HISTORY OF IRAN

Dr. Yasin Rizvi

GEOGRAPHY

IRAN has an area of 1,645,000 square kilometres (628,000 square miles) or about one-fifth of that of the United States. It is bounded on the north by the Soviet Union and the Caspian Sea, on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf, and on the west by Iraq and Turkey. Iran lies within the Alpine-Himalayan system of tertiary folding, and consists of three principal zones—the Elburz Mountains in the north, the Zagros Mountains in the west and south, and the central plateau. The Zagros, the country's biggest mountain system, is composed of a great series of parallel folds, up to 300 kilometres across and with a general northwest-southeast trend; the Elburz, a somewhat narrower series of folds just south of the Caspian, runs from west to east. Both the Zagros and the Elburz attain great elevations, culminating in the peak of Demavand, Iran's highest moun­tain. Demavand, an extinct volcano 5670 metres (18,600 feet) in height, is situated nearly 100 kilometres northeast of Tehran, and its perfect snow-capped cone is clearly visible from the city. The central plateau, averaging about 1400 metres in height, is crossed by lesser ranges of mountains, and contains several large depressions. Outside these main divisions are the salt lands of Khuzistan, at the head of the Persian Gulf, which are geographically part of the Mesopotamian plain, and the narrow coastal plain of the Caspian in the north, which has a maximum width of about 110 kilometres.

Two great deserts, the Dasht-i-Lut and the Dasht-i-Kavir, occupy a large part of the central plateau, and together account for one sixth of the total area of Iran. Both contain stony plains and ranges of barren hills, sand dunes, salt lakes and stretches of saline soil. The Kavir, or salt desert, is the remains of an inland sea, and consists partly of very saline soil and partly of solid salt or marshy stretches overlaid with a thick salt crust. These latter areas are dangerous or impassable. The rest of the central plateau consists of semi desert or steppe.

There are four main drainage systems—the Persian Gulf, theCaspian, the basins of the central plateau and Lake Rezaiyeh in the northwest. The chief river flowing into the Persian Gulf is the Karun, Iran's only navigable river, which rises in the Zagros and is joined on the Khuzistan plain by the Ab-i Diz and Karkheh. The Karun is navigable by small vessels for over 100 kilometres. The principal rivers flowing into the Caspian are the Aras, Atrek, Sefid Rud, Chains, Haraz, Lar and Gorgan, all of which are short and unnavigable. Rivers flowing into the areas of inland drainage are few in number, and many are seasonal ; they terminate in salt lakes or marshes, or sink into the sands of the desert. Wherever they occur, villages and towns are to be found. The largest and best known of these inland rivers is the Zayandeh Rud, the river of Isfahan.

The Persian Gulf, which bounds Iran on the south, is a shallow, almost landlocked arm of the Arabian Sea, over a thousand kilometres in length and nearly 500 kilometres across at its widest part, and con­nected with the ocean by the narrow Straits of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf contains many islands, and numerous shoals and coral reefs It has been called the hottest body of water in the world.

The Caspian Sea also known in Iran as the Sea of Mazandaran, measures some 900 kilometres in length by up to 450 kilometres in width, and forms the world's largest landlocked body of water. In the north it is shallow, but in the central and southern portions there are two deep basins separated by a submarine ridge running from west to east. The salinity of the water is less than that of average seawater. The level of the Caspian has fluctuated in historical times, mainly owing to climatic variations. Another factor, however, is the changes in the course of the Oxus, which at some periods has flowed into the Caspian and at others—as at present—into the Aral Sea. The level of the Caspian is now some 30 metres below sea level, and is still falling.

Of the lakes of Iran, the largest is Lake Rezaiyeh in Azarbaijan, which is roughly 130 kilometres in length and 30 in width, and has an average depth of only about six metres. Its salinity is extremely high —greater even than that of the Dead Sea.

Population

According to the last census, the population of Iran in 1956 was 18'9 million. The average annual increase is estimated at 2'5 per cent. which gives a population of 23'4 million for 1965. The average density of population, only 12 per square kilometre in 1956, is nearer 14 today. It reaches 44.7 per square kilometer in the central province con­taining Tehran and 33'5 in the Caspian province of Gilan ; it is lowest in the arid regions of Baluchistan and Sistan, where in an area of 178,000 square kilometres the total population is under half a million and the average density 2'4 per square kilometre.

The country is divided into thirteen provinces, of which ten areknown by number as well as name. These provinces, and their population, are as follows :

Province                                       Population             Provincial

(millions)                capital

1. Gilan                               1.6                        Rasht

Mazandaran and Gorgan     1.7                        Sari

3. East Azarbaijan                2.1                        Tabriz

4. West Azarbaijan               0.7                         Rezaiyeh

5. Kermanshah                             1.4                        Kermanshah

6. Khuzistan                       2.1                        Ahwaz

7. Fars                                1.3                        Shiraz

8. Kerman                          0.8                        Kerman

9. Khorasan                        2.0                        Meshed

10. Isfahan and Yazd           1.5                         Isfahan

11. Central                          2.7                        Tehran

12. Baluchistan and Sistan   0.4                        Zahedan

13. Kurdistan                      0.6                        Sanandaj

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   __________

18.9

The population of Iran is 70 per cent rural and 30 per cent urban, and tribesmen form some 15 per cent of the whole. Of the male working population of 53 million in 1956, 57 percent were engaged in agriculture, 14 percent in industry and 29 percent in other occupations. There are 186 towns of 5000 persons or more, and about 50,000 villages with population of under 5000. Tehran, the capital city, contained 1'5 million people in 1956, since when the figure has risen to around 2 million.

Race, Language, Religion

The Iranian race is descended mainly from the old Indo-European stock, but with large admixture of other racial strains, of which Turkish is the chief. The Turkomans of the northeast and the Qashqai tribe in the south are of largely Mongolian ancestry, while many Iranians in the Persian Gulf area are of Arab origin. Racial, linguistic and religious differences are to some extent related. Persian, the chief language, is spoken by over half of the population. Next in importance comes the group of five main Persian dialects, named after the regions in which they are found, followed by dialects of Turkish, spoken in Azarbaijan, in the northeast and other areas. Language divisions accord­ing to 1956 census were as follows

Persian                                                                      9, 500,000

Persian dialects : Gilaki                  1,160,000

Luri                        1,080,000

Kurdish                 1,060,000

Mazandarani                    920,000

Baluchi                  430,000                  4,650,000

                                                                                      _________                              ____________

Total Persian group                                                   14,150,000

Azarbaijani Turkish                       3,900,000

Turkomani                                   330,000

                                                                                                                                      ____________

Total Turkish group                                                   4, 230,000

Arabic                                          380,000

Armenian                                     115,000

Syriac                                            70,000

Pushtoo, Tajiki, Taleshi                 15,000

Total other languages                                                 580,000

                                                                                                                                      __________

Total                                                                         18,960,000

The official religion of the country, the Shiah sect of Islam, is held by the great majority of the population. The largest minority group are the two million Kurds, Turkomans, Baluchis and Persians of Arab descent who are adherents of the Sunni sect of Islam. Other religious minorities are the Armenians, Jews, Assyrians, other Christian groups, Zoroastrians and Ismailis.

ANCIENT HISTORY

“Persia”, in the strict significance of the word, denotes the country inhabited by the people designed as Persians, i.e., the district known in antiquity as Persis, the modern Fars. Custom, however, has extended the name to the whole Iranian plateau; and it is in this sense that the term Persia is here employed, though in 1935 its name was officially established as “Iran”.

In historical times we find the major portion of Iran occupied by peoples of Indo-European origin, calling themselves Aryans and their language Aryan—so in the inscriptions of Darius—the same name used by the consanguineous tribes of India who were their nearest relations. The whole country is designated Ariana—” the land of the Aryans”—the original of the Middle-Persian Eran and the modern Iran; the Greek geographers Eratosthenes and Strabo were in error when they limited the name to the eastern districts of Iran. Thus the name of Iranians is understood to comprehend all these people of Aryan derivation.

Besides the Iranians, numerous tribes of alien origin were found in Iran. In Baluchistan, even now, we find side by side with the eponymous Iranian inhabitants, who only penetrated there a few centuries ago, the ethnologically and philologically distinct race of the Brahui, who are probably connected with the Dravidians of India. In them we may trace the original population of these districts; and to the same original population may be assigned the tribes there settled in antiquity: the Paricanii and Gedrosii, and the Myci, to whom the name “Aethiopians” is also occasionally applied. In Media the Greek geographers mention a people of Anariacae, i.e., “Non-Aryans.” To these the Tapuri, Amardi, Caspii, and especially the Cadusii or Gelae—situated in Gilan on the Caspian —probably belonged. In the chain of Zagros we find, in Babylonian and Assyrian times, no trace of Iranians; but numerous smaller tribes that we can refer to no known ethnological group, e.g. the Gutaeans and Lulubeans, the Cossaei and in Elymais or Susiana the Elymaeans.

That the Iranians must have come from the east to their later home, is sufficiently proved by their close relationship to the Indians, in con-junction with whom they previously formed a single people, bearing the name Arya. Their residence must have lain chiefly in the great steppe which stretches north of the Black sea and the Caspian, through south Russia, to Turan and the Oxus and Iaxartes. For here we continually discover traces of Iranian nationality. The names and words of the Scythians in south Russia, which Herodotus has preserved, are for the most part perfectly transparent Iranian formations, among them are many proper names in Aria and Aspa. The predatory tribes of Turan seem to have belonged to the same stock. These tribes are distinguished by the Iranian peasants as Dahae “enemies,” “robbers”; by the Persians as Sacae; and by the Greeks as Scythians.

From the region of the steppes the Aryans must have penetrated into the cultivable land of eastern Iran ; thence one part spread over the district of the Indus, then on again to the Ganges ; another moved westward to Zagros and the borders of the Semitic world.

The date of this migration cannot yet be determined with certainty. We know only that the Aryans of India already occupied the Punjab in the Vedic era, c. 1200 B.C. On the other hand, Aryan names appear at first in contemporary documents from the 16th century B.C. down-ward in Mesopotamia and Syria. In the kingdom of Mitanni, the Aryan origin of the dynasty is proved by the names of the kings; in a treaty the Indian gods Mitra and Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas are invoked by the side of the Mitannian gods, and in the archives of Boghazkeui a book on horse races written by a Mitannian, named Kikkuli, has been found, in which Indian numerals and other Indian words are used. Among the dynasts of Syria and Palestine whose correspondence to their sovereign, the Pharaoh of Egypt, is preserved in the archives of Tel-el-Amarana, many bear Iranian names, e.g. Artamanya, Arzawiya, Shuwardata, and their portraits are represented in Egyptian reliefs. Later still, in the Assyrian inscriptions we occasionally meet with Iranian names borne by North-Syrian princes—e.g., Kundaspi and Kustaspi.

It appears, then, that toward the middle of the second millennium before Christ, in the time of the Hyksos empire, the early Iranian tribes made a great forward movement to the west, at first probably in the role of mercenaries. In the Egyptian and Hittite texts they form a ruling military class under the Aryan name “Marianni,” i.e. warriors. Some of their leaders founded principalities of their own in Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine. With this we may probably connect the well-known fact that it was about this very period that the horse made its appearance in Babylonia, Egypt and Greece, where for centuries subsequently its use was confined to war and the war chariot. Before this it was as foreign to the Babylonians, even in the time of Hummurabi, as to the Egyptians under the XII^th Dynasty. On the other hand, it had been familiar to the Aryans from time immemorial; indeed they have always been peculiarly a people of riders.

The Achaemenids

A connected chain of historical evidence begins with the time when under Shalmaneser, the Assyrians in 836 B.c. began for the first time to penetrate farther into the mountains of the east ; and there, in addition to several non-Iranian people, subdued a few Median tribes. These wars were continued under successive kings, till the Assyrian power in these regions attained its zenith under Sargon who led into exile the Median chief Dayuku, a vassal of the Mini, with all his family, and subjugated the princes of Media as far as the mountain of Bikni and the border of the great desert. At that time 28 Median “town-lords” paid tribute to Nineveh; two years later, no fewer than 46. Sargon's successors down to Assurbani-pal maintained and even augmented their suzerainty over Media. Not till the last years of Assurbani-pal, on which the extant Assyrian annals are silent, can an independent Median empire have arisen.

In 612 B.C. Nineveh and the other capitals of the Assyrian empire were conquered and destroyed by Cyaxares of Media and Nebopolassar of Babylon, and the provinces divided between the victors. The Median empire extended far over Iran; the Kings of Persia also became their vassals. In the west, Armenia and Cappadocia were subdued by Cyaxares; in a war with the Lydian empire the decisive battle was broken off by the celebrated eclipse of the sun on May 28,585 B.C. After this a peace was arranged by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and Syennesis of Cilicia, recognizing the Halys as the borderline. The great powers of the near east remained in this state of equilibrium during the first half of the 6^th century.

The balance, however, was disturbed when Cyrus, king of Anshan in Elam, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, and three years later defeated him at Pasargadae. Shortly afterwards Astyages was taken prisoner, Ecbatana reduced, and the Median empire replaced by the Persian. The Persian tribes were welded by Cyrus into a single nation, and now became the foremost people in the world. At first Nabonidus of Babylon hailed the fall of the Medes with delight and utilized the opportunity by occupying Harrian. But before long he recognized the danger threatened from that quarter. Cyrus and his Persians paid little heed to the treaties which the Median king had concluded with the other powers; and the result was a great coalition against him, embracing Nabonidus of Babylon, Amasis of Egypt, Croesus of Lydia, and the Spartans. In the spring of 546 B.C., Croesus opened the attack. Cyrus flung himself upon him, beat him at Pteria in Cappadocia and pursued him to Lydia. A second victory followed on the banks of the Pactolus; by the autumn of 546 Sardis had already fallen and the Persian power advanced at a bound to the Mediterranean. In the course of the next few years the Greek littoral towns were reduced, as also the Carians and Lycians. The king of Cilicia voluntarily acknowledged the Persian suzerainty. In 539 Nabonidus was defeated and Babylon occupied, while, with the Chaldean empire, Syria and Palestine also became Persian. The east of Iran was further subdued, and, after Cyrus met his end in a war against the eastern nomads, his son Cambyses conquered Egypt. Cyprus and the Greek islands on the coast of Asia Minor also submitted, Samos being taken by Darius. On the other hand, an expedition by Cambyses against the Ethiopian Kingdom of Napata and Meroe came to grief in Nubia. The usurpation of Smerdis and his death at the hands of Darius was the signal for numerous insurrections in Babylon, Susiana, Persis, Media, Armenia and many of the eastern provinces. But, within two years, they were all crushed by Darius and his generals.

The causes of this astonishing success, which, in the brief space of a single generation, raised a previously obscure and secluded tribe to the mastery of the whole Western Asia, can only be partially discerned from the evidence at our disposal. The decisive factor was of course their military superiority. The chief weapon of the Persians, as of all Iranians, was the bow, which accordingly the king himself holds in his portraits, e.g., on the Behistun rock and the coins. In addition to the bow, the Persians carried short lances and short daggers. But it was not by these weapons, nor by hand-to-hand fighting, that the Persian victories were won. They overwhelmed their enemy under a hail of arrows, and never allowed him to come to close quarters. While the infantry kneeled to shoot, the cavalry swarmed round the hostile squadrons, threw their lines into confusion, and completed their discomfiture by a vigorous pursuit. In a charge the infantry also might employ lance and dagger; but the essential point was that the archers should be mobile and their use of the bow unhampered.

To all this should be added the superiority of their leaders; Cyrus especially must have been an exceedingly able general. Obviously, also, he must have understood the art of organizing his people. In hi time the Persians were a strong manly peasantry, domiciled in a healthy climate and habituated to all hardships—a point repeatedly emphasized, in the tales preserved by Herodotus, as the cause of their successes. Herodotus, however, also records that the Persians were “o all mankind the readiest to adopt foreign customs, good or bad,' which goes far to explain, not merely their successes, but also the character of their empires.

The fundamental features of the imperial organization must hay-been due to Cyrus himself. Darius followed in his steps and complete, the vast structure. His role, indeed, was peculiarly that of supplementing and perfecting the work of his great predecessor. The organization of the empire was planned throughout on broad free lines ; there was nothing mean or timorous in it. The great god Ahura Mazda, who .l king and people alike acknowledged, had given them dominion “over this earth afar, over many peoples and tongues” and the consciousness was strong in them that they were masters of the world. Thu their sovereign styled himself the “king of kings” and the “king o the lands”—that is to say, of the whole civilized world, for the provinces remaining unsubdued on the extreme frontiers to the west, the north and the east were in their view almost negligible quantities And far removed as the Persians were from disavowing their proud sense of identity, yet equally vivid was the feeling that they ruled the whole civilised world, that their task was to reduce it to unity, an that by the will of Ahura Mazda they were pledged to govern it aright.

This is most clearly seen in the treatment of the subject races. In contrast with the Assyrians and the Romans, the Persians invariably conducted their wars with great humanity. The vanquished kings were honourably dealt with, the enemy's towns were spared, except when grave offenses and insurrections, as at Miletus and Athens, rendered punishment imperative; and their inhabitants were treated with mildness. Like Cyrus, all his successors welcomed members of the conquered races to their service, employed them as administrators or generals and made them grants of land ; and this not only in the case of Medes, but also of Armenians, Lydians, Jews and Greeks. The whole population of the empire was alike bound to military service. The subject-contingents stood side by side with the Persian troops; and the garrisons—in Egypt, for instance—were composed of the most varied nationalities.

Among the subject races the Medes particularly stood high in favour. Darius in his inscriptions always names them immediately after the Persians. They were the predecessors of the Persians in the empire and the more civilised people. Their institutions, court cere­monial and dress were all adopted by the Achaemenids. Thus the tribal distinctions began to recede, and the ground was prepared for that amalgamation of the Iranians into a single, uniform racial unit, which under the Sassanians was completely perfected—at least for the west of Iran.

The lion's share, indeed, fell to the dominant race itself. The inhabitants of Persist proper paid no taxes. Instead, they brought the best of their possessions as a gift to their king on festival days; peasants meeting him on his excursions did the same. In recompense for this, he distributed on his return rich presents to every Persian man and woman—the women of Pasargadae, who were members of Cyrus's tribe, each receiving a piece of gold. In relation to his Persians, he was always the people's king. At his accession he was consecrated in the temple of a warrior goddess at Pasargadae, and partook of the simple meal of the old peasant days—a mess of figs, terebinths and sour milk. The Persians swore allegiance to him and prayed to Ahura Mazda for his life and the welfare of the people, while he vowed to Protect them against every attack, and to judge and govern them as did his fathers before him. For helpers he had at his side the “law-bearers”. These—the Persian judges—were nominated by the king for life, and generally bequeathed their office to their sons. The royal decision was based on consultation with the great ones of his people; and such was the case with his officials and governors everywhere.

Every Persian able to bear arms was bound to serve the king—the great landowners on horseback, the commonalty on foot. The noble and well-to-do, who did not need to till their fields in person, were pledged to appear at court as frequently as possible. Their children were brought up in company with the princes “at the gates of the king”, instructed in the handling of arms, in riding and hunting, and introduced to the service of the state and the knowledge of the law, as well as the commandments of religion. Then such as proved their worth were called to high office and rewarded, generally with grants of land.

The highest rank was held by the descendants of the six great families, whose heads stood by Darius at the killing of the Magian. These enjoyed the right of entering the presence unannounced, and possessed princely estates in the provinces. Besides these, however, numbers of other Persians were dispatched to the provinces, settled there, and endowed with lands. There existed, in fact, under the Achaemenids, a strong colonising movement, diffused through the whole empire ; traces of this policy occur more especially in Armenia, Cappadocia and Lycia, but also in the rest of Asia Minor, and not rarely in Syria and Egypt. These colonists formed the nucleus of the provincial military levy, and were a tower of strength to the Persian dominion. They composed, moreover, the Persian council and vice-regal household of the Satraps, exactly as the Persians of the home country composed that of the king.

Though the world-empire of Persia was thus deeply impressed by a national character, care was nevertheless exercised that the general duties and interests of the subject races should receive due consideration. We find their representatives, side by side with the Persians, occupying every sort of position in the regal and vice-regal courts. They took their part in the councils of the satraps, precisely as they did in military service and they, too, were rewarded by bounties and estates. To wield a peaceful authority over all the subjects of the empire, to reward merit, and to punish transgression—such was the highest task of king and officials.

On his native soil Cyrus had built a town, with a palace and a tomb, in the district of Pasargadae. This Darius replaced by a new capital, deeper in the centre of the country, which bore the name Persis, the Persepolis of the later Greeks. But the district of Persis was too remote to be the administrative centre of a world-empire. The natural centre lay, rather, in the ancient fertile tract on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. The actual capital of the empire was therefore Susa, where Darius I and Artaxerxes II erected their magnificent palaces. The winter months the kings spent chiefly in Babylon; the hot summer, in the cooler situation of Ecbatana, where Darius and Xerxes built a residence on Mt. Elvend, south of the city. From a palace of Artaxerx II in Ecbatana itself the fragments of a few inscribed columns have been preserved. To Persepolis the kings paid only occasional visits especially at their coronations.

Method of Government

Within the empire, the two great civilised states incorporated by Cyrus and Cambyses, Babylon and Egypt, occupied a position of their own. After his defeat of Nabonidus, Cyrus proclaimed himself “king of Babel” ; and the same title was borne by Cambyses, Smerdis and Darius. So, in Egypt, Cambyses adopted in full the titles of the Pharaohs. In this we may trace a desire to conciliate the native popu­lation, with the object of maintaining the fiction that the old state still continued. Darius went still farther. He encouraged the efforts of the Egyptian priesthood in every way, built temples, and enacted new laws in continuance of the old order. In Babylon his procedure was presumably similar, though here we possess no local evidence. But he lived to see that his policy had missed its goal. In 486 B.c. Egypt revolted and was only reduced by Xerxes in 484. It was this, probably, that induced him in 484 to renounce his tide of “King of Babel”, and to remove from its temple the golden statue of Bel-Marduk, whose hands the king was bound to clasp on the first day of each year. This proceeding led to two insurrections in Babylon, which were speedily repressed. After that the “kingship of Babel” was definitely abolished. In Egypt the Persian kings still retained the style of the Pharaohs ; but we hear no more of concessions to the priesthood or to the old institutions, and, apart from the great oasis of el-Kharga, no more temples were erected.

At the head of the court and the imperial administration stood the commandant of the body-guard—the 10,000 “Immortals”, often depicted in the sculptures of Persepolis with lances surmounted by golden apples. This grandee corresponds to the modern vizier. In addition to him, we find seven councilors. Among the other officials, the “eye of the king” is frequently mentioned. To him was entrusted the control of the whole empire and the superintendence of all officials. The orders of the court were issued in a very simple form of the cuneiform script, probably invented by the Medes. This comprised of 36 signs, almost all of which denote single sounds. In the royal inscriptions, a translation into Susan (Elamitic) and Babylonian was always appended to the Persian text. In Egypt one in hieroglyphics was added, as in the inscriptions of the Suez canal; in the Grecian provinces, another in Greek. The cuneiform script could only be written on stone or clay. Thus there has been discovered in Babylon a copy of the Behistun inscription preserved on a block of dolerite. For administrative purposes, however, it would seem that this in-convenient material was not employed, its place being taken by skins, the use of which was adopted from the western peoples of the empire. On these were further written the journals and records kept at the court. With such materials the cuneiform script could not be used; instead, the Persian language was written in Aramaic characters, a method which later led to the so-called Pahlavi, i.e. Parthian script. This mode of writing was employed in the state-services from Darius I ; and so may be explained the fact that, under the Achaemenids, the Persian language rapidly declined, and, in the inscriptions of Artaxerxes III, only appears in an extremely neglected guise.

Side by side with the Persian, the Aramaic, which had long been widely diffused as the speech of commerce, enjoyed currency in all the western half of the empire as a second dominant language. Thus all deeds, enactments and records designed for these provinces were furnished with an official Aramaic version. To the three cuneiform inscriptions of his tomb at Naqsh-i-Rustam, Darius added an Aramaic version; and of the account of his deeds in the inscription in Behistun he distributed copies in Aramaic over his empire ; of one of these, written in beautiful characters, large fragments have been preserved in the papyri of the Jewish garrison at Elephantine, together with numerous documents in the same tongue. The coins minted by the satraps and generals usually bear an Aramaic inscription. The De­motic in Egypt was employed in private documents. In the Hellenic provinces of the empire Greek replaced Aramaic.

Provincial Organization

Darius I divided the Persian empire into 20 great provinces, satrapies, with a “guardian of the country” at the head of each. Each satrapy was again subdivided into several minor governorships. The satrap levied the taxes, controlled the legal procedure, was responsible for the security of roads and property, and superintended the subordinate districts. The heads of the great military centres of the empire and the commandants of the royal fortresses were outside his jurisdiction; yet the satraps were entitled to a body of troops of their own, a privilege which they used to the full, especially in late periods. The satrap was held in his position as a subject by the controlling machinery of the empire, especially the “eye of the king”; by the council of Persians in his province with whom he was bound to debate all matters of importance; and by the army; while in the hands of the messengers the government despatches travelled “swifter than the crane” along the great imperial highways, which were all provided with regular postal stations. Within the satrapies the subject races and communities occupied a tolerably independent position; for instance, the Jews, under their elders and priests, convened a popular assembly in Jerusalem. Obviously also, they enjoyed, as a rule, the privilege of deciding lawsuits among themselves.

Coinage, Commerce and Civilization

The provinces of the empire differed as materially in economy as in organization. In the extreme west, a money currency in its most highly developed form—that of coinage minted by the state, or an autonomous community—had developed since the seventh century among the Lydians and Greeks. In Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia and Babylonia, the old mode of commerce was still in vogue, conducted by means of gold and silver bars, weighed at each transaction ; a money currency only began to make headway in these districts in the 4th century B.c. In the eastern provinces, on the other hand, the primitive method of exchange by barter still held the field. Only in the civilized frontier districts of India did a system of coinage find early acceptance. There Persian and Attic money was widely distributed, and imitations of it struck in the 5th and 4th pre-Christian centuries.

Thus the empire was compelled to grapple with all these varied conditions and to reconcile them as best it might. At the court, “natural economy” was still the rule. The officials and troops received payment in kind. They were fed “by the table of the king”, from which 15,000 men daily drew their sustenance and were rewarded by gifts and assignments of land. The Greek mercenaries, on the contrary, had to be paid in currency; nor could the satraps of the west dispense with hard cash. The king, again, needed the precious metals, not merely for bounties and rewards, but for important enterprises in which money payment was imperative. Consequently, the royal revenues and taxes were paid partly in the precious metals, partly in natural produce—horses and cattle, grain, clothing and its materials, furniture and all articles of industry. The satraps, also in addition to money payments, levied contributions “for their table”, at which the officials ate.

The precious metals brought in by the tribute were collected in the great treasure-houses at Susa, Persepolis, Pasargadae and Ecbatana, where gigantic masses of silver and, more especially, of gold were stored in the bullion or partially wrought into vessels exactly as was the case over 2000 years later in the Shah's treasure chamber. When the king required money he minted as much as was necessary. A reform in the coinage was effected by Darius, who struck the daric ; a gold piece of 130 grains, this being equivalent to 20 silver pieces of 86.5 grains. The, coinage of gold was the exclusive prerogative of the king; silver could be coined by the satraps, generals, independent communities and dynasts.

The extent of the Persian empire was, in essentials, defined by the great conquests of Cyrus and Cambyses. Darius' role was to round off the empire and secure its borders: for this purpose in Asia Minor and Armenia he subdued the mountain tribes and advanced the frontier a. far as the Caucasus. He also annexed the Indus valley and the auriferous hill-country of Kafristan and Kashmir, as well as the Dardae in Dardistan on the Indus. From this point he directed several campaigns against the Amyrgian Sacae, on the Pamir Plataeu and northwards, whom he enumerates in his list of subject races, and whose mounted archers formed a main division of the armies despatched against the Greeks. It was obviously an attempt to take the nomads of the Turanian steppe in the rear and to reduce them to quiescence, which led to his unfortunate expedition against the Scythians of the Russian steppes.

Side by side with these wars, we can read, even in the scanty tradi­tion at our disposal, a consistent effort to further the great civilizing mission imposed on the empire. In the district of Herat, Darius established a great water-basin, designed to facilitate the cultivation of the steppe. The desire to create a direct communication between the seclusion of Persis and the commerce of the world is evident in his foun­dation of several harbours on the Persian coast. But this design is still, more patent in his completion of a great canal, already begun by Necho, from the Nile to Suez, along which several monuments of Darius have been preserved. Thus it was possible, as says the remnant of an hieroglyphic inscription there discovered, “for ships to sail direct from the Nile to Persia, over Saba.” In course of time it decayed, till it was restored by second Ptolemy. Even the circumnavigation of Africa was attemped under Xerxes.

Religion and Art

It has already been mentioned, that, in his efforts to conciliate the Egyptians, Darius placed his chief reliance on the priesthood, and the Same tendency runs throughout the imperial policy towards the conquered races. Thus Cyrus himself gave the exiled Jews in Babylon permission to return and rebuild Jerusalem. Darius allowed the restoration of the Temple; and Artaxerxes I, by the protection accorded w Ezra and Nehemiah, made the foundation of Judaism possible. Analogously in an edict, of which a later copy is preserved in an inscription, Darius commands Gadatas, the governor of a domain in magnesia on the Maeander, to observe scrupulously the privileges of the Apollo sanctuary.

The Persian empire of the Achaemenids played a significant role in the development of religion in Western Asia. The definite erection of a single vast, world empire cost them their original connection with the state, and compelled them in future to address themselves, not to the community at large, but to individuals, to promise, not political success nor the independence of the people, but the welfare of the men. Thus they became at once universal and capable of extension by propaganda; and, with this, of entering into keen competition one with the other. These traits are most clearly marked in Judaism; but after the Achaemenid period, they are common to all creeds though our information as to most is scanty in the extreme.

In this competition of religions that of Iran played a most spirited part. The Persian kings—none more so than Darius whose religious convictions are enshrined in his inscriptions—and, with the kings, their people, were ardent professors of the pure doctrine of Zoroaster; and the Persians settled in the provinces diffused this creed throughout the whole empire. Thus a strong Persian propagandism arose especially in Armenia and Cappadocia, where this religion took deep root among the people. In the process, however, important modifications were intro­duced. In contrast with Judaism, Zoroastrianism did not enter the lists against all gods save its own, but found no difficulty in recognising them as subordinate powers—helpers and servants of Ahura Mazda. Consequently, the foreign creeds often reacted upon the Persian. In Cappadocia, Aramaic inscriptions have been discovered in which the indigenous god, there termed Bel the king, recognizes the “Mazdayasnian Religion”, i.e., the religion of Ahura Mazda personified as a woman—as his sister and wife.

The gorgeous cult of the gods of other countries with their host of temples, images and festivals, exercised a corresponding influence on the mother country. Thus the old figures of the Aryan cult return to the foreground, there to be amalgamated with the Babylonian divinities. The goddess of springs and streams and of all fertility—Ardvisura, Anahita, Anaitis—is endowed with the form of the Babylonian Ishtar and Belit. At her side stands the sun-god Mithra, who is represented as young and victorious here. Both deities occupy the very first rank in the popular creed; while to the theologian they are the most potent of the good powers—Mithra being the herald and propagator of the service of light and the mediator betwixt man and Ahura Mazda, who now fades more into the background. Thus, in the subsequent period, the Persian religion appears purely as the religion of Mithra. The festival of Mithra is the chief festival of the empire, at which the king drinks and is drunken, and dances the national dance. This develop­ment culminated under Artaxerxes II, who erected statues to Anaitis in Persepoils, Ecbatana, Bactria, Susa, Babylon, Damascus and Sardis. The truth of this account is proved by the fact that Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III are the only Achaemenids who, in their inscriptions, invoke Anaitis and Mithra side by side with Ahura Mazda.

The position of the Persian monarchy as a world empire is characteristically emphasised in the buildings of Darius and Xerxes in Persepolis and Susa. The peculiarly national basis, still recognisable in Cyrus's architecture at Pasargadae, recedes into insignificance. Influences are evident, not only from the old Medean architecture, but also from Egypt, Babylon, to some extent Greece and, in the rock-cut tombs, probably of Asia Minor. Yet the result is Persian, for all these elements are combined into an organic unity, a great style which made possible the greatest architectural complex in the ancient world. Not were the complementary arts any less distinguished, especially sculp­ture, but also metalwork. But finally, with the collapse of the empire, the imperial art vanished also; when some 500 years later a new native dynasty arose under the Sassanids, a characteristically Persian art grew up again, utilizing traditions of its Achaemenid predecessors, though with many differences, above all in structural methods.

Wars Against Greece

Though, unlike Cyrus and Cambyses, Darius made no new expeditions of conquest, yet a great empire, which is not bounded by another equally great, but touches on many small tribes and independent com­munities, is inevitably driven to expansion. We have already seen that the attempt of Darius to control the predatory nomads in the north led his expedition against the Scythians; this, again, led to the incorporation of Thrace and Macedonia, whose king Perdiccas submitted. The Greek cities with their endless feuds and violent internal factions, were incessant in their appeals for intervention. Nevertheless, Darius left European Greece to itself, till the support accorded to the Ionianand Carian insurgents by Athens and Eretria made war inevitable. But not only the expeditions of Mardonius and Datis, but even the care-fully prepared campaigns of Xerxes, in conjunction with Carthage, completely failed.

The wreck of Xerxes' expedition is the turning-point in the history of the Persian empire. The Persians thereafter never found courage to repeat their attack. On the contrary, in 466 B.c. their army and fleet were again defeated by Cimon on the Eurymedon, the sequel being that the Greek provinces on the Asian coast, with all the Thracian possessions, were lost. In itself, indeed, this loss was of no great significance to a vast empire ; and the attempts of Athens to annex Cyprus and conquer the Nile valley, in alliance with the revolted Egyptians, ended in failure. Athens, in fact, had not sufficient strength to undertake a serious invasion of the empire or an extensive scheme of conquest. Her struggles with the other Hellenic states constrained her, by the peace of Callias, definitely to renounce the Persian war ; to abandon Cyprus and Egypt to the king ; and to content herself with his promise—not that he would surrender the littoral towns, but that he would abstain from an armed attack upon them. The really decisive point was, rather, that the disasters of Salamis and Platea definitely shattered the offensive power of the empire ; that the centre of gravity in the world's history had shifted from Susa and Babylon to the Aegean sea ; for the Achaemenid power was beginning to suffer that inner disintegration which is the ever-recurrent doom of dynasties, if not of states.

Thus the great empire was reduced to immobility and stagnation—a process which was assisted by the deteriorating influences of civilization and world-dominion upon the character of the ruling race. True, the Persians continued to produce brave and honourable men. But the influences of the harem, the eunuchs, and similar court officials made appalling progress, and men of energy began to find the temptations of Powers stronger than their patriotism and devotion to the king. Thus the satraps aspired to independence, not merely owing to unjust treatment, but also to avarice or favourable conditions. As early as 465 B.C., Xerxes was assassinated by his powerful vizier Artabanus, who attempted to seize the reins of empire in fact, if not in name. To these factors must be added the degeneration of the royal line. Kings like Xerxes and more especially Artaxerxes I and Artaxerxes II, so far from being gloomy despots, were good-natured potentates, but weak, capricious and readily accessible to personal influences. The only really brutal tyrants were Darius II, who was completely dominated by his bloodthirsty wife Parysatis, and Artaxerxes III who, though he shed rivers of blood and all but exterminated his whole family, was successful in once more uniting the empire, which under the feeble sway of his father had been threatened with dissolution.

The upshot of these conditions was that the empire never again undertook an important enterprise, but neglected more and more its great civilizing mission. In considering, however, the subsequent disorders and wars, it must be borne in mind that they affected only individual portions of the empire, and only on isolated occasions involved more extensive areas in long and serious strife. To most of the provinces the Acheamenid dominion was synonymous with two centuries of peace and order. Naturally, however, the wild tribes of the mountains and deserts, who could be curbed only by strict imperial control, asserted their independence and harassed the neighboring provinces. When in 400 B.C. Xenophon marched with the mercenaries of Cyprus from the Tigris to the Black sea, the authority of the king was nonexistent north of Armenia, and the tribes of the Pontic mountains, with the Greek cities on the coast, were completely independent. The frontier provinces of India were also lost. Egypt, which had already revolted in the years 486-484, and again with Athenian help in 460-454, finally asserted its independence in 404.

The inner weakness of the empire was soon revealed by the revolts of the satraps. These were facilitated by the custom—quite contrary to the original imperial organization—which entrusted the provincial military commands to the satraps, who began to receive great masses of Greek mercenaries into their service. Revolts of the satraps in Asia Minor and Syria were of everyday occurrence, and the task of suppressing them was complicated by the foreign wars which the empire had to sustain against Greece and Egypt.

At this very period, however, the foreign policy of the empire gained a brilliant success. The collapse of the Athenian power before Syracuse induced Darius II to order his satraps in Asia Minor, to col­lect the tribute overdue from the Greek cities. In alliance with Sparta, Persia intervened successfully in the conflict against Athens, war with Sparta followed immediately, over the division of the spoils. Persia joined the Greek League against Sparta, with the result that the Spartan power of offense was crippled; and the upshot of the long-protracted war was that Sparta not only renounced all claims to the Asian possessions, but officially proclaimed the Persian suzerainty over Greece. Ninety years after Salamis and Plotaea, the goal for which Xerxes had striven, was actually attained, and the king's will was law in Greece. In the folio' ing decades, no Hellenic state ventured to violate the king's peace, and all the feuds that followed centred round the efforts of the combatants Sparta, Thebes, Athens and Argos—to draw the royal powers to their side.

But, for these successes, the empire had to thank the internecine strife of its Greek opponents, rather than its own strength. Its feebleness, when thrown on its own resources, is evident from the fact that, during the next years, it failed both to reconquer Egypt and to suppress comp­letely king Evagoras of Salamis in Cyprus. The satrap revolts, more-over, assumed more and more formidable proportions, and the Greek states began once more to tamper with them. Thus the reign of Artaxerxes II ended, in 359 B.c., with a complete dissolution of the imperial authority in the west. His successor, Artaxerxes Ochus, succeeded yet again in restoring the empire in its full extent. In 342 he reduced Egypt, and his generals crushed once and for all the resistance in Asia Minor. At his death in 338, immediately before the final catastrophe, the empire to all appearances was more powerful and more firmly established than it had been since the days of Xerxes.

In Greece, a feeling of revolt was gradually developing. Only mutual rivalries of the States prevented its fulfillment. When Philip founded the League of Corinth embracing the whole of Greece, he at once expressed his willingness to take up cudgels on behalf of Greece against Persia. In 336 he dispatched his army to Asia Minor but was assassinated and succeeded by his son Alexander who was far more ambitions than his father. To conquer the whole world for Hellenic civilization was the task that he saw before him.

How Alexander conquered Persia, and how he framed his world empire, cannot be related in detail here. The essential fact, however, is that after the victory of Gaugamela and, still more completely, after the assassination of Darius, Alexander regarded himself as the legitimate head of the Persian empire, and therefore adopted the dress and ceremonial of the Persian kings. He adopted the notion of the king as God's surrogate or even an incarnation of the supernatural power, endowed thereby with illimitable authority. The expedition of 332 B.C., to the shrine of Ammon, was a preliminary to this procedure which, in 324, was sealed by his official elevation to divine rank in all the republics of Greece.

He drafted 30,000 young Persians, educated them in Greek customs, and trained them to war on the Macedonian model. The Indian campa­ign showed that his Macedonian troops were in fact inadequate to the conquest of the world, and in the summer of 326 they compelled him to turn back from the banks of the Hyphasis. On his return to Persia he consummated at Susa the union of Persian and Macedonian by the great marriage feast, at which all his superior officers, with some 10'000 more Macedonians, were wedded to Persian wives. The Macedonian veterans were then disbanded, and the Persians taken into his army. Simultaneously, at the Olympian festival of 324, the command was issued to all the cities of Greece to recognise him as god and to receive the exiles home. At that point Alexander died in Babylon, on June 13, 323 B.C.

The Diadochi

Alexander left no heir. Consequently, his death led to an immediate Macedonian reaction. The army took over the government under the direction of its generals. The Persian wives were practically all discarded and the Persian satraps removed—at least from all important provinces. There began the embittered war, waged for several decades by the generals for the inheritance of Alexander. Peucestas, the governor of Persis, played the role of Alexander and won the Persians completely to his side, for which he was dismissed by Antigonus in 315. A similar position was attained by Seleucus—the only one of the diadochi who had not divorced his Persian wife, Apama—in Babylonia, which he governed from 319 to 316 and regained in the autumn of 312. He conquered the whole of Iran as far as the Indus.

The annexation of Iran by Seleucus Nicator led to a war for the countries on the Indian frontier, his opponent being Chandragupta Maury, the founder of the Indian empire of Maurya. The result was that Seleucus abandoned to the Indian king not merely the Indian provinces, but even the frontier districts west of the Indus, receiving as compensation 500 elephants, with other presents.

The battle of Ipsus, in 301, gave him Syria and the east of Asia Minor; and from then he resided at the Syrian town of Antiochia on the Orontes. Shortly afterwards he handed over the provinces east of the Euphrates to his son Antiochus, who, in the following years, till 282, exercised in the east a very energetic and beneficial activity, which continued the work of his father. In his campaigns Alexander had founded several cities in Bactria, Sogdiana and India, in which he settled his veterans, and before his death he had begun or planned the foundation of Greek cities in Media and other parts of Iran. These plans were now executed by the Seleucids on the largest scale. Most of the new cities were based on older settlements; but the essential point is, that they were peopled by Greek and Macedonian colonists, and enjoyed civic independence with laws, officials, councils and assemblies of their own—in other words, an autonomous communal constitution, under the suzerainty of the empire. These cities became the main factors in the diffusion of Hellenism, the Greek language and the Greek civilization over all Asiaas far as the Indus. At the same time they were centres of commerce and industrial life; and this, in conjunction with the royal favour, and the privileges accorded them, continually drew new settlers, and many of them developed into great and flourishing towns.

Shortly after his conquest of Babylonia, Seleucus had founded a new capital, Seleucia on the Tigris, his intention being at once to displace the ancient Babylon from its former central position, and to replace it by a Greek city. This was followed by a series of other foundations in Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Susiana.

In 282 a.c. Seleucus took the field against Lysimachus, and annexed his dominions in Asia Minor and Thrace. In 281 he was assassinated while crossing to Europe, and his son Antiochus I was left supreme over the whole empire. From that time onward the Seleucid empire was never at rest. Its gigantic extent, from the Aegean to the Indus, every-where offered points of attack to the enemy. The promotion of Greek civilization and city life had created numerous local centres, with separate interests and centrifugal tendencies, struggling to attain complete independence, and perpetually forcing new concessions from the empire. Thus the Seleucid kings, courageous as many of them were, were always battling for existence.

These disturbances severely affected the borders of Iran. It was principally the need of protection against the nomadic tribes which led to the foundation of an independent kingdom and Diodotus soon attained considerable power over the provinces, north of the Hindu-Kush. In other provinces, too, insurrection broke out. Arsaces, a chief of the Parni or Aparni—an Iranian nomad tribe, inhabiting the steppe east of the Caspian—made himself master of the district of Parthia in 248 B.C. He and his brother Tiridates were the founders of the Parthian kingdom, which, however, was confined within very modest limits during the following decades. Seleucus II Callinicus successfully encountered Arsaces and even expelled him but new risings recalled Seleucus to Syria, and Arsaces was enabled to return to Parthia.

In spite of concerted efforts made by Antiochus III and Antiochus IV, the Seleucid empire could not withstand the ever-increasing revolts. The latter tried to strengthen Hellenism throughout his empire by settl­ing Greek colonists and mercenaries in the native towns—then, also, in Babylon and Jerusalem and granting them the right of Greek cities. But after his death at Gabae in Persis, the Romans took advantage of the dynastic broils to destroy the Seleucid empire. They reduced its army and fleet, and favoured every rebellion, among others, that of the Jews, shown by the fact that in 77 Inc. the octogenarian king Sinatruces was seated on the Parthian throne by the Scythian tribe of the Sacaraucians. The names of his predecessors are not known to us. Obviously this period was marked by continual dynastic feuds. Not till Sinatruces' successor Phraates III do we find the kingdom again in a settled state.

A fact of decisive significance was that the Romans now began to advance against Tigranes. In vain Mithradates of Pontus and Tigranes turned to the Parthian king, the latter even proffering restitution of the conquered frontier provinces. Phraates, though rightly distrusting Rome, nevertheless concluded a treaty with Lucullus and with Pompey, and even supported the latter in his campaign against Tigranes in 66. But after the victory it was manifest that the Roman general did not consider him-self bound by the Parthian treaty. When Tigranes had submitted, Pompey received him into favour and extended the Roman supremacy over the vassal states of Gordyene and Osroene; though he had allured the Parthian king with the prospect of the recovery of his old posses­sions as far as the Euphrates. Phraates complained, and simultaneously attacked Tigranes, now a Roman vassal. But when Pompey. refused separation Phraates recognised that he was too weak to begin struggle with Rome, and contented himself with forming an alliance with Tigra­nes, hoping that the future would bring an opportunity for his revenge.

Although Phraates III had not succeeded in regaining the full power of his predecessors, he felt justified in again assuming the title “king of kings”—which Pompey declined to acknowledge—and even in pro-claiming himself as “god,” but in 57 B.c. the “god” was assassinated by his sons Orodes and Mithradates.

Organization

The Parthian empire, as founded by the conquests of Mithradates I and restored, once by Mithradates II and again by Phraates III, was, to all exterior appearance, a continuation of the Achaemenid dominion. Thus the Arsacids now began to assume the old title “king of kings”, though previously their coins, as a rule, had borne only the legend “great king”. The official version, preserved by Arrian in his Parthica, derives the line of these chieftains of the Parnian nomads from Artaxerxes II. In reality, however, the Parthian empire was totally different from its predecessor, both externally and internally. It was anything rather than a world-empire. The countries west of the Euphrates never owned its dominion, and even of Iran itself not one-half was subject to the Arsacids. There were indeed vassal states on every hand, but the actual possessions of the kings—the provinces

The Parthian Empire

Meanwhile, in the east, the Arsacids started on a career of expansion. Phraates I subdued difficult M rdJian in Elburz. ucratidesbof tBacther Mith a radates I had to sustain eventually succeeded in wresting from him some districts on thee Indus. Turanian frontier. Indeed, he penetrated as far as, and farther than, In the west he conquered Media, and thence subdued Babylonia. He further reduced the Elymaeans, sacked their temple in the mountains, The and captured the Greek city of Seleucia n the disorders h and e Seleucids, meanwhile, were harrassed by aggravated acked lions. After the death of Mithradates the brother of Demetrius IIS ontwhich in 130 by Antiochus VII Sidetes, the Parthian king r released Babylonia, but in 129 was defeated in Media and once more recovered ovand fell in a desperate struggle. With this battle the Seleucid dominion over the countries east of the Euphrates was definitely lost.

During these wars great changes had taken place in eastern Iran. In 159 Mongolian tribes, whom the Chinese call Yue-chi and the Greeks Scythians, forced their way into Sogdiana, and, in 139, conquered Bactria with tried Ant ochus VII, they assailed Entering        the Parthian into an alliance empire. Phraates II marched to encounter him, but was himself defeated and slain, and his country ravaged far and wide. His successor Arta-banns I, the uncle of Phraates, also fell in battle against Johannes Antiochen; but his son Mithradates II, surnamed “The Great,” defeated the Scythians and restored for a while the power of thwe Arsacids. He also defeated Artavasdes, the king of great America; his son Tigranes, a hostage in the hands of the Parthians, was only redeemed by the cession of 70 valleys. When Tigranes attempted to seize Cappadocia, and the Roman praetor Cornelius Sulla, advanced against him, Mithra‑dates in 92 B.C. concluded the first treaty between barn an opportunity The dynastic troubles of the Seleucids in Syria gave and, with h s for successful intervention. Shortly afterwards he died; and, with his death, the Arsacid power collapsed for the second time. The Possession of the western provinces and the dominant position in western Asia passed to the Armenian Tigranes, who wrested from the Parthians Mesopotamia and the suzerainty of Atropatene, Gordyene, Adiabene, Osroene. Simultaneously began a new and severe conflict with the Scythians. Parthian coins, probably dating from this period, mention victorious campaigns of Parthian kings and a conquest of the Aria, Margiane and Traxiane. But how confused the situation was is shown by the fact that in 77 B.c. the octogenarian king Sinatruces was seated on the Parthian throne by the Scythian tribe of the Sacaraucians. The names of his predecessors are not known to us. Obviously this period was marked by continual dynastic feuds. Not till Sinatruces' successor Phraates III do we find the kingdom again in a settled state.

A fact of decisive significance was that the Romans now began to advance against Tigranes. In vain Mithradates of Pontus and Tigranes turned to the Parthian king, the latter even proffering restitution of the conquered frontier provinces. Phraates, though rightly distrusting Rome, nevertheless concluded a treaty with Lucullus and with Pompey, and even supported the latter in his campaign against Tigranes in 66. But after the victory it was manifest that the Roman general did not consider him-self bound by the Parthian treaty. When Tigranes had submitted, Pompey received him into favour and extended the Roman supremacy over the vassal states of Gordyene and Osroene; though he had allured the Parthian king with the prospect of the recovery of his old possessions as far as the Euphrates. Phraates complained, and simultaneously attacked Tigranes, now a Roman vassal. But when Pompey refused separation Phraates recognised that he was too weak to begin struggle with Rome, and contented himself with forming an alliance with Tigranes, hoping that the future would bring an opportunity for his revenge.

Although Phraates III had not succeeded in regaining the full power of his predecessors, he felt justified in again assuming the title "king of kings"—which Pompey declined to acknowledge—and even in pro-claiming himself as "god," but in 57 B.c. the "god" was assassinated by his sons Orodes and Mithradates.

Organization

The Parthian empire, as founded by the conquests of Mithradates I and restored, once by Mithradates II and again by Phraates III, was, to all exterior appearance, a continuation of the Achaemenid dominion. Thus the Arsacids now began to assume the old title "king of kings", though previously their coins, as a rule, had borne only the legend "great king". The official version, preserved by Arrian in his Parthica, derives the line of these chieftains of the Parnian nomads from Artaxerxes II. In reality, however, the Parthian empire was totally different from its predecessor, both externally and internally. It was anything rather than a world-empire. The countries west of the Euphrates never owned its dominion, and even of Iran itself not one-half was subject to the Arsacids. There were indeed vassal states on every hand, but the actual possessions of the kings—the provinces governed by their satraps—consisted of a rather narrow strip of land, 1 stretching from the Euphrates and north Babylonia through southern Media and Parthia as far as Arochosia, and following the course of the great trade-route which from time immemorial had carried the traffic between the west of Asia and India.

It is not without justice that the Arsacid period is described, in the later Persian and Arabian tradition, as the period of “the kings of the part-kingdoms”—among which the Ashkanians had won the first place. The period from the death of Alexander to the Sassanid Ardashir I, is put by the Persian tradition at 266 years; which was afterwards corrected to 523 years. The actual number is 547 years.

Character of the Empire

It may appear surprising that the Arsacids made no attempt to in-corporate the minor states in the empire and create great and united dominion, such as existed under the Achaemenids and was afterwards restored by the Sassanids. This fact is the clearest symptom of the inner weakness of their empire and of the small power wielded by them. In contrast alike with its predecessors and its successors, the Arsacid dominion was peculiarly a chance formation—a state which had corn into existence through fortuitous external circumstances, and had no, firm foundation within itself.

Three elements, of widely different kinds, contributed to its origin and defined its character. It was sprung from a predatory nomad tribe which 'had established itself in Khurasan, on the borders of civilization and thence gradually annexed further districts as the political, situation or the weakness of its neighbors allowed. Consequently, these nomads were the main pillar of the empire, and from them were obviously derived the great magnates, with their huge estates and, hosts of serfs, who composed the imperial council, led the armies, governed the provinces and made and unmade the kings.

The military organization, moreover, was wholly nomadic in character. The nucleus of the army was formed of armored horsemen, excellently practiced for long-distance fighting with bow and javelin, but totally unable to venture on a hand-to-hand conflict, their tactics' being rather to swarm round the enemy's squadrons and overwhelm, them under hail of missiles. When attacked they broke up, as it seemed, in hasty and complete flight, and having thus led the hostile army to break its formation, they themselves rapidly reformed and renewed the assault. How difficult it was for infantry to hold their own against these;, mounted squadrons was demonstrated by the Roman campaigns,especially in broad plains like those of Mesopotamia. The infantry, in contrast with the earlier status under the Persians, was wholly neglect-ed. On the other hand, every magnate put into the field as many mounted warriors as possible, chiefly servants and bought slaves, who, like the Janissaries and Mamelukes, were trained exclusively for war.

How vital was the nomadic element in the Parthian empire is obvious from the fact that, in civil wars, the deposed kings consistently took refuge among the Dahae or Scythians and were restored by them. But in Parthia, these nomads were amalgamated with the native peasantry, and, with their religion, had adopted their dress and manners. Even the kings, after the first two or three, wore their hair and beard long, in the Iranian fashion, whereas their predecessors were beardless. Although the Arsacids were strangers to any deep religious interest, they acknowledged the Persian gods and the leading tenets of Zoroastrianism. They erected fire altars and even obeyed the command to abandon all corpses to the dogs and fowls. Beside the council of the nobility, there was a second council of “Magians and wise men”.

Again, they perpetuated the traditions of the Achaemenid empire. The Arsacids assumed the title “king of kings” and derived their line from Artaxerxes II. Further, the royal apotheosis, so common among them and recurring under the Sassanids, a very ancient Asian conception, was a direct development of Iranian views. For at the side of the great god Ahura Mazda there stood a host of subordinate divine beings who executed his will—among these the deified heroes of legend, to whose circle the king was now admitted, since on him Ahura Mazda had bestowed victory and might.

This gradual Iranianization of the Parthian empire is shown by the fact that the subsequent Iranian traditions, and Firdousi in particular, apply the name of the “Parthian” magnates to the glorious heroes of the legendary epoch. Consequently, also the language and writing of the Parthian period, which are retained under the Sassanids, received the name Pahalvi, i.e., “Parthian”. The script was derived from the Aramaic.

But to these elements must be added that of Hellenism, which had penetrated into Parthia and Media. All the external institutions were borrowed from the Seleucid empire; their coinage with its Greek inscriptions and nomenclature; their Attic standard of currency. Mithradates I even followed the precedent of the Seleucids in building a new city Arsacia, which replaced the ancient Rhagae in Media. The first Mithradates assumed, after his great conquests, the title of Philhellene, the Protector of Hellenism”, which was retained by almost all his successors. After the conquest of the Euphrates and Tigris provinces it was imperative that the royal residence should be fixed there. But as no one ventured to transfer the royal household and the army, with its hordes of wild horsemen, to the Greek town of Seleucia, and thus disor, ganise its commerce, the Arsacids set up their abode in the great village of Ctesiphon on the left bank of the Tigris, opposite to Seleucia, which accordingly retained its free Hellenic constitution. So also Orodes spoke good Greek, and Greek tragedies were staged at his court.

In spite of this, however, the rise of the Arsacid empire marks the beginning of a reaction against Hellenism, a reaction which was all the more effective because it depended on the impetus of circumstances working with all the power of a natural force. The essential point is that the east was turning away from the Mediterranean and the Hellenic world, feeling that it could derive no fresh powers from that quarter and that, consequently, the influence of local elements must steadily increase. This process can be most clearly traced on the coins—almost' the sole memorials that the Parthian empire has left. From reign reign the portraits grow poorer and more stereotyped, the inscription more neglected, till it becomes obvious that the engraver himself n longer understood Greek but copied mechanically the signs before h eyes, as is the case with the contemporary Indo-Scythian coinage Indeed, after Volagases I, the Aramaic script is occasionally employed The political opposition to the western empires, the Seleucids first, then the Romans, precipitated this development. Naturally enough the Greek cities beheld a liberator in every army that marched from the west. The Parthian magnates, on the other hand, with the army, would have little to do with Greek culture and Greek modes of life, which they contemptuously regarded as effeminate and unmanly. They required of their rulers that they should live in the fashion of their country, practice arms and the chase, and appear as Asian kings not as Grecian rulers.

These tendencies taken together explain the radical weakness of t Parthian empire. It was easy enough to collect a great army and achieve a great victory; it was absolutely impossible to hold the army together for any longer period, or to conduct a regular campaign. The Parthians proved incapable of creating a firm, united organization, such as the Achaemenids before them, and the Sassanids after them gave to their empire. The kings themselves were toys in, he hands of the magnet and the army who, tenaciously as they clung to the anointed dynast of the Arsacids, were utterly indifferent to the person of the individu Arsacid. Every moment they were ready to overthrow the reigning monarch and to set another on his throne. The kings, for their part, sought protection in craft, treachery and cruelty, and only succeeded in aggravating the situation. More especially they saw an enemy in every prince and the worst of enemies in their own sons. Sanguinary crimes were thus of everyday occurrence in the royal household; and frequently it was merely a matter of chance whether the father acted before the son, or the son before the father. The internal history of the Parthian dominion is an unbroken sequence of civil war and dynastic strife.

Wars with Rome

These conditions elucidate the fact that the Parthian empire, though founded on annexation and perpetually menaced by hostile arms in both the east and the west, yet never took a strong offensive after the days of Mithradates II. It was bound to protect itself against Scythian aggression in the east and Roman aggression in the west. To maintain, or regain, the suzerainty over Mosopotamia and the vassal states of that region, was its most imperative task. Yet it always remained on the defensive and even so was lacking in energy. Whenever it made an effort to enforce its claims, it retreated as soon as it was confronted by a resolute foe.

Thus the wars between Parthia and Rome proceeded, not from the Parthians—deeply injured though they were by the encroachments of Pompey—but from Rome herself. Rome had been obliged, reluctantly enough, to enter upon the inheritance of Alexander the Great; and since the time of Pompey, had definitely subjected to her dominion the Hel­lensitic countries as far as the Euphrates. Thus the task now faced them of annexing the remainder of the Macedonian empire, the whole east, from the Euphrates, to the Indus, and of thereby saving Greek civilization. With this objective M. Licinius Crassus the triumvir, in 54 B.C., took the aggressive against Parthia, the occasion being favourable owing to the dynastic troubles. Crassus fell on the field of Carrhae. With this, Mesopotamia was regained by the Parthians, and King Artavasdes of Armenia now entered their alliance. But, apart from the ravaging of Syria, the threatened attack on the Roman empire was carried into effect neither then nor during the civil war of Caesar and Pompey. At the time of his assassination Caesar was intent on resuming the expedition of Crassus.

Roman opinion universally expected that Augustus would take up the work of his predecessors, annihilate the Parthian dominion, and subdue the east as far as the Indians, Scythians and Seres. But Augustus disappointed these expectations. His whole policy and the needs of the newly organized Roman empire demanded peace. His efforts were devoted to reaching a modus vivendi, by which the authority of Rome and her most vital claims might be peacefully vindicated. This the weakness of Parthia enabled him to effect without much difficulty. His , endeavours were seconded by the revolt of Tiridates II, before whom Phraates IV was compelled to flee, till restored by the Scythians. Augustus lent no support to Tridates in his second march on Ctesiphon, but Phraates was all the more inclined on that account to stand on good terms with him. Consequently in 20 B.c,, he recognized the Roman suzerainty over Osroene and Armenia. In return, the Parthian dominion in Babylonia and the other vassal states were left undisputed.

Thus it was due not to the success and strength of the Parthians but largely to the principles of Roman policy as defined by Augustus that their empire appears as a second great independent power, side by side with Rome. The precedence of the Caesars, indeed, was always admitted by the Arsacids; and Phraates IV soon entered into a state of dependency on Rome by sending four of his sons as hostages to Augus. tus—a convenient method of obviating the danger threatened in their person, without the necessity of killing them. In B.C., however, Phraates was assassinated by his favourite wife Musa and her son Phraates V. In the subsequent broils a Parthian faction obtained the release of one of the princes interned in Rome as Vonones I. He failed, however, to maintain his position for long. He was a stranger to the Parthian customs, and the feeling of shame at dependency on the foreigner was too strong. So the rival faction brought out another Arsacid, resident among the Scythian nomads, Artabanus III, who easily expelled Vonones—only to create a host of enemies by his brutal cruelty, and to call forth fresh disorders.

The line of Arsacids which came to the throne in the person of Artabanus III represents a conscious reaction against Hellenism. He stands in open opposition to the old kings with their leanings to Rome and, at least external, tinge of Hellenism. The new regime obviously laid much more stress on the Asian character of its state. The Hellenism of Seleucia was now attacked with greater determination. For seven years, the city maintained itself in open rebellion, until at last it surrendered to Vardanes, who in consequence enlarged Ctesiphon, which was afterwards fortified by Pacorus II. In the neighborhood of the same town Volagases I founded a city, Volagesocerta, to which he attempted to transplant the population of Seleucia. Another of his foundations was Volagesias, situated near Hira on the Euphrates, south of Babylon, which did appreciable damage to the comcoerce of Seleucia and is often mentioned in inscriptions as the destination of the Palmyrene caravans.

After Volagases I followed a period of great disturbances. The literary tradition, indeed, deserts us almost entirely, but the coins and isolated literary references prove that during the year C.E. 77 to 147, two kings, and sometimes three or more, were often reigning concurrently. Obviously the empire can have seen little peace during these years, a fact which materially assisted the aggressive campaigns of Trajan who resuscitated the old project of Crassus and Caesar, by which the empire of Alexander as far as India was to be won for Greece. In pursuance of this plan he reduced Armenia, Mesopotamia and Babylonia to the position of imperial provinces. On his death, however, Hadrian immediately reverted to the Augustan policy and restored the conquests. Simultaneously there arose in the east the powerful Indo-Scythian empire of the Kushana, which doubtless limited still further the Parthian possessions in eastern Iran.

An era of quiet seems to have returned with Volagases III, and we hear no more of rival kings. With the Roman empire a profound peace had reigned since Hadrian, which was first disturbed by the at-tack of Marcus Aurelius and Aelius Verus in 162. This war, which broke out on the question of Armenia and Osroene, proved of decisive significance for the future development of western Asia, for, in its course, Seleucia was destroyed by the Romans under Avidius Cassius. The downfall of the great Greek city sealed the fate of Hellenism in the countries east of the Euphrates. Henceforward Greek culture practically vanishes and gives place to Aramaic. This Aramaic victory was powerfully aided by the ever-increasing progress of Christianity, which soon created an Aramaic literature. After that Greek culture and Greek literature were accessible to the Asians only in an Aramaic dress. Volagases III is probably also the king Valgash, who, according to a native tradition, preserved in the Dinkart, began a collection of the sacred writings of Zoroaster—the origin of the Avesta which has come down to us. This would show how the national Iranian element in the Parthian empire was continually gathering strength.

The Sassanian Empire

That the Arsacid empire should have endured some 400 years after its foundation was a result, not of internal strength, but of chance working in its external development. It might equally well have so existed for centuries more. But under Artabanus V, the catastrophe came. In his days there arose in Persis—precisely as Cyrus had arisen under Astyages the Mede— a great personality. Ardashir I, son of Papak, the descendant of Sasan, was the sovereign of one of the small states into which Persis had gradually fallen. His father Papak had taken possession of the district of Istakhar which had replaced the old Persepolis, long a mass of ruins. Thence Ardashir I, who reigned from about C.E. 212, subdued the neighboring potentates, disposing of his own brothers among the rest. This proceeding quickly led to war with his suzerain Artabanus V. The conflict was protracted through several years, and the Parthians were worsted in three battles. The last of these witnessed the fall of Artabanus, though a Parthian king, Arta. vasdes—one of the sons of Artabanus V—who is known to us only from his own coins, appears to have retained a portion of the empire for some time longer. The member of the Arsacid line who fell into the hands of the victor were put to death ; a number of the princes found refuge in Armenia, where the Arsacid dynasty maintained itself till 429. The remainder of the vassal states were ended by Ardashir ; and the autonomous desert fortress of Hatra in Mesopotamia was destroyed by his son Shapur I, according to the Persian and Arabian traditions. The victorious Ardashir then took possession of the palace of Ctesi­phon and assumed the title “King of the kings of the Iranians.”

The new empire founded by Ardashir I—the Sassanian, or Neo-Persian empire—is essentially different from that of his Arsacid predecessors. It is, rather, a continuation of the Achaemenid traditions which were still alive on their native soil. Consequently the national impetus—already clearly revealed in the title of the new sovereign—again becomes strikingly manifest. The Sassanian empire, in fact, is once more a national Persian or Iranian empire. The religious element is, of course, inseparable from the national, and Ardashir, like all the dynasts of Persis, was an ardent devotee of the Zoroastrian doctrine, and closely connected with the preiesthood. In his royal style he assumed the designtaion “Mazdayasnian,” and Zoroastrianism was everywhere vigorously disseminated. Simultaneously the old claims to world dominion made their reappearance. After the defeat of Artabanus, Ardashir, as heir of the Achaemenids, formulated his pretensions to the dominion of western Asia. He attacked Armenia, though without permanent success and despatched his armies against Roman Mesopotamia. They strayed as far as Syria and Cappadocia. The inner decay of the Roman empire, and the widespread tendency of its troops to mutiny and usurpation, favoured his enterprise. Nevertheless, the armies of Alexander Severus, supported by the king of Armenia, succeeded in repelling the Persians, though the Romans sustained severe losses. Towards the end of his reign Ardashir resumed the attack ; while his son Shapur I reduced Nisibis and Carrhae and penetrated into Syria, but was defeated by Gordian III at Resaena. Soon afterwards, however, the Roman empire seemed to collapseutterly. The Goths defeated Decius and harried the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor, while insurrections broke out everywhere and the legions created one Caesar after the other. Then Shapur resumed the war, subdued Armenia and plundered Antioch. The emperor Valerian, who marched to encounter him, was overthrown at Edessa and taken prisoner. The Persian armies advanced into Cappadocia ; but here Ballista or Balista beat them back, and Odaenathus, prince of Pal­myra, rose in their rear, defeated Shapur, captured his harem, and twice forced his way to Ctesiphon. Shapur was in no position to repair the defeat, or even to hold Armenia; so that the Sassanid power failed to pass the bounds of the Arsacid empire. Nevertheless, Shapur I, in contrast to his father, assumed the title “King of the kings of the Iranians and non-Iranians,” thus emphasizing his claim to world dominion. His successors retained the designation, little as it corresponded to the facts, for the single non-Iranian land governed by the Sassanids was, as under the Parthians, the district of the Tigris and Euphrates as far as the Mesopotamian desert ; western and northern Mesopotamia remained Roman.

Organization

The Sassanid ruler is the representative of the “kingly Majesty,” derived from Ormuzd, which appears in the Avesta as the angel Kavaem Hvareno, “the royal glory,” and, according to legened, once beamed in the Iranian kings, unattainable to all but those of royal blood. A sculp­ture, which frequently recurs in the rock-reliefs of Ardashir I and Shapur 1, represents the king and the god Ormuzd both on horseback, the latter in the act of handing to his companion the ring of sovereignty. Thus it is explicable that all the Sassanids, as many of the Arsacids before them, include the designation of “god” in their formal style. From this de­veloped that strict principle of legitimacy which is still vigorous in Firdousi. The person of the individual ruler is a matter of indifference. He can readily be removed and replaced by another ; but no usurper who was not of the legitimate blood can hope to become the genuine king. Therefore tradition carries the Sassanid line back to the Achaemenids and, still further, to the kings of the legendary period.

Officially the king is all-powerful, and his will, which is guided by God and bound up in His law, unfettered. Thus, externally, he is surrounded by all the splendour of sovereignty, on his head he wears a great and resplendent crown, varying with each different ruler ; he is clothed in gold and jewels ; round him is a brilliant court,' composed of his submissive servants. Among his people he is accounted the fairest, strongest and wisest man of the empire; and from him is required the practice of all piety and virture, as well as skill in the chase and in arms —especially the bow. Ardashir I, moreover, and his successors endeavored to establish the validity of the royal will by absorbing the vassal states and instituting a firmer organization. Nevertheless they failed to attain the complete independence and power of the Achaemenids, Not strong enough to break up the nobility, with its great estates, they were forced to utilize its services and still further to promote its interests ; while their dependence on its good will and assistance led inevitably to incessant gifts of money, lands and men. This state of affairs had also prevailed under the later Achaemenids, and has materi­ally contributed to the disintegration of the empire and the numerous insurrections of the satraps.

But the older Achaemenids held an entirely different position ; and hardly a single Sassanid enjoyed even that degree of power which was still retained by the later Achaemenids. It was of fundamental impor­tance that the Sassanian empire could not make good its claim to world dominion; and, in spite of the title of its kings, it always remained essentially the kingdom of Iran—or rather West Iran, together with the districts on the Tigris and Euphrates. This fact, again, is most closely connected with its military and administrative organisation. The external and internal conditions of the empire are in mutual reaction upon one another. The empire, which in extent did not exceed that of the Arsacids with its vassal states, was protected on the east and west by the great deserts of central Iran and Mesopotamia. For the defence of these provinces the mounted archers, who formed the basis of the army, possessed adequate strength ; and though the Scythian nomads from the east, or the Romans from the west, might occasionally penetrate deep into the country, they never succeeded in maintaining their position. But the power of the neo-Persian empire was not great enough for further con-quests, though its army was capable and animated by a far stronger national feeling than that of the Parthians. It still consisted, however, of levies from the retinue of the magnates led by their territorial lords; and, although these troops would stream in at the beginning of a war, they could not be kept permanently together. For, on the one hand, they were actuated by the most varied personal interests and antipathies, not all of which the king could satisfy; on the other hand he could not, owing to the natural character and organization of his dominions, maintain and pay a large army for any length of time. Thus the great hosts soon melted away, and a war, begun successfully, ended ingloriously and often disastrously. Under such circumstances an elaborate tactical organization employing different species of arms, or the execution of a comprehensive plan of campaign, was out of question. The successes of the Sassanids in the east were gained in the later period of their dominion; and the Roman armies, in spite of decay in discipline and military spirit, still remained their tactical and strategical superiors. A great victory might be won—even an emperor might be captured, like Valerian—but immediately afterwards successes, such as those gained against Shapur I by Ballista and Odaenathus of Palmyra, or the later victories of Carus, Julian and others demonstrated how far the Persians were from being on an equality with the Romans. That Babylonia per­manently remained a Sassanian province was due chiefly to the geogra­phical conditions and to the political situation of the Roman empire, not to the strength of the Persians.

Among the magnates six great houses —seven, if we include the royal house—were still regarded as the foremost, precisely as under the Achae­menids, and from these were drawn the generals, crown officials and governors. In the last of the these positions we frequently find princes of the blood, who then bear the royal title. Some of these houses—whose origin the legends derive from King Gushtasp, the protector of Zoroaster—already existed under the Arsacids, and Karen who had obvious­ly embraced the cause of the victorious dynasty at the correct moment and so retained their position. The name Pahalvan, moreover, which denoted the Parthian magnates, passed over into the new empire. Below there was an inferior nobility, the dihkans and the “knights”; who, as among the Parthians, took the field in heavy scale-armour. To an even greater extent than under the Arsacids, the empire was subdivided into a host of small provinces, at the head of each being a Marzban. These were again comprised in four great districts. With each of these local potentates the king could deal with as scant consideration as he pleased, always provided that he had the power or understood the art of making himself feared. But to break through the system or replace it by another was impossible. In fact he was compelled to proceed with great caution whenever he wished to elevate a favourite of humbler origin to an office which custom reserved for the nobility. Thus it is all the more worthy of recognition that the Sassanian empire was a fairly orderly empire, with an excellent legal administration, and that the later sovereigns did their utmost to repress the encroachments of the nobility, to protect the commonalty and to carry out a just system of taxation.

Religious Development

Side by side with the nobles ranked the spiritual chiefs, now a far 'fore powerful body than under the Arsacids. Every larger district had its upper Magian. At their head was the supreme Mobed, resident in Rhagae, who was regarded as the successor of Zoroaster. In the new empire, of which the king and people were alike zealous professors of the true faith, their influence was extraordinarily strong comparable to the influence of the priesthood in later Egypt, and especially in Byzantium and mediaeval Christendom. As has already been indicated, it was in their religious attitudes that the essential difference lay bet­ween the Sassanid empire and the older Iranian states. But, in details, the fluctuations were so manifold that it is necessary at this point to enter more fully into the history of Persian religion.

The Persian religion spread more and more widely after the Achaemenian period. In the Indo-Scythian empire the Persian gods were zealously worshipped; in Armenia the old national religion was almost entirely banished by the Persian cults; in Cappadocia, North Syria and the west of Asia Minor, the Persian gods were everywhere adored side by side with the native deities. It was in the 3rd century that the cult of Mithras, with its mysteries and a theology evolved from Zoroastrianism, attained the widest diffusion in all Latin-speaking pro­vinces of the Roman dominion; and it even seemed for a while as though the Sol invictus Mithras, highly favoured by the Caesars, would' become the official deity-in-chief of the empire. But in all these cults, the Persian gods are perfectly tolerant of other native or foreign divini­ties; vigorous as was their propagandism, it was yet equally far removed from an attack on other creeds. Thus this Parseeism alway bears a syncretic character ; and the supreme god of Zoroastrian theory, Ahura Mazda, in practice yields place to his attendant deities, who work in the world and are able to lead the believer, who has bee initiated and keeps the commandments of purity, to salvation.

But meanwhile, in its Iranian home and especially in Persis, the religion of Zoroaster lived a quiet life, undisturbed by the proceedings of the outside world. Here the poems of the prophet and fragments of ancient religious literature survived, understood by the Magians and rendered accessible to the faithful laity by versions in the modern dialect. Here the opposition between the good spirit of light and the demons of evil—between Ormuzd and Ahriman—still remained the principal dogma of the creed; while all other gods and angels, however estimable their aid, were but subordinate servants of Ormuzd, whose highest manifestation on earth was not the sun god Mithras, but the holy fire guarded by his priests. Here all the prescriptions of purity — partly connected with national customs, and impossible of execution abroad—were diligently observed; and even the injunction not to pollute earth with corpses, but to cast out the dead to vulture and dog, was obeyed in its full force. At the same time Ahura Mazda preserved his character as a national god, who bestowed on his worshippers victory and world dominion. In the sculptures of the Sassanids, as also in Armenian traditions, he appears on horseback as a war god. Here, again, the theology was further developed, and an attempt made to annul the old dualism by envisaging both Ormuzd and Ahriman as emanations of an original principle of Zervan, inifinite time, a doctrine which long enjoyed official validity under the Sassanids till, in the reign of Chosroes I, the sect of Zervanities was pronounced heretical. But, above all, the ritual and the doctrine of purity were elaborated and expanded, and there was evolved a complete and detailed system of casuistry, dealing with all things allowed and forbidden, the forms of pollution and the expiation of each, etc., which, in its arid and spiritless monotony, vividly recalls the similar prescriptions in the Pentateuch. The consequences of this development were that literal obedience to all priestly injunctions now assumed an importance far greater than previously; hence-forward, the great commandment of Zoroastrianism, as of Judaism, is to combat the heresies of the heathen, a movement which had already had an energetic representative in the prophet himself. Heathenish cults and forbidden manners and customs are a pollution to the land and a deep insult to the true God. There-fore the duty of the believer is to combat and destroy the unbeliever and the heretic.

Such were the views in which Ardashir I grew up, and in their energetic prosecution he found a potent instrument for the building up of his empire. It has previously been mentioned that Volagases III had already begun a collection of the holy writings; and the task was resumed under Ardashir. At his order the orthodox doctrines and texts were compiled by the high priest Tansar; all divergent theories were prohibited and their adherents proscribed. Thus arose the Avesta, the sacred book of the Parsees. Above all, the sacred book of laws, the Vendidad, breathes throughout the spirit of the Sassanian period. Subscription to the restored orthodox doctrine was to the Iranian a matter of course. The schismatics Ardashir imprisoned for a year; if, at its expiration, they still refused to listen to reason, and remained stiff-necked, they were executed. It is even related that, in his zeal for uniformity of creed, Ardashir wished to extinguish the holy fires in the great cities of the empire and the Parthian vassal states, with the exception of that which burned in the residence of the dynasty. This plan he was unable to execute. In Armenia, also, Ardashir and Shapur, during the period of their occupation, sought to introduce the Orthodox religion, destroyed the heathen images—even those of the Iranian gods which were here considered heathen—and turned the shrine into fire altars. Shapur I, who appears to have had a broader outlook, added to the religious writings a collection of scientific treatises on medicine, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, zoology, etc., partly from Indian and Greek sources.

A short time afterwards, the Roman empire followed the example of the Sassanids and attempted to enforce unity of creed on all sub. jests: with Devious began the systematic persecution of the Christians. For, meanwhile, the Christian religion had spread far in east and west with an equally zealous propagandism and an equal exclusiveness and intolerance. In the countries of the Tigris and Euphrates, now alto. gether Aramaic, Christianity had everywhere gained a firm footing. But its missionary enterprise stretched over the whole of Iran, and even farther. The time was come when, in the western and eastern worlds alike, the religious question was for large masses of people the most important question in life, and the diffusion of their own creed and the suppression of all others the highest and holiest of tasks. The man who thinks thus knows no compromise, and so Zoroastrianism and Christianity confronted each other as mortal enemies. Still the old idea that every religion contained a portion of the truth, and that it was possible to borrow something from one and amalgamate it with another, had not yet lost all its power. From such a conception arose the teaching of Mani or Manes. Our knowledge of Manichaeism has been greatly in-creased by the discovery of many fragments of its literature in Eastern Turkistan; but they all are surpassed in importance by a large Chinese manuscript in the British Museum containing translations of Manichaean hymns and ritual. We can now clearly see that Manichaeism originated from a Gnostic sect. Mani, a Persian from Babylonia, pro-claimed himself as the last and greatest apostle of Jesus and as the Paraclete announced in the Gospel of John. But with the Gnostic in­terpretation of the Gospel he tried to combine doctrines of Zoroaster and of Jesus to create a new universal religion. He is said to have made his first appearance as a teacher on the coronation day of Shapur I. At all events he found numerous adherents, both at court and among the great of the empire. The king, even, was impressed,. until in a great decisive debate the Magians gained the uppre hand., Nonetheless Mani found means to diffuse his creed far and wide over the whole empire. Even the heir to the throne, Hormuzd I, was favour-ably disposed to him; but Shapur's younger son, Bahram I, yielded to) sacerdotal pressure, and Mani was executed. After that Manichaeism was persecuted and extirpated in Iran. Yet it maintained itself not , merely in the west, where its head resided at Babylon—propagatingthence far into the Roman empire—but also in the east, in Khurasan and beyond the bounds of the Sassanian dominion. There the seat of its pontiff was at Samarkand; thence it penetrated into central Asia where, buried in the desert sands which entomb the cities of eastern Turkistan, numerous fragments of the works of Mani and his disciples, in the Persian language and Syrian script, and in an east Iranian dialect called Sogdian, which was used by the Manichaeans of central Asia, have been discovered.

Art and Literature

Like the Arsacids, the kings resided in Ctesiphon where at least part of the great vaulted hall of the vast palace built by Chosroes I is still standing. On the ruins of Seleucia, on the opposite bank of the Tigris, Ardashir I built the city of Veh-Ardashir, and later kings made various additions to it. In Susiana, where the ancient capital of the Persian empire had been, Shapur I built the great city of Gunde-Shapur. Meanwhile, Iran itself was regaining its old prestige, especially the new capital, Istakhr, immediately adjacent to the Achaemenid ruins of Persepolis. Farther to the southeast, Ardashir I also built Gur, so called from the Sassanian name Ardashir-Khurre. On these sites, and others in Fars, in Khuzistan, Iraq-i-Arab and scattered places are Sassanian ruins in which were combined Parthian elements, Achaemenid details and typical Sassanian features. These buildings served in turn as models for the structures of the caliphs.

After its long quiescence under the Arsacids, native art under-went a general renaissance which, though not aspiring to the Achaeme­nian creations, was still of no small importance. Of the Sassanian rock sculptures, some have already been mentioned; besides these, numerous intaglio stamp seals have been preserved. The metalwork, carpets and fabrics of this period enjoyed a high reputation ; they were widely distributed and greatly influenced western art and the Greek language. Ardashir I and Shapur I still appended Greek translations to some of their inscriptions; but all of later date are written in Pahalvi alone. The coins invariably bear a Pahalvi legend—on the obverse, the king's head with his name and title, on the reverse, a fire altar, and the name of the place of coinage, usually abbreviated. Elements of western culture were still brought in by the Aramaeans who were connected with the west by their Christianity and in their translations diffused Greek literature in Asia. But there also develop­ed a rather extensive Pahlavi literature, beginning with the translations of the sacred books, though not limited to religious subjects but including works in belles lettres, modernizations of the old Iranian epics and native traditions, e.g., the surviving fabulous history of Ardashir I, ethical tales, etc. with translations of foreign literature, principally Indian—one instance being the celebrated book of tales Kalilah and Dimnah dating from Chosroes I, in whose reign chess also was introduced from India.

In foreign policy the problems under the Sassanian kings remained, as of old, the defence and when possible, the expansion of the eastern and western frontiers. In the first two centuries of the Sassanian empire we hear practically nothing of its relations with the east. Only occasional notices show that the inroads of the Asian nomads had not ceased, and that the extent of the empire had by no means exceeded the bounds of the Parthian dominion—Sacastene and western Afghanistan.

Far to the east, on both sides of the Indus, the Kushan empire was still in existence, though it was already hastening to decay, and about C.E. 320 was displaced from its position in India by the Gupta dynasty. In the west the old conflict for Osroene and northern Meso­potamia, with the fortresses of Edessa, Carrhae and Nisibis, still smouldered. Armenia the Sassanids were all the more eager to regain, since there the Arsacid dynasty still survived and turned for protec­tion to Rome, with whom, in consequence, new wars perpetually broke out. In the reign of Bahram II, the emperor Carus, burning to avenge the disaster of Valerian, penetrated into Mesopotamia without meeting opposition and reduced Coche and Ctesiphon; but his sudden death, in December of 283, prevented further success, and the Roman army returned home. Bahram, however, was unable to effect anything, as his brother Hormuzd was in arms, supported by the Sacae and other tribes. He chose, consequently, to buy peace with Diocletian by means of presents. After his death, his uncle Narses was forced by his nobles to rebel against Bahram III and gained the crown. In memory of his victory he erected a great tower in the mountains west of the upper Diyala, at Paikuli, discovered in 1843 by Rawlinson and explored in three expeditions by Herzfeld. It is covered with his busts and with a long inscription in the two forms of Pahlavi writing, the Parthian and the Persian, of which many blocks have been preserved. It con- r tained an account of the way in which he defeated his opponent, and gives at the end a long list of the kings and dynasts who sent embassies of congratulation at his accession, headed by the Kushan, Shah of India and the Caesar of Rome. From this list we see that the east of Iran did not belong to the empire, but was ruled by a great many local dynasts, some of whom, just as the kings of the Arabic tribes in Babylonia, may have acknowledged the suzerainty of the Sassanids. After his victory, Narses occupied Armenia and defeated the emperor Galerius at Callinicum. But in the following year he sustained a severe reverse in Armenia, in which he lost his war chest and harem. He then concluded a peace, by the terms of which Armenia remained under him, with Singara and the hill-country on the left bank of the Tigris as far as Gordyene, ceded to the victor. In return Narses regained his household. This peace, ratified in 297 and completely expelling the Sassanids from the disputed districts, lasted for 40 years.

After the death of Hormuzd II, the son of Narses, the nobles im­prisoned or put to death his adult sons, one of whom, Hormisdas, later escaped to the Romans, who used him as a pretender in their wars. Shapur II, a posthumous child of the late king, was raised to the throne, proof that the great nobles held the sovereignty in their own hands and attempted to order matters at their own pleasure. Shapur, however, when he came to manhood proved himself an independent and energetic ruler.

Meanwhile the Roman empire had become Christian, the sequel of which was that the Syro-Christian population of Mesopotamia and Babylonia—even more than the Hellenic cities in former times —gravitated to the west and looked to Rome for deliverance from the infidel yoke. On similar grounds Christianity as opposed to Mazda-ism enforced officially by the Sassanids, became predominant in Armenia. Between these two great creeds the old Armenian religion was unable to hold its own; as early as 294 King Tiridates was converted by Gregory the Illuminator and adopted the Christian faith. For this very reason the Sassanid empire was the more constrained to champion Zoroastrianism, It was under Shapur II that the compilation of the Avesta was completed and the state orthodoxy perfected by the Chief Mobed, Aturpad. All heresy was proscribed by the state, defec­tion from the true faith pronounced a capital crime, and the persecution of the heterodox—particularly the Christians—began. Thus the duel between the two great empires now becomes simultaneously a duel between the two religions.

In such a position of affairs a fresh war with Rome was inevitable. It was begun by Shapur in 337, the year that saw the death of Constantine the Great. The conflict centred round the Mesopotamian for-tresses, Shapur thrice besieged Nisibis without success, but reduced several others and transplanted great masses of inhabitants into Susiana. The emperor Constantius conducted the war feebly and was consistently beaten in the field. But in spite of all, Shapur found it impossible to penetrate deeper into the Roman territory. He was hampered by the attack of nomadic tribes in the east, among whom the Chionites now begin to be mentioned. Year after year he took the field against them, till finally he compelled them to support him with auxiliaries. With this war is evidently connected the foundation of the great town New-Shapur in Khurasan.

By the resolution of Julian to begin an energetic attack on the Persian empire, the conflict, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, assumed a new phase. Julian pressed forward to Ctesiphon but succum bed to a wound ; and his successor Jovian soon found himself in such straits that he could only extricate himself and his army by a disgrace­ful peace at the close of 363, which ceded the possessions on the Tigris and the great fortress of Nisibis, and pledged Rome to abandon Ar­menia and her Arsaces protege, Arsaces III, to the Persian.

Shapur endeavoured to occupy Armenia and introduce the Zoroastrian orthodoxy. He captured Arsaces III by treachery and compelled him to commit suicide; but the Armenian magnates proved refractory, placed Arsaces' son Pap on the throne, and found secret support among the Romans. This all but led to a new war; but in 374 Valens sacrificed Pap and had him killed in Tarsus. The subsequent invasions of the Goths, in battle with whom Valens fell at Adrianople, definitely precluded Roman intervention ; and the Armenian troubles ended when Bahram IV and Theodosius the Great concluded a treaty abandoning the extreme west of Armenia to the Romans and confirming the re­mainder in the Persian possession. Thus Yazdegerd I contracted an alliance with Theodosius II. In Armenia the Persians immediately removed the last kings of the house of Arsaces, and thenceforward the main portion of the country remained a Persian province under the control of a marzban, though the Armenian nobles still made repeated attempts at insurrection. The introduction of Zoroastrianism was abandoned; Christianity was already far too deeply rooted. But the sequel to the Roman sacrifice of Armenian interests was that the Armenian Christians now seceded from the orthodoxy of Rome and Constantinopole, and organised themselves into an independent national church. This church was due, before all, to the efforts of the Catholicos Sahak whose colleague Mesrob, by his translation of the Bible, laid the found­ations of an Armenian literature.

In the interior of the Sassanian empire the old troubles broke out anew on the death of Shapur II. At first the nobles raised his aged brother Ardashir II to the throne, then in 383, however, he was assassinated, as was also his brother, Bahram IV, in 399.. But the son of the latter, Yazdegerd I, was an energetic and intelligent telligent sovereign, who held the nobles within bounds and severely chastised their attempts at encroachment. He even sought to emancipate himself from the Magian Church, put an end to the persecution, and allowed the Persian Christians an individual organization. In the Persian tradition he is consequently known as “the sinner”. In the end he was probably assassinated. So great was the bitterness against him that the nobles would admit none of his sons to the throne. One of them, however, Bahram V, found an auxiliary in the Arab chief Mondhir, who had founded a principality in Hira, west of the lower Euphrates; and, as he pledged himself to govern otherwise than his father, he received general recognition. This pledge he redeemed, and he is, in consequence, the darling of Persian tradition, which bestows on him the title of Gor, and is eloquent on his adventures in chase and in love. This reversal of policy led to a Christian persecution and a new war with Rome. Bahram, however, was worsted ; and in the peace of 422 Persia agreed to allow the Christians free exercise of their religion in the empire, while the same privilege was accorded to Zoroastrianism by Rome. Under his son, Yazdegerd II, who once more revived the perse­cutions of the Christians and the Jews, a short conflict with Rome again ensued, while at the same time war prevailed in the east against the remnants of the Kushan empire and the tribe of Kidarities, also named Huns.

Here a new foe soon arose in the shape of the Epthalites also known as the “White Huns,” a barbaric tribe which shortly after 450 raided Bactria and terminated the Kushana dominion and soon began to extend their invasions into India, where they destroyed the Gupta empire (about 500). These Epthalite attacks harassed and weakened the Sassanids. Peroz I fell in battle against them; his treasures and family were captured and the country devastated far and near. His brother Balash, being unable to repel them, was deposed and blinded, and the crown was bestowed on Kavadh I, the son of Peroz. As the external and internal distress still continued, he was dethroned and imprisoned, but took refuge among the Ephthalites and was restored in 499 by their assistance. To these struggles obviously must be attributed mainly the fact that in the whole of this period no Roman war broke out. But, at the same time, the religious duel had lost in intensity, since, among the Persian Christians, the Nestorian doctrine was now dominant. Peroz had already favoured the diffusion of Nestorianism, and in 483 it was officially adopted by a synod, after which it remained the Christian Church of the Persian empire, its head being the Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon.

Kavadh proved himself a vigorous ruler. On his return he restored order in the interior. In 502 he attacked the Romans and captured and destroyed Amida, but was compelled to ratify a peace owing to an inroad of the Huns. Toward the close of his reign he resumed the war defeating Belisarius at Callinicum, with the zealous support of the Arab Mondhir II of Hira. On his death his son Chosroes I concluded a peace with Justinian pledging the Romans to an annual subsidy for the maintenance of the Caucasus fortresses. In his home policy Kavadh is reminiscent of Yazdegerd I. Like him he had little inclination to the orthodox church, and favoured Mazdak, the founder of a communistic sect which had made headway among the people and might be used as a weapon against the nobles, of whom Mazdak demanded that they should cut down their luxury and distribute their superfluous wealth, The crown-prince, Chosroes, was, on the other hand, wholly orthodox; and, towards the close of his father's reign, in conjunction with the chief Magian, he carried through the condemnation of the Mazdakites, wh were butchered in a great massacre. Chosroes I, surnamed Anushirva then restored the orthodox doctrine in full, publishing his decision in a religious edict. At the same time he produced the official exposition of the Avesta, and exegetical translation in the popular tongue, and declared its contents binding. Defection from Zoroastrianism was punished with death, and therefore also the proselytizing of the Chris­tians, though the Syrian martyrologies prove that the king frequently ignored these proceedings so long as it was at all possible to do so.

Chosroes I was one of the most illustrious sovereigns of the Sassanian empire. From him dates a new and equitable adjustment of the imperial taxation, which was later adopted by the Arabs. His reputation as an enlightened ruler stood so high that when Justinian, in 529, closed the school of Athens, the last Neoplatonists bent their steps to him in hopes of finding in him the true philosopher-king. Their disillusionment, inde ed, was speedy and complete, and their gratitude was great, when, by the conditions of the armistice of 549, he allowed their return. From. 540 onward he conducted a great war against Justinian, which, thou interrupted by several armistices, lasted till the 50 years' peace of 562, The net result, indeed, was merely to restore the status quo; but during the campaign Chosroes sacked Antioch and transplanted the population to a new quarter of Ctesiphon. He also extended his power to the Black Sea and the Caucasus; on the other hand, a seige of Edessa failed. A second war broke out in 577, chiefly on the question of Armentia and the Caucasus territory. In this Chosroes ravaged Cappa­docia in 575; but the campaign in Mesopotamia was unsuccessful. In the interval between these two struggles, he despatched assistance to the Arabs of Yemen, who had been assailed and subdued by the Abyssinian Christians; after which period Yemen remained nominally under Persian suzerainty till its fate was sealed by the conquests of Islam.

Meanwhile, about C.E. 560, a new nation had spung up in the east, the Turks. Chosroes concluded an alliance with them against the Ephthalites and so conquered Bactria south of the Oxus, with its capital Balkh. Thus this province, which, since the insurrection of Diodotus in 250 B.C., had undergone entirely different vicissitudes from the rest of Iran, was once more united to an Iranian empire, and the Sassanid dominions, for the first time, passed the frontiers of the Arsacids. This, however, was the limit of their expansion. Neither the territories north of the Oxus, nor eastern Afghanistan and the Indus provinces, were ever subject to them. That the alliance with the Turks should soon change to hostility and mutual attack was inevitable from the nature of the case; in the second Roman war the Turkish Khan was leagued with Rome.

Chosroes bequeathed this war to his son Hormuzd IV who in spite of repeated negotiations, failed to re-establish peace. Hormuzd had not the ability to retain the authority of his father, and he further affront­ed the Magian priesthood by declining to proceed against the Chris­tians and by requiring that, in his empire, both religions should dwell together in peace. Eventually, he succumbed to a conspiracy of his nobles, at whose head stood the general Bahram Cobin, who had defeated the Turks, but afterwards was beaten by the Romans. Hormuzd's son, Chosroes II, was set up against his father and forced to acquiesce in his execution. But immedately new risings broke out, in which Bahram Cobin—though not of the royal line - attempted to secure the crown, while simultaneously a Prince Bistam entered the lists. Chosroes fled to the Romans and the emperor Maurice undertook his restoration at the head of a great army. The people flocked to his standard; Bahram Cobin was routed and fled to the Turks, who slew him, and Chosroes once more ascended the throne of Ctesiphon; Bistam held out in Media till 596. Maurice made no attempt to turn the opportunity to Roman advantage, and in the peace then concluded he even abandoned Nisibis to the Persians.

Chosroes II is distinguished by the surname of Parviz, though, in point of fact, he was immeasurably inferior to a powerful sovereign like his grandfather, or even to a competent general. He lived, however, to witness unparalleled vicissitudes of fortune. The assassination of Maurice in 602 impelled him to a war of revenge against Rome, in the course of which his armies—in 608 and, again, in 615 and 626—penetrated as far as Chalcedon opposite Constantinople, ravaged Syria, reduced Antioch, Damascus, and Jerusalem, and carried off the holy cross to Ctesiphon; In 619 Egypt was occupied. Meanwhile, the Roman empire was at the lowest ebb. The great emperor Heraclius, who assumed the crown in 610, took years to create the nucleus of a new military power. This done he took the field in 623, and repaid the Persians with interest. Their armies were everywhere defeated. In 624 he penetrated into Atropatene, and there destroyed the great fire temple; in 627 he advanced into the Tigris provinces. Chosroes attempted no resistance, but fled from his residence at Dastagerd to Ctesiphon. These proceedings, in conjunction with the avarice and license of the king, led to revolution. Chosroes was deposed and slain by his son Kavadh II; but the parricide died in a few months and absolute chaos resulted. A whole list of kings and pretenders—among them the general Shahrbaraz and Boran, a daughter of Chosroes—followed rapidly on one another, until finally the nobles united and, in 632, elevated a child to the throne, Yazdegerd III, grandson of Chosroes. In the interval—presum­ably in the reign of Queen Boran—peace was concluded with Heraclius, the old frontier being apparently restored. The cross had already been given back to the emperor.

Thus the 100 years' struggle between Rome and Persia, which had begun in 527 with the attack of the first Kavadh on Justinian, had run its fruitless course, utterly enfeebling both empires and consuming their powers. Room was given to a new power which now arose between both states and both religions—the Arabs and Islam. In the same year that saw the coronation of Yazdegerd III—the beginning of 633—the first Arab squadrons made their entry into Persian territory. After several encounters there ensued the battle of Kadisiya, fought on one of the Euphrates canals, where the fate of the Sassanian empire was decided. A little previously, in the August of 636, Syria had fallen in a battle on the Yarmuk, and in 639 the Arabs penetrated into Egypt. The field of Kadisiya laid Ctesiphon, with all its treasures, at the mercy of the victor. The king fled to Media, where his generals attempted to organize the resistance; but the battle of Nihavand decided matters there. Yazdegerd sought refuge in one province after the other till at last, in 651, he was assassinated in Merv.

Thus ended the empire of the Sassanid. By 650 the Arabs had occupied every province to Balkh and the Oxus. Only in the secluded districts of northern Media, the “generals” of the house of Karen maintained themselves for a century as vassals of the caliphs.