THE HISTORY OF PERSIA, as generally understood, may be considered as a supplement to that of Assyria and Babylonia, the events that have made her most famous in antiquity having been achieved after the empire of the first had passed away, and the second had been subjugated by the Persians.
The small province of Persis (in the Bible Paras, in the native inscriptions Parsa), whence the name of Persia is derived, was bounded on the north by Media on the south by the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, on the east by Caramania (Kerman) and on the west by Susiana. It was, indeed, nearly the same district as the modern Farsistan, the name of which is obviously derived from it; and in length and breadth not more than 450 and 250 miles respectively.
With regard to the population which occupied this district at the earliest historical period, it is certain from the Cuneiform inscriptions that they were not the original dwellers in the district, but themselves immigrants, though it is not so certain whence. It would lead us too far a-field to discuss here the wide question of the settlement of the nations after the Biblical Flood, confirmed so remarkably as this is by Mr. George Smith’s recent discoveries. Moreover, it is not possible to fill up, except conjecturally, many wide spaces, both of time and territory. Admitting, however, the existence of a Deluge, such as that recorded in Holy Writ, a long period must have elapsed before the different families of mankind had arranged themselves in the groups and in the districts we find them occupying at the dawn of history.
There are reasonable grounds for thinking the highlands of Central Asia the historical cradle of the Japhetic race; whether, with some writers, we conceive this mountainous region to be the Alpine plateau of Little Bokhara, or, with others, the great chain south and southwest of the Caspian Sea the first theory suits best for a descent into India; the second for a migration into Europe.
The former view, taken broadly, is confirmed by the early Persian traditions preserved in the two first chapters of Vendidad (though this compilation as we now have it, is very modern), an outline, in the judgment of Heeren, so evidently historical, as to require nothing but sufficient geographical knowledge for the identification of the places therein mentioned. Whether any of these traditional legends are really due to Zoroaster (Zaratrusthra), [indeed whether a Zoroaster ever lived] is of little importance: but this much, however, is certain that they enshrine fragments of the most ancient belief of the Persians. Thus, they describe as the original seat of the Persian race, a delicious country named Eriene-Veedjo, the first creation of Ormuzd, the Spirit of Good, with a climate of seven months of summer and five of winter. But Ahriman, the Spirit of Evil, smote this land with the plague of ever-increasing cold, till at last it had only two months of summer to ten of winter. Hence, the people quitted their ancient homes, Ahriman having, for fifteen successive times, thwarted the good works of Ormuzd, and having, by one device or another, rendered each new abode uninhabitable. The names of these abodes are given and some of they may be even now identified; and there can be little doubt, that they indicate a migration from the northeast towards the south and south-west, that is, from the Hindu-Rush westward to Media and Persia. The original situation of Eriene, a name of the same origin as the modern Iran (and possibly of Erin or Ireland), would, on this supposition, be to the north of the western chains of the Himalaya, a country enjoying a short summer, and great extremes of heat and cold.
Such, briefly, is the legendary story of Persia which it is best to leave as it is. As, however, I shall have again to refer to what has been called the creed of Zoroaster, that is, the theory of the separate existence of principles of good and evil, I must give the substance of what is most usually acknowledged about him and the religious system named after him. Those who care for fuller details can consult the Zend-Avesta as first published by Anquetil Du Perron, and the various commentaries or modifications of it, suggested by the studies of MM. Westergaard, Spiegel, Haug, Burnouf, Oppert, and others.
I do not myself doubt that Zoroaster, whether or not a king (as some have held), was truly a teacher and reformer, and, further, that his religious views represent the reaction of the mind against the mere worship of nature, tending as this does, directly, to polytheism and to the doctrine of “Emanations.” It is, I think, equally evident that such views embody the highest struggle of the human intellect (unaided by Revelation) towards spiritualism, and that they are, so far, an attempt to create a religious system by the simple energies of human reason. Hence their general direction is towards a pure monotheism; and, had no evil existed in the world, the theory embodying them would have remained unassailed and logically successful. On this rock, however, all the spiritual theories of early times necessarily split. Zoroaster or his disciples halted where all must halt who have not the light from on high, the one sure support of Jew and Christian alike. They could not believe that God, the good, the just, the pure, and the perfect, would have placed evil in a world he must have created good, like himself hence, as evil is none the less ever present, they were forced to imagine a second creator, Ahriman, the author of evil, and to give him, during the present existence, equal power with that wielded by the Spirit of Good. They held, however (and this is a most important part of Zoroastrianism) that a day would come when the powers of evil would be finally annihilated, and the truth be reinstated, never again to fail. I ought to add that the modern Parsees, whether of Jezd in Persia or of Bombay, do not represent the purity of the original Zoroastrian faith, their views being essentially pantheistic, in that they substitute emanation for creation and confound the distinctions of good and evil, by making both spring from one creative principle.
Of the two other great races who take their names respectively from Ham and Shem, it is enough to state here that modern philology attributes to Ham the Cushite tribes of Arabia and Ethiopia, the Egyptians, Philistines, Canaanites as well as the so-called Hamitic populations to the south of Egypt.
In like manner, the Shemitic population seems from the earliest period to which they can be traced back to have occupied nearly the same abodes as in later times, viz.: the range of country from Armenia (Arphaxad) over Assyria and Babylonia, to the southern end of Arabia. That there may have been in the southern part of the same country a still earlier race, the Accadians, I do not doubt.
Certain broad characteristics have been accepted as distinguishing in a remarkable manner each of these races. Thus the so-called Hamites appear, universally, as the pioneers of material civilization, with a great power over some elements of knowledge but with an equally entire absence of all elevating ideas. Their former presence is recognized in the foundations of states by brute force and by the execution of gigantic works in stone, like Stonehenge, Carnac, &c., if indeed, these monuments are, as has been usually maintained, attributable to so remote a period. Along, however, with this material grandeur, we find the grossest forms of nature worship; while so remarkable have the Hamite population fallen into the background or disappeared in comparison with the other races, that we are forcibly reminded of the prophetic words, “Cursed be Canaan (or Ham), a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren;” and again, “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant.”
In striking contrast to the Hamites, the Japhetic peoples appear everywhere as the promoters of moral as well as of intellectual civilization. As a rule, practices of agriculture rather than hunters, with fixed abodes in preference to tents, their several dialects (now easily traceable by comparative philology) amply confirm the early existence among them of institutions fitted to raise human beings above the “beasts that perish.”
Hence we find them, in the most remote ages planting corn and feeding on meat instead of on acorns and berries, contracting marriages by fixed and settled forms, resisting polygamy, and protecting their wives with the veneration Tacitus so much admired in the German tribes of his day. To them, also, is due the institution of the Family and of a Religion, at first, as shown by the Vedic hymns, a pure Theism the worship of one God, though with an early and natural tendency to “emanations” and their ultimate result. Polytheism. One of the hymns of the Rig-Veda (according to Professor Max Miller) explains with singular clearness the progress of this change, in the words, “The wise men give many names to the Being who is One.” Sacrifices to please or propitiate the powers thus separately deified were the natural but later developments of the Polytheistic idea.
The characteristics of the third or great Shemite race, stand out in equally bold relief against the dark background of material Hamitism, though, like the other early races, they too, at times, exhibited abundant and luxuriant forms of idolatry. In those, generally, we find a moral and spiritual eminence superior to the best which the Japhetic races have worked out, while to one of them, the Jews, we owe the guardianship of that book, in which alone we find religious subjects dealt with in a language of adequate sublimity; the one volume, indeed, to which we can refer with unhesitating faith as containing, though with tantalizing brevity, all that is certain of the origin of the human race. It is satisfactory to know that, though, naturally, the tenth chapter of the book of Genesis, the Toldoth-beni-Noah, or roll-call of the sons of Noah, in other words, of the nations has been discussed in innumerable volumes, has been in fact the battle-ground of believers as well as of infidels, the main outline there traced is confirmed in all essential particulars by recent Assyrian discoveries. It is quite worth the while of any scholar to look back at the interpretation given to it by the learned Bochart, two centuries and a half ago: he will, I think, be surprised to see how much of what that great Frenchman proposed so long ago, is still admitted by the more complete investigations of the comparatively new science of philology.
CYRUS – CROESUS –WAR IN NORTHEAST ASIA – FALL OF BABYLON – TOMB OF CYRUS – CAMBYSES – PSEUDO-BARDES – DARIUS – CAMPAIGN IN SCYTHIA – HOME AT SUSA – INSCRIPTION AND COIN OF PYTHAGORAS – BURNING OF SARDIS – SECOND INVASION OF EUROPE – MARDONIUS AND DATIS – MARATHON
HAVING said so much by way of introduction, now proceed to give some account of what we know of Persia historically (from the sixth century B.C. to the seventh century A.D.), and of the monuments still therein attesting its former grandeur. Now, first, it may be noted that there is no mention of Persia in the tenth chapter of Genesis, or in the Zend-Avesta, nor does this name occur on any Assyrian monument before the ninth century B.C. On the other hand, the list in this chapter places the Madai or Medes among the sons of Japhet, which, as Aryans, is their right position. The natural inference is, that those Aryan tribes who were subsequently called Persians, had not yet descended so far to the south but were still clinging to the steeps of the Taurus. A little later, the inscriptions of Shalmaneser show that they had reached Armenia, but, as only petty chiefs are recorded it is probable that their government had not yet crystallized into a settled monarchy. Later however, under Sennacherib, the Perso-Aryans had reached the Zagros, and, thence, their further descent by denies of the Bakhtyari mountains into Persis was comparatively easy and rapid, though their migrations perhaps (I’ll not cease till near the close of the great empire of Assyria. The Aryan Medes had, on the other hand, held for many years a prominent place among the Western Asiatic populations, and it is likely that the Persian tribes acknowledged the superiority of the Median monarch, much as at the present day the Khedive of Egypt acknowledges the supreme rule of the Sultan of Turkey, in other words, that the ruler of Persis was the chief feudatory of the Median empire. It must not however be forgotten, that Darius the son of Hystaspes claims for his own house, the possession of a kingdom with eight immediate predecessors, he himself being the ninth, a claim he could hardly have put forth publicly had there been at the time any doubt about it. The Median empire appears to have been established about B.C. 647, just when the adjoining nations were marshalling their forces to put an end to Nineveh, which had so long ruled them with a rod of iron; while, from this statement of Darius, it is further probable that there were tributary kings in Persis up to about the same period.
Darius himself asserts that the first king of Persia was called Achaemenes, a statement confirmed by the well known fact that the Achaemenidae were acknowledged as the leading family among the Persians. Indeed, as Professor Rawlinson has well remarked, in the East, an ethnic name is very often derived from that of one person, as in the case of Midianite, Moabite, from Midian and Moab. But though there can be little doubt that Persian history may be deemed historical from the time of Cambyses, the father of Cyrus, there is nothing really worth recording till we come to Cyrus himself, under whom Persia takes the place in Western Asia, east held by the Shemitic empires of Assyria and Babylon.
How Cyrus attained to this pre-eminence has been much discussed; but we do not really want more than the notice in the Bible, which is remarkably clear and graphic: “Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and southward; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great. “And again,” The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.”
It has been argued by Heeren (indeed this was the common view put forward by writers fifty years ago), that the rise of Cyrus was similar to that of many other personages in Eastern history, in fact, nothing but the successful uprising of a rude mountain tribe of nomad habits.
The history of the rise of Cyrus has been revealed to us by the Cuneiform inscriptions. Two documents of special importance have been brought from Babylonia which were compiled officially shortly after his conquest of Babylonia. One of them is an annalistic account of the reign of Nabonidos, the last king of Babylonia, and of the conquest of his kingdom by Cyrus. It is generally known to Assyriologists as the “Annalistic Tablet.” The other document is an edict issued by Cyrus not long after his occupation of Babylonia, justifying his conquest of the country and declaring that he had been called to the work by Bel Merodach, the god of Babylon, himself. As the inscriptions render a commentary needless we give them here in full. The Annalistic Tablet is as follows, the lacunae in it being marked by dotted lines “… in the month Tebet (December) in the country of Hamath he remained in the month Ab (July) the mountain of Amanus, a mountain of the West, he ascended. Reeds as many as exist and cedars to the midst of Babylon he brought. The mountain he left and survived. In the month Kisleu (November) king Nabonidos collected his army and marched to the sea; and Nebo-makhrib-akhi from the sea of the country of Syria to Istuvegu (Astyages) gathered his forces together and marched against Cyrus king of Ansan, and . . . The army of Istuvegu revolted against him and seized him with the hands; to Cyrus they delivered him. Cyrus marched against the country of Ekbatana, the royal city. Silver, gold, goods and chattels, the spoil of the country of Ekbatana, they carried away, and he brought them to the land of Ansan. The goods and chattels were deposited in Ansan. The seventh year (B.C. 549) king Nabonidos was in Teva, the western quarter of Babylon; the king’s son, the nobles, and his soldiers were in the country of Akkad (Northern Babylonia). The king in the month Nisan] did not go to Babylon. Nebo did not go to Babylon; Bel came not forth; the new year’s festival took place: they offered sacrifices in the temples of E-Saggil and E-Zida to the gods of Babylon and Borsippa as peace-offerings. The priest inspected the painted work of the temple. The eighth year nothing took place. The ninth year (B.C. 547) Nabonidos the king was in Teva. The king’s son, the nobles, and the soldiers were in the country of Akkad. The king in the month Nisan did not go to Babylon. Nebo did not go to Babylon; Bel came not forth; the new year’s festival took place. They offered sacrifices in E-Saggil and E-Zida to the gods of Babylon and Borsippa as peace-offerings. The fifth day of Nisan the mother of the king, who was in the fortress of the camp on the Euphrates above Sippara died. The king’s son and his soldiers mourned for three days. There was lamentation. In the month Sivan (May) there was lamentation in the country of Akkad over the mother of the king. In the month Nisan, Cyrus king of Persia collected his army and crossed the Tigris below the city of Arbela, and in the month lyyar (April) [he marched] against the country of the Sute, nomad Arabs. Its king he slew; his goods he took. He ascended the country. He departed again after his ascent, and a king existed there again. The tenth year (B.C. 546) the king was in Teva; the king’s son, the nobles, and his soldiers were in the country of Akkad; the king in the month, Nisan did not go to Babylon. Nebo did not go to Babylon; Bel came not forth. The new year’s festival took place. They offered sacrifices in E-Saggil and E-Zida to the gods of Babylon and Borsippa as peace offerings. On the twenty-first day of the month Sivan of the country of Elam, in the land of Akkad a governor in the city of Erech. The eleventh year (B.C. 545) the king was in Teva; the king’s son, the nobles, and his soldiers were in the country of Akkad. In the month Nisan the king did not go to Babylon. In the month Elul (August), the king did not come forth to Bel. The new year’s festival took place. They offered sacrifices in E-Saggil and E-Zida as peace-offerings to the gods of Babylon and Borsippa In the seventeenth year and the month Tebet the king entered E-tur-Kalama and the lower sea (the Persian Gulf) revolted. Bel came forth; the new year’s festival as a peace-offering was kept; in the month Lugal.-banda and the other gods of the city of Marad, Zamama and the other gods of Kis, Beltis and the other gods of Kharsak-Kalama entered Babylon; at the end of the month Elul, the gods of the country of Akkad, which are above the sky and below the sky, entered Babylon; but the gods of Borsippa, Kutha and Sippara did not enter. In the month Tammuz (June) when Cyrus had delivered battle against the soldiers of Akkad in the city of Rutu on the banks of the river Nizallat and when the men of Akkad had delivered battle, the men of Akkad raised a revolt: some persons were slain. On the fourteenth day of the month Sippara was taken without fighting; Nabonidos fled. On the sixteenth day Gobryas, the governor of the country of Gutium (Kurdistan), and the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting. Afterwards Nabonidos was captured when he had been caught in Babylon. At the end of the month Tammuz the javelin-throwers of the country of Gulium guarded the gates of E-Saggil: there was no cessation of the services in E-Saggil and the other temples, but no special festival was observed. On the third day of the month Marchesvan (October) Cyrus entered Babylon. Dissensions before him were allayed. Peace to the city did Cyrus establish; peace to all the province of Babylon did Gobryas his governor proclaim. Governors in Babylon he appointed. From the month Chisleu (November) to the month Adar (February) the gods of the country of Akkad whom Nabonidos had transferred to Babylon returned to their own cities. The eleventh day of the month Marchesvan during the night Gobryas was on the bank of the wife of the king Nabonidos died. From the twenty-seventh day of Adar to the third day of Nisan there was lamentation in the country of Akkad. All the people smote their heads. The fourth day Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, conducted the burial at the temple of the Sceptre of the World. The priest of the temple of the Sceptre of Nebo, who up bears the sceptre of the god in the temple of the god in an Elamite robe, took the hands of Nebo. The son of the king offered free-will offerings in full to ten times the usual amount. He confined the image of Nebo to E-Saggil. Victims before Bel to ten times the usual amount he sacrificed.”
The rest of the text is too mutilated for translation. This is unfortunately also the case with the beginning and end of the edict of Cyrus, which, as it is written on a cylinder of clay, is usually known as his “cylinder inscription.” Where this first becomes legible we read: “The costly duty of the daily sacrifice did Nabonidos cause to cease … he had established within the city of Babylon, the worship of Merodach the king of the gods; in his hand had planned hostility to the city; daily had his hand destroyed his people, all of them, who remained in unquiet submission. At their complaining, Bel (the lord) of the gods was mightily wrathful, and caused the priests to leave their dwelling-place. The gods who dwelt among them left their habitations in wrath when they were made by Nabonidos to enter Babylon. Merodach in mercy journeyed to all peoples wherever they are found, and the men of Sumer and Akkad who are like his own body, did he visit he granted pardon to all countries, even all of them; he rejoiced and fed them; he appointed also a prince who should guide in righteousness the wish of the heart which his hand upholds, even Cyrus the king of the city of Ansan; he has prophesied his name for sovereignty; all men everywhere commemorate his name. The land of Kurdistan and all the people of the Manda he has subjected to his feet; the men of the black-heads (the Babylonians) he has caused his hand to conquer. In justice and righteousness he has governed them. Merodach the great lord, the restorer of his people, beheld with joy the deeds of his vice-gerent who was righteous in hand and heart. To his city of Babylon he summoned his march; he bade him also take the road to Babylon; like a friend and a comrade he went at his side. The weapons of his vast army, whose number, like the waters of a river, could not be known, were marshaled in order and it spread itself at his side. Without fighting and battle Merodach caused him to enter into Babylon; his city of Babylon he spared; in a hiding-place Nabonidos the king, who revered him not, did he give into his hand. The men of Babylon, all of them and the whole of Sumer and Akkad, the nobles and the high-priest, bowed themselves beneath him; they kissed his feet; they rejoiced at his sovereignty; their faces shone. Bel-Merodach, who through trust in himself raises the dead to life, who benefits all men in difficulty and fear, has in goodness drawn nigh to him, has made strong his name. I am Cyrus the king of multitudes, the great king, the powerful king, the king of Babylon, the king of Sumer and Akkad, the king of the four zones, the son of Cambyses, the great king, the king of the city of Ansan; the grandson of Cyrus the great king, the king of the city of Ansan; the great-grandson of Teispes, the great king, the king of the city of Ansan; of the ancient seed royal whose rule Bel and Nebo love, whose sovereignty they desire according to the goodness of their hearts. At that time I entered into Babylon in peace. With joy and gladness I founded the throne of dominion in the palace of the princes. Merodach the great lord enlarged my heart; the sons of Babylon and on that day I appointed his ministers. My vast army spread itself peacefully in the midst of Babylon; throughout Sumer and Akkad I permitted no gainsayer. Babylon and all its cities I governed in peace. The sons of Babylon gave me the fullness of their hearts, and they bore my yoke, and I restored their lives, their seat, and their ruins. I delivered their prisoners. For my work, Merodach the great lord established a decree; unto me, Cyrus, the king, his worshipper, and to Cambyses my son, the offspring of my heart and to all my people he graciously drew nigh, and in peace before them we duly ruled. All the kings who inhabit the high places of all regions from the Upper Sea of Van to the Lower Sea (the Persian Gulf), the inhabitants of the inland, the kings of Syria and the inhabitants of tents, all of them brought their rich tribute and in
Babylon kissed my feet. From the city of to the cities of Assur, Istar-sumeli and Accad, the land of Umlias, the cities of Zamban, Me-Turnut, and Durili, as far as the frontier of Kurdistan, the cities which lie upon the Tigris, whose seats had been established from of old, I restored the gods who dwelt within them to their places, and I founded for them a seat that should be long-enduring; all their peoples I collected, and I restored their habitations. And the gods of Sumer and Accad whom Nabonidos, to the anger of Merodach the lord of the gods, had brought into Babylon, by the command of Merodach the great lord I settled in their sanctuaries in peace in seats according to their hearts. May all the gods whom I have brought into their own cities intercede daily before Bel and Nebo that my days be long, may they pronounce blessings upon me, and may they say to Merodach my lord: Let Cyrus the king, thy worshipper and Cambyses his son accomplish the desire of their heart; let them enjoy length of days, I have settled the gods of all countries in a place of rest.”
The facts revealed to us in these documents are in open conflict with the history of the rise of Cyrus and the conquest of Babylonia which Greek writers have handed down. For the first time we have a true and contemporaneous account of the events which led to the rise of the Persian empire narrated by the chief actors in them themselves. Cyrus proves to have been originally king, not of Persia, but of Ansan or Anzan. Ansan was a district of Elam, considerably to the north of Persia, and it had formed an important part of the territory over which the ancient kings of Elam had claimed rule. Indeed, in one Assyrian text Ansan is stated to be synonymous with Elam. Teispes, the ancestor of Cyrus, is said by Darius to have been the son of the Persian Akhsemenes and since Cyrus does not trace the kings of Ansan further back than Teispes, it seems probable that it was Teispes who conquered Ansan and established his authority there. Darius Hystaspes also traced his descent to Teispes through a brother of Cyrus I and as he declares at Behistan that eight of his forefathers had been kings before him “in two lines,” it has been supposed that while one of the sons of Teispes received Ansan as his share after his father’s death, another son, the great-grandfather of Darius, received Persia. At all events we learn from the Annalistic Tablet that Cyrus II did not become king of Persia until between the years B.C. 550 and B.C. 547. In B.C. 550 he is still “king of Ansan,” in B.C. 547 he has for the first time become “king of Persia.”