refused . An expedit ion forty
thousand strong,compo sed of Arabs and Pers ians, w as
despatched to execute the commands of the Great King,and after a series of confl icts the Arab contingent desertedduring the final battle of Zu-Kar and the Persian armyw as cut to p ieces . As Tabari puts it,
“ This w as the
first occasion on which the Arabs took revenge on the
Persians .” This remark hardly conveys the,
momentousconsequences of the battle
,which w as fought j ust as
Mohamed began his career . Had i t ended in a PersianV ictory
,the diffi cult ies of the Arab invaders would have
been immeasurably greater,and the rise of I slam might
have been cut short .The Access ion of Heraclius
,A .D . 6 10 — Meanwhile the
‘V Byzantine empire w as pass ing through a period of anarchy .
Phocas,an offi cer of low rank
,had been elected to lead the
army of the Danube against Constantinople ; and w hen ,in A .D. 602
,a revolt within the city resulted in the abdi
cation of Maurice,he w as elected Emperor .
'
H e provedincapable of deal ing with the diffi cult po litical situation .
H e paid an increased tribute to the Avars,and he made
no effort to cope with the Persian problem . This state of
affairs continued for e ight years, but in A .D. 6 10 Heracliu s,
son of the Governor of Africa,w ho had maintained his
po s ition against Phocas,w as invited to head a movement
against the usurper. H e reached Constant inople witha fleet unoppo sed and w as there proclaimed Empero r .Upon his accession he at once faced the gloomy po liticalsituat ion and began to reo rganize the admini strat ion .
The Sach of Antioch and the Cap ture of Alexandriaby the Persians .
-In A .D. 6 1 1 Khusru Parviz, takingadvantage of the confusion
,again invaded Syria, and
524 HISTORY OF PERSIA
when his proj ect leaked out and the people rose .
Patriarch s ided with them and Heraclius w as forcedswear in St . Sophia that he would never desert the
fo rtunes of his capital .The Famous Camp a igns of Heraclius, A .D. 622— 637 .
Few i f any campaign s in history are more dramat ic thantho sewhich have conferred imperishable glory on Heracl ius .Though all seemed well-n igh lost
,he still retained one
priceless advantage,the great possession of sea power .
Few examples of the value of the command of the sea
are more convincing than tho se .given by the desperateEmpero r, w ho in A .D. 622 left Constant inople abso lutelysafe
,with the enemy less than a mile away
,and sailed on
an expedition which w as to save Europe from Pers iandomination .
The Victory over Shahr-Baraz,A .D . 622 .
— In sp ite of
bad weather,the Empero r passed the Hellespont
,traversed
the Aegean Sea and safely reached Issus,famous for the
victory of Alexander the Great . As he expected,Shahr
Baraz w as o rdered to attack the Roman army,and in a
battle fought near the Armen ian frontier Heracl ius w onthe first victo ry that had been obtained s ince the death of
Maurice . This concluded the first campaign,and the
Emperor,well satisfied with the results , returned to
Constant inople for the winter .The Flight of the Great King, A .D . 623 .
— In the
fo llowing year,thanks again to sea power
,Heraclius
disembarked in Lazica and marched to invade Armenia,accompan ied by large contingents of all ies
,among whom
were the Khazars . Khusru, w ho w as probably taken
by surpri se,proceeded with a fo rce of men to
Canzaca or Shiz and gave o rders to his tw o field armiesto un ite and attack the Emperor. But in face of the
speed of Heracl ius,w ho bore down rapidly on Khusru ,
the distances were too great for the Persian generals .The Great King evacuated his po sition,
his army dispersed ,and he himself escaped only by moving about in the
mountains of the Zagro s range until the approach of
autumn drove the Emperor back to Albania in the valleyof the Kur to winter . These successes must have restored
inadequate and Heraclius once again marchedto Armenia. There he w as threatened by threePersian armies, and to ensure an engagementun ited, he retreated, with the result thattw o of these forces and then attacked anddefeated the thi rd . He concluded thisy surprising Shahr - Baraz
,whose army he
almo st ann ihilated and who se camp he captured . Thewinter w as spent at Salban
,identified with the modern
town of Van .
The Defeat of Shahr—Baraz on the Saras, A .D. 625.
The fourth campaign w as opened by a descent uponArzanene and the recovery of Amida and Martyropolis,after which Heracl ius marched westwards to the Euphrates
,
which he found his old opponent Shahr-Baraz holdingin fo rce . But the Emperor crossed by a ford and marchedinto Cilicia, where he w as once again in touch with thesea . Shahr-Baraz fo llowed , and a stubborn but indecisivebattle w as fought on the Saras . During the followingnight the Persian general retreated . The valour of the
Emperor i s said to have drawn from Shahr-Baraz thefo llowing remark “ Do st thou see the Emperor
,how
bo ldly he engages in the battle, against what a multitudehe contends alone
,and how ,
like an anvil,he cares not
for the blows showered upon him ?”1 Truly a no table
to have extorted from a valiant foe The follow
g winter w as spent by Heraclius in Cappadocia.
The Siege of Constantinop le and the Defeat of Shahin,D. 626 .
-The fo llowing year Khusru, seriously alarmedthe turn in the tide of w ar, made a supreme effort .effected an alliance with the Khan of the Avars andformed tw o great armies, one of which w as destined
pposeHeraclius, while the o ther w as to co-operate
1 Theophanes , p. 263 A.
526 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHI P .
with the Avars and capture Constantinople . Heraclius,
w ho w as perhaps unable to meet the huge armies nowset in mo tion, left a fo rce to defend the capital
,and a
second,under his brother Theodore
,to oppo se the first
Persian field army,while he himself marched to Lazica
,
where he made an unsuccessful attack on Tifl is .
In his absence Theodore,aided by a hai lstorm which
drove into the face of the Pers ians,defeated Shahin
, the
captor of Chalcedon, w ho shortly afterwards died brokenhearted under his master’s displeasure . Meanwhile theAvars assaulted Constantinople
,but failed signally and
retired,sea power having prevented the Persian army
from assisting at the siege, which they had the mortifica
tion of watching as impo tent spectators .The Sach of Dastagird ana
’the Flight of Khusru P arv iz ,
A .D . 627 .— The s ituation w as consequently all in favour
of Heracl ius,w ho
,in the autumn of A .D. 627, made a
dash on Dastagird, the residence of the Great King,
seventy miles north of Ctesiphon . Upon reaching the
ne ighbourhood of the Great Zab, he waited for a Persianarmy which w as at Canzaca to appear
,as he dared no t
risk the cutt ing of his communications . On the 12th
of December a great battle w as fought near Nineveh,
and although the Persian general w as slain his armyp
did
no t break up,but ret ired to a fortified
‘
camp , wherere inforcements were rece ived . Heraclius now pressedon, and Khusru took up a po sition protected by a deepcanal
,known as the Baraz Rud
,in the neighbourhood
of Dastagird . But his heart failed him when hi s greatadversary approached
,and to his lasting discredit he
abandoned hi s cap ital and fled acro ss the Tigris to
Seleucia. His army rallied on the Nahrwan canal,and
Heraclius , w ho w as informed of the depth of the w aterand of the great force
,strengthened by tw o hundred
elephants,which w as ho lding it, decided not to besiege
Ctesiphon,but to be content with his successes . H e
consequently marched northwards and reached Canzacain March, a fact which proves that his army w as now
organ ized to fight and to march in the winter.The Dep osition and Death of Khusru Parv iz, A.D. 628 ,
52 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAR. XL I I
influenced by Christ ian ity, and i t seems certain that hew as attached to Shirin throughout . In his old age he
became tyrann i cal and vindictive,and when his prestige
fell he fell with it .The Progress of Christiani ty under the later Sasanian
M onarchs.— When w e examine the pos ition of the Chris
tian Church in Persia,w e find Hormisdas
,the successo r
of the illustrious Noshirw an, pursuing his father’s liberal
pol icy towards his Christian subjects . It i s recountedthat
,upon be ing pressed by the Magi to order a persecu
t ion on the ground of Christian disloyalty,he replied
,
My throne stands on four supports and not on tw o,on
Jews and Chri st ians as well as on Zoroastrians .” KhusruParviz
,w ho had spent some t ime on the Roman s ide of
the frontier,w as mo re favourable to Chri stians than any
of his predecessors . This w as partly owing to the con
stant influence exercised by Shirin,w ho founded many
churches and monasteries,and letters are extant which
Show how strongly the Great King bel ieved in the prayersof a Christian saint ;
1 indeed , in one of the earliest cam
paigns , the aged Patriarch Sabr - I shu w as compelled to
accompany the army,to bring it good luck . At the same
t ime Shahr-Baraz w as permitted to preach a w ar of ex
termination against Christians . Later ou,When Heraclius
w as winn ing his brill iant victories, Khusru se ized the
treasures of all the churches in the emp ire and, as far as
it w as in his power to do so,compelled the acceptance of
the Nestorian heresy .
Wigram 2 po ints out that although Bar-Soma w as a
Nestorian, yet the confess ion of the Patriarch Ishu—Yabh
,
w ho visited the Empero r Maurice,w as accepted as ortho
dox . H e bel ieves that i t w as mainly the condemnat ionof Theodore of M op suetia which led to the separation of
the Assyrian or Syrian Church from that of Rome .
1 A spec imen letter is given in The Sev enth OrientalM onarchy, p . 4 97 . The Book o
g'
Gov ernors, by Thomas, Bishop of M arga (edited by Wa l l is Budge), contains muc
interesting information about the Nestorian Church from A .D. 595 to 850. In vol. 11.
chap . xxxv . it is made out that Shamta, a Christian bishop, originated the p lot againstKhusru Parviz .
2 The A sy r ian Church, p . 220 .
YEZD IGIRD I I I .
CHAPTE R XLIII
HE OVERTHROW OF THE PERSIAN EM P IRE BY THE ARABS
Whatever thou hast said regarding the former condi tion of the Arabs, istrue . The ir food w as green lizards they buried their infant daughters alivenay, some of them feasted on dead carcasses
,and drank blood . Such w as
our state . But God,in his mercy, has sent us
,by a ho ly prophet, a sacred
vo lume, wh ich teaches us the true faith — The Arab Ambassadors’
Address to
The Accession of Kohad I I . and the Peace w ith Rome,
A .D . 62 8 .— Siro cs , known as Kobad I I .
,succeeded to the
throne and w as proclaimed king upon the deposition of
his father . His first act w as to make peace with H erac
l ius,and the letter he wrote has been preserved
, togetherwith the purport of the Emperor
’s reply . It w as clear tobo th monarchs that the w ar w as inflicting terrible harmon the ir respective states, and as Heraclius had onlyfought his brilliant campaigns in pursuance of a policy of
act ive defence,he w as quite ready to meet the views of
Kobad . Peace w as concluded on the terms that all conquests and prisoners should be surrendered by bo thbell igerents . Among the conditions w as included the
surrender of the True Cro ss, which Heraclius in personresto red to its shrine in Jerusalem amid scenes of greatrejo icing .
The M assacre of his Brothers and his Dea th,A .D. 629 .
—Kobad II . had inaugurated his reign by a remission of
taxes and by a release of pri soners . H e also sought outthe vict ims of his father
’s inj ustice and compensatedVOL . 1 2 M
530 HISTORY OF PERSIA
them by every means in his power . Against theclemency, which were probably more spec i ous than genuine,must be set the fact that he massacred his bro thers . Afew months later he w as himself carried off by a visitationof plague
,which w as raging at that t ime in the Near East .
The Usurp ation of Shahr -Baraz and his Death,A .D .
629 .— The Persian Empire
,worn out by the long struggle
with Rome and with only a mino r as heir to the throne,w as nearing its end . The proclamation of Artaxerxes
,a
boy of seven or even younger,as Great King gave Shahr
Baraz, w ho had not carried out the orders of Kobad to
evacuate the conquered provinces , the opportun i ty he hadbeen awaiting . H e w as supported by Heracliu s
,with
whom he made an agreement to evacuate Egypt, Syria,and Asia Mino r
,and to pay a sum of money i n addit ion .
So strongly did Heracl ius take his s ide that he evenunited the families by a double marriage
,and so far as
could be j udged Shahr-Baraz seemed dest ined to founda new dynasty . But the words of the old woman to
Bahram Chubin again proved true,and although the
murder of the young sovereign w as easily accomplished,Shahr-Baraz enjoyed the throne for less than tw o months .H e w as killed by hi s ow n soldiers
,w ho dragged the
corpse through the streets of the cap ital,crying out
,
“ Whoever,not being of the blood-royal
,seats h imself
upon the throne of Pers ia,will share the fate of Shahr
Baraz . During hi s short period of power,the provinces
he had promised to evacuate were made over to Heraclius,
and a Persian army w as defeated by the Khazars,w ho
invaded Armenia.
A Period of Anarchy, A .D. 629— 634 .
— Tw o sisters,daughters of Khusru Parviz, were placed on the throne
,
but quickly disappeared,and
,j ust as before the downfall
of the Achaemen ian dynasty,
anarchy prevailed , pretender after p retender aspiring to the throne and perishing almo st immediately . Their names I relegate to a
footno te .
1
1 They were as fol lows . Puran Dukht,a daughter of Khusru Parviz
,w as succeeded
by Gushnaspdeh. He i n his turn w as succeeded by Azarm i Dukht, a s ister of Puran
Dukht . Then came Khusru I I I Khurrazad— Khusru,Firuz
,Farrukhzad— Khusru
and Hormuzd or Horm isdas V .
53 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA cus p .
to Medina. The victory which w as easily w on is knownas the “ Battle of the Chains
,from the fact that some
of the Pers ian soldiers w ere chained together to preventfl ight .The pursuit that fo llowed nearly led to disaster
,the
victors being met by Pers ian re inforcements at the greatTigris canal . For some t ime the Mo slems were in imminent danger and compelled to act on the defensive ;bu t on the arrival of the ir main body a second victory w assecu red
,and more spo ils rewarded the splendid valour of
Khal id, w ho ranks among the great generals and leaders
of men. Yet a third victory w as w on at Walaja,near the
j unction of the Tigris and Euphrates , over a combinedPersian and Arab force
,but on this occasion after a
desperate contest .A month later Khal id fought the hardest battle of the
entire campaign . Having marched northward up the
Euphrates he w as attacked by a large army composed of
Arabs and Persians at All is,which lies almost exactly half
w ay between Obolla and Hira. The fight began with acharge of the Arabs
,w ho fought on behalf of Persia
,in
which their leader w as slain by Khal id . The Persian armythen attacked
,and the i ssue hung long in the balance
before it inclined to Khalid,w ho had vowed that h is foes ’
blood should flow in a crimson stream . To redeem hissavage oath he collected every prisoner for a generalbutchery
,and the corn of the v i ctoriou s ho st w as ground
by a crimson river . Khal id continued his march up thewestern channel of the Euphrates and surpri sed Amghis ia.
H e then used water transpo rt and besieged Hira,which
cap itulated in sp ite of its strength,and w as granted easy
terms . This part of the campaign w as concluded by thecapture of Anbar and Ain Tamar to the north .
But the victor w as not destined to enjoy repose . An
urgent summons for aid arrived from Iyas,w ho w as
attempting to co-operate with him by w ay of Duma inthe middle of the desert
,but w ho w as unable to ho ld his
ow n . The arrival of Khal id,fresh from his victories,
changed the entire pos it ion,and the ho stile tribes w ere
attacked by the combined forces and defeated with heavy
s . The fort of Duma w as stormed and its garrison putto the swo rd .
After returning in triumph to Hira,Khalid engaged
i n further operat i ons from Ain Tamar,against both the
Taghlib Arabs and the Persians, and success continued tocrown his arms . Fo llowing up the Euphrates he reachedFiraz on the Syrian border
,and there rested his army
during the fast of Ramazan . His arrival alarmed the
Byzantine garrison, which in view of the common dangerw as jo ined by a Persian force and the united armyadvanced acro ss the Euphrates and attacked Khalid
, w hoonce more gained a decisive victory
,slaughtering the
enemy by thousands . The date of this battle w as A .H . 12
I t w as the last fought by Khalid in the Persiancampaign, for shortly afterwards he w as ordered to handover the command to M o thanna and to march with halfhis army to the aid of the army on the Yermuk
,which
w as in difficulties . The great soldier obeyed,though
reluctant to leave to others the conquest of the PersianEmp ire but encouraged by the promise that he shouldreturn when a victory in Syria had been w on
,he divided
his army with M o thanna,and again marched acro ss the
Nefud to Duma, after bidding farewell to the comradeswhom he w as never again to command .
The Camp a igns of M othanna,A .H . 13
— 14 (634The po sition of M othanna with a force of only 9000 men
to fight the huge armies of the Great King w as extremelyinsecure
,and brings out well the utter weakness of the
Caliph ’s strategy . But,as Khalid had previously sent
back the women , the children and the sick, the Arabcommander w as free to take the field with his entire fo rce .
Hearing before long of the approach of a Persian army,
he quitted Hira, crossed the Euphrates, and near the Si te
of ancient Babylon boldly awaited the attack . An elephant
that headed the Persian army and frightened the horses of
the Arabs w as surrounded and brought to the ground,and the Mo slems delivering an irresist ible charge, broke
the Persians and chased them to the gates of the capital .
Then M o thanna, real izing that without re i nforcements hecould hardly expect even to ho ld his ow n, proceeded to
534 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAP.
Medina and explained the situation to Abu Bekr . The
latter,from his deathbed, gave orders to Omar to raise
without delay a further levy for the Persian campaign .
At first no one responded to the summons,but Abu
Obayd ofTayif, encouraged bya stirring speech from'Moth
anna,agreed to go, and w as given command of the thousand
men w ho were first enl isted . Return ing to his army,
M othanna learned that a powerful column of the enemyw as advancing on Hira with a second co lumn in support .H e therefore evacuated the ent ire district and retreatedinto the desert towards Medina
,where he awaited the
arrival of Abu Obayd at the head of a force now considerably increased . After the j unct ion of the forces the Arabsattacked the tw o Persian armies in success ion
,and in
neither case met with any obstinate resistance .
Rustam,the Persian Governor of Khorasan
,w ho w as
now invested with full powers at Ctesiphon,speedily
o rgan ized a fresh army, w hich he placed under Bahman,
the beetle browed .
”This force marched to a spo t near
Babylon where the Arabs succeeded ' in cro ss ing the
Euphrates by a bridge of boats . The elephants,of which
Bahman had thirty,so frightened the Arab horses that
they refused to charge,and the attack had to be made on
foo t . Abu Obayd w as seized and trampled to death bya huge w hite elephant which he had wounded . Leaderafter leader w as killed, and for the first t ime the Arabswavered . A so ldier
,iii sp ired by the hero i c idea that the
army should conquer or perish,cut the first boat adrift
,
and thi s act caused a pan i c . M othanna,w ho mainly on
account of his being a Beduin Arab and no t of highbirth had been superseded by Abu Obayd, now rushed tothe front and strove to ho ld the Persians at bay whilethe bridge ! w as being restored ; but his efforts— in the
course of which he w as wounded— were only part iallysuccessful
,and the Mo slem lo ss w as 4 000, while 2000
Arabs fled back to Medina. In Short, after this battle,
which is known as the Battle of the Bridge,M othanna
could muster only 3000 men,and, had Bahman pur
sued,the who le army must have been ann ihilated . Bu t
,
fortunately for the Arabs,news of a rising at Ctes iphon
53 6 HISTORY OF PERSIA s n i p .
possessed much influence . Supported by Omar,
w ho
drained the country of its fight ing men,he co llected
30,000 warriors, in whose ranks served no fewer than14 00 Ashab, or Compan ions of the Prophet .
Sad closely observed the advice of M othanna,given
in a deathbed message,to keep the friendly desert i n his
rear,and , leaving the women and children at Odzayb,
marched forward to historical Cadesia,a plain which w as
bounded on the west by the Trench of Shapur— at thatperiod a runn ing stream— and on the east by the w esternbranch of the Euphrates . Here the Arab camp w as
formed clo se to a bridge of boats,and Sad waited unt i l
the enemy came to attack him on a battle—field selectedby himself.
The Embassy to Yez digird, A .H . 14- It w as at
this period that by the orders of Omar twenty leadingArabs were despatched to summon Yezdigird to embraceI slam . The rabble of Ctesiphon j eered at their homelygarments
,and compared the ir bows to a woman’s distaff
bu t the lean,hardy
,and martial son s of the desert im
pressed the Great King and his soft courtiers,w ho had
certainly heard of the fall of Damascus . Through an interpreter Yezdigird w as called upon to embrace the new
faith or to pay tribute . Like a true son of Iran,in his
reply he referred with contempt to their misery, their eatingof l izards
,and the ir infanticide . With simple dign ity the
Arabs acknowledged that they had been as described ;but now all this w as changed .
“ We are poo r and
hungry yet will the Lord enrich us and sati sfy us . Hastthou chosen the swo rd then between us shall the sworddecide . What a subj ect for a great painter ! Yezdigird
w as furious at the lack of respect shown to him and at
the tenour of the message,and dismissed the Arabs with
the intimation that,but for their be ing ambassadors, he
would have pu t them to death .
The Battle of Cades ia, A .H . 14-In the fo llowing
yearan extraordinary effortw asmadeby the ill fatedmonarch .
An army numbering men w as rai sed and placedunder the command of Rustam
, w ho advanced across theEuphrates to find the Arab forces . The battle of Cadesia
PERSIAN EMPIRE 537
co rrectly Kadesiyeh), which ranks in importanceof I ssus among the decis ive battles of the world
,
ht on four successive days . On the first thee,as the Arab horses fled from
e po sition w as partly restoredelephants by archers . On the
s econd day the rei nforcements from Syria began to streaminto the Arab camp . At first there were skirmishes
,but
subsequently the Arabs defeated the Persian cavalry,and
the day closed in favour of the Mo slems,who se losses
were bu t one-fifth of the Persian,which amounted to
men .
On the third day the elephants,which once more
appeared in the fighting line,were attacked by Cacaa
,the
leader of the Syrian advance guard, w ho thrust his lance
into the eye of the great white elephant . A 1 secondelephant had bo th its eyes p ut out
,and the whole body
then stampeded through the Persian ranks . The Arabarmy w as further encouraged by the arrival of the mainco lumn from Syria
,and when night fell their moral w as
much superior to that of the ir enemies . Indeed so confi
dent were they that,disdain ing repose
,they attacked in
i so lated parties throughout the n ight,which is known as
The Night of Clangour . On the fourth and final daythe Arabs had already shaken the Persian centre, whenthey were aided by a sandstorm,
which drove into the
faces of the enemy and completed his discomfiture .
Rustam,the Persian General, heedless of the great name
he bore and of the supreme importance of the trust con
fided to him,had taken refuge among his baggage mules
to escape the violence of the storm,but the Arabs charged
among them,and he w as hurt by a sack . Seized Wi th
pan i c,he attempted to swim the canal, but w as pursued
and slain by Hillal,son of Alkama, w ho mounted hi s
throne and shouted out,
“ By the Lord of the Kaaba, Ihave slain Rustam .
”The Persian army became pan i c
stricken,
and w as driven back into the canal, where
thousands peri shed .
This battle w as decis ive, the Persian moral bei ngaffected not only by the lo sses in the battle but also by
53 8 HISTORY OF PERSIA
the fact that the famous Durufih- i-Kaw ani,the h
standard of Persia, w as among the spo ils . It i s
that the so ldier w ho captured it so ld it for theJ£800, whereas the actual value of its jewel s w as
The Capture qfM adam
,A .H . 16 - In accordance
with the i nstructions of Omar,Sad rested his army for
tw o months after the crown ing victory of Cades ia.
then re entered Hira,
and thereafter,cro ssing
Euphrates near the great mound of Babylon,gradually
cleared the country of the enemy as far as the Tigri s .After these operations he w as at length in a pos it i on to
advance upon Madain,and
,sweep i ng aside an attack
made by the Q ueen-mOther,who se champion w as slain in
s ingle combat, he stood with the Arab army on the edgeof' f the Tigri s
,acro ss which on the ir dazzled vision broke
the famous Arch of Chosroes . In aw e the rude sons ofthe desert gazed at the wondrous p ile
,of which they had
doubtless all heard an account .
“ Allah hoAhbar brokeinvo luntarily from thousands of throats as the wild Arabsrealized that this w as their goal, and that Now bath the
Lord fulfilled the promise which he made unto hisProphet. ’
The western quarter Of the city, the ancient Seleucia,
on the right bank of the river,w as too strong for the
Arab eng ines,but during the s iege the country far and
wide w as overrun and subdued . Negotiations wereopened ’ by Yezdigird, w ho propo sed to surrender everything west of the Tigris if the remainder of his domin ionswere left to him . This offer w as refused with contempt,and shortly afterwards the western quarter w as evacuatedby the Pers1ans .The po sition of the Great King w as still by no means
hOpeless , as the swift current of the Tigri s flowed betweenhim and the Arabs
,w ho showed no capacity for ship
building . But.
Yezd igird contemplated fl ight ; and Sad,
hearing of a po i nt where the Tigris w as less swift, boldlyswam his ho rsemen acro ss it . Practically no defeii ce w as
made on the left bank,and the Pers ians, thinking only of
escape,left the ir splendid cap ital to the erst-while desp i sed
eaters of lizards .
The boo ty w as rich, so rich indeed that the Arabsere in a dream and wandered about through the gorgeous
and gardens, scarcely understanding what thetreasures were . Gold w as seen for the first t ime
e majority of the soldiers camphor they mistook forand when the boo ty w as divided each of therece ived some
J£5OO, which to most of them mustbeen wealth . Indeed the golden throne and theerful obj ects in the treasury, among which w as a
made of pure gold, were a theme on which the Arabe never tired of dilat ing .
of 7alola , A .H . 16 (6 -Sad w as anxiousPersian army to Holw an
,a strong
of the Zagro s ; but Omar, withprudence forbade any advance during the
and the victors,while consolidating their power
,
to the full the many delights of M adain . In
mn,however, news reached the Arabs that a
rs ian force had been assembled and that itsguard w as stationed at Jalola, reputed to be an
Thither Hashim and Cacaa wereof men
,to find themselves
the Persian troops . Reinforcere rece ived on both sides, and in a battle outside
fort the Persians were again defeated in a stormdesperate fighting which recalled the “ Night of
gour .”Yezd igird, w ho never appeared in the fight ingfled to Rei, and Cacaa
,seizing Holw an, garrisoned
again rich and included
54 0 HISTORY OF PERSIA CHAR.
the almo st incredible number of horses drawnfrom the pastures of Media
,descendants without doubt
of the celebrated Nisaean ho rses of the Achaemen ians .The Annexation of M esop otamia and the
Obolla,A .H . 16 — Omar
,whose ambitions were
certainly not world—wide,in reply to a letter asking
for permission to pursue the Persians on to the Iranianplateau
,replied as fo llows .
“ I desire that betweenMesopotamia and countries beyond the hills shall bea barrier
,so that the Persians shall not be able to get
at us,nor w e at them . The plain of I rak 1 sufli ceth for
our wants . Sad consequently turned his energies tosubj ugat ing Mesopotamia
,and so successful w as he that
before very long I slam held sway over that fertile region .
So uthwards,too
,towards the Persian Gulf a separate
fo rce under Otba captured the port of Obolla,the
emporium of the trade with India,situated not far from
Basra, which afterwards superseded it .
The Foundation of Basra and of Kufa , A .H . 17After the capture of Obolla the Arabs constructed a
cantonment on its ruins,and thi s had gradually grown
into a town ; but so damp w as the climate and so
intolerable were the insect pests that a new site w as
sought and Basra w as cho sen . No city of the Mo slems,except perhaps Baghdad
,recalls more of the glamour of
the East than the “ Balsara’
s haven of Milton,whence
Sindbad the Sai lor started on his memorable voyages .To-day its creeks are lovely and its commerce thrivingbut i ts climate i s bo th hot and unwholesome
,and I never
look back on the summer months which I spent at this,the chief and only port on the Shatt—ul-Arab
,with any
pleasure . Kufa w as also founded underfrom Omar
,w ho w as struck by the sallow
Arabs w ho had settled at Madain . I t w as cho sbeing in touch with the desert to which the Arabsso much of their v iril ity, thus superseding H ira,
1 The Arabs called the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates up to Mthe name of Irak-i-Arabi . North-east of it the adj acent provinces of
were,and st i ll are, termed Irak-i-Ajam i or
“ Irak of the Persians,”t
literally s ignify ing “ barbarous .
”Later on Kufa and Bas
Iraks .
54 2 HISTORY OF PERSIA
for a cup of water,but feigning fear of instant
hes itated to drink it . “ Fear nothing,your life i s
until you have drunk the water,said the Cal iph .
reply Hormuzan flung the cup to the ground . 0
although outwitted,kept his word
,and H ormuzan
,
embraced Islam , w as spared and granted a
Curiously enough,it w as the defence he made for break
faith with the Arabs,alleging orders from the Great King
,
which finally convinced Omar of the necessi ty of fight ingthe campaign to a fin i sh .
The Ba ttle of Nahav and,A .H . 2 1 — In A .H . 20
(64 1) Yezdigird had again co llected a large army,with
contingents from every province of the emp ire which hadno t been subdued . The Caliph realized that an offensivepo l icy w as the best,to Noman
,whom
The fo rces under him numbered and he w as
indirectly aided by an advance which the Khuzistan armymade on Persepo l i s . The Mo slems marched v ia H olw an,and learn ing that the Persian army
,strong under
F iruzan, w hO
‘had held a command at Cadesia,w as en
camped at Nahavand,some fifty miles south of Hamadan
,
the Arab general immediately marched to attack it .
The Persians,in spite of thei r enormous numerical
superiority,acted on the defens ive
,and be ing protected
by a strong l ine of fortifications,refused to do more than
skirmish,hoping thereby to wear out the Arabs . Noman
’ssupplies being exhausted
,he resorted to a clever artifice
,
and marched off i n fe igned retreat,spreading a rumour
of Omar’s death . Firuzan pursued,and thanks to this
ruse the decisive battle w as fought on ground selectedby Noman . The Arabs charged with irresist ibleand the Persians fled . Evhour’ of v ictory made no
including Firuzan,caught among the
overtaken and massacred,the ir lo ss
at over men . The resultwhich may be compared with
‘ Arbelaof the Chains and of
the battles of the Granic
54 4 HISTORY OF PERSIA
ofMedia and Persia. They in the ir turn for fiv ewere dominated by a Turan ian race until
,in the t
century A .D.
,the Aryans reasserted their supremacy .
a period of four centuries the splendid Aryan dynof the Sasan ians w as paramount , but it grew weakdecrep it
,partly owing to the strong feeling which fo rb
a successful general to asp ire to the throne . Persia,t
by intestine troubles after a generation of weaken ing wfell
,albe it not w ithout a gallant struggle , at Cades ia .
that stricken field the power passed again to the Semisome twelve centuries after the fall of Nineveh .
TheDeath of 2”ez digirdHI A .H . 3 1 (6 -Yezdigird,
a craven member of a fight ing family,fled from Rei to
I sfahan,from Isfahan to Kerman
,and thence to distant
Balkh . The Turks for a time espoused his cause putfinally withdrew
,and he ended his inglorious carger in
a miller’s hu t near Merv,where he w as murdered for
his j ewelry . Tradition has it that the Christian bishopsummoned his flock to bury him
,and that a shrine w as ,
erected over his tomb . Nor i s his memory quite forgotten,as the Parsi s with touching fidel ity annually celebrate hisbirthday on the 12th of September .Thus ignomin iously
,ten years after Nahavand, perished
the last unworthy sovereign of the illu strious Sasan ian line.
There i s laid to his charge no great crime, bu t s ince laci;of viril ity and valour is in autocratic monarchs a worsedefect than many crimes
,Yezdigird I I I . , l ike Darius
Codomannus,whom he closely resembled
,stands con
demned,and rightly condemned
,at the baii of history .
END OF VOL. I
P r in ted by R. R . CLARK,LIM ITED, Ed inburgh.
Univers ityofToronto Robarts
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