LIFORNIA THE HISTORY OF THE PERSIANS. CHAPTER I. THE PHYSICAL HISTORY OF PERSIA. PERSIA, called in the Old Testament Paras, and by Arabic and Persian writers, Fars, or Farsistan, is used in two significations: first, it is applied to the country originally inhabited by the Persians; and, secondly, to the various Asiatic countries included in the Persian empire founded by Cyrus, which empire extended from the Mediterranean to the Indus, and from the Black and Caspian Seas to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Herodotus says, that the Persians were once called Cephenes by the Greeks, but by themselves and their neighbours Artæi, or heroes; which is a proof of that national vanity in which people of different countries are prone to indulge. The latter word, probably, contains the same root as Arii, the original name of the Medes, and Arya, by which the followers of the Brahminic religion are designated in Sanscrit. The same root occurs in Aria and Ariana, from the latter of which the modern Persian name Iran, seems to be derived. Commentators on the Sacred Scriptures are generally agreed that Elam is the Scripture name of Persia till the days of the prophet Daniel. Modern historians also write to this effect. Ancient historians and geographers, however, distinguish Elam or Elymais from Persia, and Media, and even Susiana; and it is difficult to reconcile this with their opinion who hold that Elam and Persia are the same, and that wherever we meet, in Scripture, with the name Elam, it signifies Persia. Besides, from Xenophon's account, before the time of Cyrus, Persia was comparatively an insignificant and thinly populated region, containing only 120,000 men fit for war, which would not make the population more than half a million of persons. The Scripture account of Elam represents it as a powerful monarchy in ages before the empires of Nineveh and Babylon had begun to rise. How can these accounts be reconciled? The invasion and conquest of Elam is noticed Jer. xxv. 25, 26; xlix. 34-39, the latter of which prophecies is very remarkable, and reads thus :- "The word of the Lord that came to Jereof the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying, miah the prophet against Elam in the beginning Thus saith the Lord of hosts; "Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, And upon Elam will I bring the four winds And will scatter them toward all those winds; Whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. And before them that seek their life: The king and the princes, saith the Lord. "Here," says a modern writer,* "the dispersion of the Elamites is foretold, and their eventwhen is their restoration to be dated?" It is a ual restoration. But who are these outcasts, and question too difficult for solution, but it is certain that it does not refer to the Persians. This will be manifest upon a review of its confirmation by the prophet Ezekiel. That prophet, enumerating the various nations conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, as, the Egyptians with Pharaoh-Hophra, or Apries, Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude, Edom with her kings and princes, the princes of the north and the Sidonians, says of Elam :: Which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, Which caused their terror in the land of the living; Yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit. They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain All of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword: He is put in the midst of them that be slain." Now, the former of these nations was conquered by the united forces of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxares. Elam, therefore, was either a province of the Assyrian empire, and, therefore, also became the prey of the conquerors, or it was an independent kingdom, which fell before these conquerors, and became a province of Media, in conformity to Jeremiah's prediction. But the passage in Ezekiel does not harmonize with Xenophon's account of the Persians before the days of Cyrus, nor with that of Herodotus, who represents Cambyses, the father of Cyrus, though descended from an ancient Persian family, as inferior to a Mede of the middle rank. Then again, by Daniel the prophet, Shushan the palace, and the river Ulai, are placed in the province of Elam; or, in other words, in' Susiana. And in the Acts of the Apostles, the Elamites are mentioned along with the Parthians, Medes, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, (chap. ii. 9,) in a sense which conveys the idea that they dwelt to the west of the Medes. It would, perhaps, be safer, therefore, to understand by Elam, not Persia, but the province of Elymais, which extended to the south and south-east of Ecbatana, as far as Susiana, or the whole mountainous region of south-western Media, of which Corbienno, or the Carbiana of Strabo, now called Khorremabad, was the capital. Strabo makes Massabatica, Gabiana, and Cyrbiana provinces of the Elymeans, and conjoins Elymais with Susiana on the north and north-west. He also says that Elymais was joined to Media, and was a very mountainous country, and that the Elymeans were great robbers. This description agrees with the mountaineers of the modern Looristaun, in the south of Media, and harmonizes with sacred history, which represents Chedorlaomer the Elamite, making a predatory inroad, with other rulers, as robbers, as early as the patriarchal era. According to Pliny, Elymais was inhabited by the Uxii, Mizæi, Parthusi, Mardi, Saitæ, Hyi, Cossæi, Parætaceni, and Messabatæ. The Cossæi here are represented as inhabiting part of Media, but by the ancients, generally, they were considered as a people of Media. The Messabatæ, also, inhabited the district of Mesobatene, which is a Greek appellation, meaning the midland country, or tract between Media and Susiana, and which is probably derived from the Chaldee Misa, or middle. The facts respecting Elymais and the Elymeans appear to be these: that a number of tribes were included together under that denomination, as being either the principal tribe that gave name to the tract so called, or that they were collectively thus denominated, and that it (Elymais) included the whole south-west part of the modern Irac Ajemi, bounded by the alluvial district Susiana on the south, and comprehending all the mountain ranges, called the Looristan and Bactiari mountains, a tract almost unknown to Europeans, and terminated by Fars or Persia on the south-east. The terms Elymais and Elymeans, do not occur in the writings of ancient historians till after the Macedonian conquest, when they are spoken of as an independent and ferocious nation, neither subject to the SyroMacedonians, nor the Parthians, and altogether distinct from the Persians properly so termed. Persia proper was bounded on the north and north-west by Media or Irak Ajemi; on the south by the Persian Gulf; on the east by Carmania or Kerman; and on the west by Susiana or Khusistan. The extent of this country, according to Chardin's estimate, is as large as France: this, however, forms but a small portion of what is now denominated Persia. This extent of country contained the tribes of the Persæ, Pasagardæ, Arteatæ, Maraphii, and Maspians. Of these the Pasagarda were the noblest, and to the chief clan of which, called the Achæmenidæ, the royal family of Persia belonged. In addition to these tribes, Herodotus mentions three agricultural tribes, called the Panthialæ, Derusiæ, and Germanii; and four nomadic tribes, denominated the Dai, Mardi, Dropici, and Sangartii. The Persæ and Pasagardæ inhabited the middle part, or what Strabo has happily denominated Cava, or Hollow Persia, corresponding to the vale of Istaker, and the celebrated plain of Shiraz. It is not known what part the Arteatæ inhabited, but the agricultural tribes probably inhabited the quarter near Kerman or Carmania; the others were mountain tribes. Such was Persia proper: the empire of Persia, as before stated, was of far greater limits. How great it was will be seen in the following masterly geographical arrangement of the Western, Middle, and Eastern provinces of the empire, by Major Rennell, who compiled it from a curious original document, furnished by Herodotus. In it will be discerned, also, the annual revenue of this once potent empire, an empire that was master of almost all the then known world. |