CHAPTER VIII.

Of the State of Persia after the Restoration of the Monarchy by Artaxerxes.

The barbarians of the East and of the North.

WHENEVER Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes in which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention of the reader from a uniform scene of vice and misery. From the reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus, the enemies of Rome were in her bosom-the tyrants and the soldiers; and her prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates. But when the military order had levelled in wild anarchy the power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the North and of the East, who had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the provinces of a declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were changed into formidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude of mutual calamities, many tribes of the victorious invaders established themselves in the provinces of the Roman empire. To obtain a clearer knowledge of these great events, we shall endeavor to form a previous idea of the character, forces, and designs of those nations who avenged the cause of Hannibal and Mithridates.

Revolutions

In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that covered Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the inhabitants of Asia were already collected of Asia. into populous cities, and reduced under extensive empires, the seat of the arts, of luxury, and of despotism. The Assyrians reigned over the East' till the sceptre of Ninus

1 An ancient chronologist quoted by Velleius Paterculus (1. i. c. 6) observes that the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Macedonians reigned over Asia one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five years, from the accession of Ninus to

and Semiramis dropped from the hands of their enervated successors. The Medes and the Babylonians divided their power, and were themselves swallowed up in the monarchy of the Persians, whose arms could not be confined within the narrow limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by two millions of men, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece. Thirty thousand soldiers, under the command of Alexander, the son of Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory and revenge, were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the House of Seleucus usurped and lost the Macedonian command over the East. About the same time that by an ignominious treaty they resigned to the Romans the country on this side Mount Taurus, they were driven by the Parthians, an obscure horde of Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper Asia. The formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India to the frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir or Artaxerxes, the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name of Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs. This great revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced by the Romans, happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus, two hundred and twenty-six years after the Christian era.'

Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of Artaban, the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that The Persian he was driven into exile and rebellion by royal in restored by gratitude, the customary reward for superior merit. Artaxerxes. His birth was obscure, and the obscurity equally gave room to the aspersions of his enemies and the flattery

monarchy

the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans. As the latter of these great events happened 289 years before Christ, the former may be placed 2184 years before the same era. The Astronomical Observations, found at Babylon by Alexander, went fifty years higher.

See

2 In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the era of Seleucus. Agathias, 1. ii. [c. 27] p. 65 [ed. Paris; p. 123, ed. Bonn]. This great event (such is the carelessness of the Orientals) is placed by Eutychius as high as the tenth year of Commodus; and by Moses of Chorene as low as the reign of Philip. Ammianus Marcellinus has so servilely copied (xxiii. 6) his ancient materials, which are indeed very good, that he describes the family of the Arsacides as still seated on the Persian throne in the middle of the fourth century.

of his adherents. If we credit the scandal of the former, Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a tanner's wife with a common soldier. The latter represent him as descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persia, though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his ancestors to the humble station of private citizens. As the lineal heir of the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression under which they groaned above five centuries since the death of Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. In the last of these their king, Artaban, was slain, and the spirit of the nation was forever broken. The authority of Artaxerxes was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch, in Khorasan. Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces were confounded among the prostrate satraps. A third, more mindful of ancient grandeur than of present necessity, attempted to retire, with a numerous train of vassals, towards their kinsman, the King of Armenia; but this little army of deserters was intercepted and cut off by the vigilance of the conqueror," who boldly assumed the double diadem and the title of King of Kings which had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian, served only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his soul the ambition of restoring, in their full splendor, the religion and empire of Cyrus.

I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedo

3 The tanner's name was Babec; the soldier's, Sassan: from the former, Artaxerxes obtained the surname of Babegan; from the latter, all his descendants have been styled Sassanides.

4 D'Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, Ardshir.

5 Dion Cassius, 1. lxxx. [c. 3]. Herodian, 1. vi. [c. 2] p. 207. Abulpharagius Dynast. p. 80.

See Moses Chorenensis, 1. ii. c. 65–71.

a In the plain of Hoormuz the son of Babek was hailed in the field with the proud title of Shahan Shah, king of kings, a name ever since assumed by the sovereigns of Persia. Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 71.—M.

See the Persian account of the rise of Ardeschir Babegan in Malcolm, i. 69. -M.

Reformation

religion.

nian and the Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually adopted and corrupted each other's of the Magian superstitions. The Arsacides, indeed, practised the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. The memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the Persians,' was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and mysterious language in which the Zendavesta was composed opened a field of dispute to seventy sects, who va

Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends and their own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent Zoroaster as a contemporary of Darius Hystaspis. But it is sufficient to observe, that the Greek writers who lived a most in the age of Darius agree in placing the era of Zoroaster many hundred, or even thousand, years before their own time. The judicious criticism of Mr. Moyle perceived, and maintained against his uncle, Dr. Prideaux, the antiquity of the Persian prophet. See his work, vol. ii.a

That ancient idiom was called the Zend. The language of the commentary, the Pehlvi, though much more modern, has ceased many ages ago to be a living tongue. This fact alone (if it is allowed as authentic) sufficiently warrants the antiquity of those writings which M. d'Anquetil has brought into Europe, and translated into French.

a Zoroaster, called Zarathustra in the Zendavesta, and Zerdusht by the Persians, is universally represented as the founder of the Magian religion; but the most opposite opinions have been held both by ancient and modern writers respecting the time in which he lived. In the Zendavesta, Zarathustra is said to have lived in the reign of Vitaçpa, called Gushtasp by the Persians, who belonged to the dynasty of the Kâvja, or, as they are called in modern Persian, the Kayanians. This Gushtasp has been frequently identified with Darius Hystaspis; but a more critical examination of the Zendavesta has proved, almost beyond question, that the religion of Zarathustra arose in the eastern parts of Iran, in the countries of Margiana, Bactria, and Sogdiana, from whence it spread to the western districts of Iran. The date of the prophet cannot be assigned with certainty; but he must have lived before the Persian dynasty, perhaps about B.C. 800. See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. i. p. 752 seq.; Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums, vol. ii. p. 307 seq.-S.

Both the Zend and the Pehlvi belong to the Indo-European family of languages. The Zend was spoken in the eastern part of Iran, and bears a close resemblance to the Sanscrit. The Pehlvi, which was the more modern form of the ancient Persian language, was spoken in the western parts of Iran in the times of the Arsacidæ and the Sassanidæ, and had received many Semitic forms from its proximity to the Semitic languages. The sacred books, which contained the religious system of Zoroaster, were written in Zend, and were called the Zendavesta. According to the tradition of the Parsees, they consisted originally of twenty-one books, but of these only the twentieth is now extant, called the Vendidad. Upon the restoration of the Persian religion by the Sassanidæ, the books of the Zendavesta were collected, and were then translated into Pehlvi, the vernacular language of western Iran, since the Zend was then unintelligible to the people, and probably even to the priests. Anquetil du Perron, who first brought the Zendavesta to

riously explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and were all indifferently derided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected the divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the idolaters, reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers by the infallible decision of a general council, the pious Artaxerxes summoned the Magi from all parts of his dominions. These priests, who had so long sighed in contempt and obscurity, obeyed the welcome summons; and on the appointed day appeared to the number of about eighty thousand. But as the debates of so tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by the authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the Persian synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty thousand, to four thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and at last to seven Magi, the most respected for their learning and piety. One of these, Erdaviraph, a young but holy prelate, received from the hands of his brethren three cups of soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked he related to the king and to the believing multitude his journey to heaven, and his intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced by this supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision. A short delineation of that celebrated system will be found useful, not only to display the character of the Persian nation, but to illustrate many of their most important transactions, both in peace and war, with the Roman empire.1o

9 Hyde de Religione Veterum Pers. ch. 21.

10 I have principally drawn this account from the Zendavesta of M. d'Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr. Hyde's treatise. It must, however, be confessed that the studied obscurity of a prophet, the figurative style of the East, and the

Europe, made his translation from the Pehlvi; but portions of the Zendavesta have been published in the original by Burnouf at Paris, and Olshausen at Hamburg. It was long maintained, even by Oriental scholars, that the Zend was an invention of the Parsee priests; but the genuineness of the language, and its close connection with the Sanscrit, have been proved by Rask, Bohlen. Burnouf, and Bopp, and are now admitted by all Oriental scholars. See Rask, Ueber das Alter und die Echtheit der Zendsprache; Bohlen, de Origine Lingua Zendica; Burnouf, Commentaire sur le Yaçna (a portion of the Vendidad); Bopp, Vergleichende Grammatik; see also Kieuker, Anhang zum Zendavesta.-S.