model of what a government ought to be. We must not, however, forget, that Xenophon served for a long time in the army of Cyrus the Younger, that he had an opportunity, which few other Greeks could have had, of intercourse with the Persian noblemen in that army, and that from them it must have been easy for him to obtain a multitude of anecdotes of the personal history of the great founder of their empire. The time which had elapsed (about 140 years) was not so great but that much of the private history of Cyrus must have been in the memories of his countrymen. Again, Xenophon himself tells us distinctly in the beginning of the Cyropædeia, that having always looked upon Cyrus as a man worthy of renown, he took a pleasure in making inquiries about the race from whom he sprung, his natural disposition, and the manner in which he had been brought up, that he might know by what means he so surpassed other rulers in the administration of his government, and in the authority which he exercised over his people; and that the object of the history he subsequently wrote was to relate the results of such inquiries. We see no reason why this, the deliberate avowal of the historian, should be questioned or his story be deemed Utopian, while we fail to recognise any deep philosophy in the opinion of Cicero, on which the prevailing view has mainly been founded. Even if the object of Xenophon had been to give his idea of a perfect prince or government, there seems no reason why, in taking Cyrus for his model, he should have altered or distorted the leading facts of his life and history. The facts may remain perfectly true and intelligible, even though the portrait of the hero of the tale be a beautiful allegory or a poetical exaggeration. Some difficulties have been made about Dareius the Mede, who is mentioned in the Bible as having been the actual taker of Babylon, and an inference has been drawn somewhat hastily, that as he is not mentioned by Herodotus or Xenophon, therefore their united accounts must not be considered as literally true. It has been thought that "Dareius the Mede" must be Cyaxares, who has been usually considered to be the uncle as well as the fatherin-law of Cyrus; a view which is partly confirmed by the words of the prophecy of Jeremiah, li. 27: "Prepare the nations against her; call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkanaz prepare against her the nations with the kings of the Medes, the captains thereof, and all the rulers thereof," &c., &c.; for it is over these countries that Cyaxares probably ruled. But, be this as it may, it seems not unlikely that a Median prince did interpose between the last of the Babylonian kings and the reign of Cyrus the Persian, but great variance exists among the chronologists as to the exact period in which he ruled. According to Jackson and Hales, the Babylonian monarchy terminated in the 53rd year of the Captivity, and Dareius was on the throne for the remaining seventeen years; but this is at variance with the conclusions we should naturally draw from the Scripture narrative for it appears, in the first place, that he is directly connected with Cyrus by Daniel; while, on the other hand, he is much more likely to have reigned towards the close of the Captivity than at an earlier period. Daniel, ix. 1, 2, states that in the first year of his reign he "understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolation of Jerusalem;" an address which would be natural enough a year or two before the Restoration of the Jews, but would be out of place seventeen or twentytwo years before that event; lastly, the 120 provinces of Dareius correspond to the 120 provinces of Ahasuerus and to the enlarged empire of Cyrus, but would be too great a number for any previous period of the history. In fact, the difference of opinion which has occurred on this subject seems to have arisen from the different accounts extracted from Megasthenes and preserved by Eusebius (Prepar. Evang. ix. 41), and from Berosus, quoted by Josephus (c. Apion. 1). The main question is, whether it is consonant with Sacred and profane history that Dareius should precede Nabonadius; to which view it would seem a radical objection, that if this theory be true, a Median king must be supposed, as stated above, to have reigned at Babylon the long period of seventeen years before its conquest by Cyrus. CHAPTER V. Persia-Traditions and early legendary History-Jamshid-Kai-Khosru (Cyrus) -Comparison of the rise of Cyrus and Chingís- Khán-Account of Herodotus -Death of Cyrus-Cambyses-Pseudo-Smerdis-Invasion of Scythia by Dareius-Story of Aristagoras and Cleomenes-Zoroaster-Particular account of his system of Religion-Xerxes-Dareius Codomannus-Invasion and Conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great-Successors of Alexander -Seleucus and Seleucida-Antiochus Epiphanes-First contact between the Romans and the East-Popillius in Africa-Acilius Glabrio in Ætolia -Rise of the Parthian Empire-The Parthians the greatest opponents Rome ever had Rise of the Sassanians-Ardashír I.—Shahpúr I.-Khosrú Parvíz--Conquest of Persia by the Muhammedans-Ismaíl-ibn-LeisSamanians-Mahmud of Ghaznah-Turcomans-Alp-Arslán-Malik Shah -Huláku and the Moghuls-Tímúr-Sketch of his Life and Conquests— -Safaví Dynasty. HAVING now discussed at some length the history of Assyria and Babylonia from its commencement to the overthrow of Babylon by the army of the Persian Cyrus; with such a notice of the surrounding nations, the Jews, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, as was necessary for the due connexion of our story, we come to the history of Persia, which from this time occupies the place of those elder empires, and which mainly owed the supremacy it so long maintained to the military genius of its founder, Cyrus. Though the Persians have taken much pains to preserve the relics of their early history, the critical student will find comparatively little to reward the labour of perusing their annals, with an almost entire absence of any means of determining the chronology of its earlier period. The original documents have nearly all perished, and the inscriptions at Persepolis and Behistán, with the few incidental notices in Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Herodotus, are almost all that remains of the contemporary history of this ancient people. Of the later writers, Xenophon, Ctesias, and Arrian, we know, indeed, that the last borrowed his materials almost word for word from the accounts of Aristobulus and Ptolemy Lagos, the Generals of Alexander the Great, and that while he himself may therefore, in some degree, be considered as a contemporary writer and eye-witness of the downfall of the Persian Empire, his work is distinguished by much critical judgment, and is full of information. Both the works of Xenophon have their respective value; the Retreat of the Ten Thousand has many details of the interior of the Persian Empire; while the Life of Cyrus is, as Heeren remarks, the only Greek composition which breathes an Oriental spirit. Ctesias was a physician at the court of Artaxerxes, the brother of Cyrus the Younger. During his residence there he obtained an access to the royal archives, from which, with the assistance of some oral information, he compiled his Persian History in Twenty-three Books. Of this work we unfortunately possess but a few fragments, with some extracts made from it by the diligence of Photius. In the earliest times the Persians had not, so far as we know, any historical poet; still less, any one who had devoted himself to the composition of a grave and learned history. What they had of history was such as the despotic nature of their government naturally produced; whatever the king said or did was deemed worthy of record: hence scribes and secretaries (like the modern Mirzas) attended continually at his side, and registered his words and his actions. They were present with the monarch at festivals, reviews, and even in the field of battle,* and noted down the words which fell from him on such occasions. Nor was this institution peculiar to the Persians, but appears to have prevailed, more or less, among most of the Asiatic nations. The king's scribes are mentioned in the earliest records of the Moghul Conquerors; and, in modern times, Hyder Ali used to appear in public surrounded by forty such secretaries. Such was probably the original form of the chronicles deposited at Susa, Babylon, and Ecbatana. The histories compiled from them were most likely the records of the court, rather than of the people; containing private conversations and personal anecdotes,† such as those which Herodotus has from time to time preserved. Owing to the want of any such recognised history it is, that when we come to the later times of Persia as a Muhammedan country, we discover, not only innumerable contradictions, but a completely different account. Among the later writers, the most eminent are, the historical poet Firdúsi, and Mirkhond and his son Khondemir. The memorials which they have preserved are derived partly from written records, and partly from traditions which have lived from all time in the East. Such records are, indeed, not * Esther, iii. 12; viii. 8, 9; Ezra, vi. 1; Herod., vii. 100; viii. 99. Esther, vi. 1, 2; Herod., vii. 100; vi. 98. without their importance, in so far as they acquaint us with the opinions entertained by existing nations, respecting the history of their forefathers, and give us the view prevailing among the Orientals themselves. The actual amount of history they contain may often be small, as we have no means of determining the value of the documents on which the annalists have themselves relied; while the character of all tradition is, that it is liable to be distorted and altered in a ratio continually increasing with the lapse of years since the events commemorated took place. In the earliest history of the Persians, we find them represented as a highland people, subject to the Medes, dwelling in a mountainous district, or wandering, as a nomad tribe, over the vast plains of Asia southward of the Oxus. Connected directly with the Medes, as the inter-marriages of their sovereigns and the story of the mother of Cyrus demonstrate, they must be looked upon as descendants of one common race, whose original parent stock inhabited the north-eastern portion of the country we now include under the one general name of Persia. We have good authority for saying that the term Medes was not restricted to the inhabitants of Media Proper, but was applied also to the Arii or Persians.* In like manner we know that the word Arii did not mean only those who dwelt in Ariana. Heeren has supposed that the subjugation of the Medes was the amalgamation of two races of common origin, whose religion and manners had innumerable points of resemblance, and whose languages differed only dialectically. If this be so, the parent stock, comprehending under it all the inferior races, might not improperly be called Medo-Persian. At an early period of their history, we find the Persian people divided into Ten Tribes, of which the Pasargadæ became, in after times, the ruling one, with a government in its character patriarchal; but, at the same time, admitting a permanent distinction between the tribes, in reference to their mode of life: three being those of the nobles or warriors, three of husbandmen, and four of shepherds. Their traditions preserve many important particulars respecting their descent, their ancient abodes, and their gradual dissemination through the land of Irán; and the Fargards, or early chapters of the Zend Avesta, while the tradi *Herod., vii. 62. G |