580 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



While the movement of the Medes was executed in the north, an- 

 other branch of the Aryan group, the Persians, advanced toward 

 the southeast and south and occupied the countries near the Persian 

 Gulf and Persia proper.^ 



Since that period, that is, since about 4000 B. C, the nature of the 

 population of Persia has been modified - only in Media, the invasion 

 of which by the Turks, only a thousand years ago, drove back the 

 ancient inhabitants on their congeners in the mountains of Kurdistan." 



From the twentieth century before our era western Asia has thus 

 been shared by two very distinct elements, the old races, Semitic and 

 aborigines (Elamites, Hittites, Caucasians, etc.) in the west, and the 

 newcomers of the Aryan group in the north and east.^ 



Among these two elements the principles of goverimient show some 

 decided differences. While in the Semitic country feudalism was 

 based on absolute obedience to suzerain and entire ownership by the 

 master, among the Aryans the same system of government rested on 

 the great A^assals or companions of the supreme chief.^ This nobility 

 included the younger branches of the royal family and the principal 

 chiefs of tribes which had taken part in the conquest. It constituted 

 a sort of council which governed with the sovereign." The seigniors 

 themselves in their provincial governments surrounded themselves 

 with their principal subordinates, descendants of those who had 

 served under their ancestors at the time of the invasion. 



After the conquest each of the chief vassals was granted or re- 

 ceived a territory proportionate to the importance of his tribe, and 

 the same was done for each of the clans, then for the families. Thus 

 a kind of complete hierarchy was established from the owner of a 

 village or a group of tents up to the supreme master. 



The empire belonged primarily to the Medes; probably because 

 they were the most numerous and the first comers. But their forces 

 being spread all the way from Parthia to the borders of Oronte, the 

 Persians, whose forces were more concentrated, snatched away their 

 supremacj^ This revolution was otherwise of no consequence from 

 the point of view of social organization. Cyrus governed as king of 



1 Provinces of Seistan, Kerman. Shiraz, Ispahan, bordering the mountains north of the 

 Gulf of Persia as far as Susiana. 



2 We do not intend to speak of the sporadic peoples, Jews, Chaldeans, Arabs, Afghans, 

 Hindus. 



8 Some authors are of the opinion that the Cassites were Aryans. (Cf. Dhorme, op. cit., 

 p. 66 sq.) In that case they would have preceded the Medes and Persians in Iran and 

 represent the first human wave that traversed the Persian Plateau. 



* In the Aryan group we include peoples speaking languages related to the Sanskrit, 

 Greek, Latin, Germanic, Persian, etc. 



6 The same traditions are found among all the Aryan peoples who later invaded Europe, 

 the Germans among others. 



• Proofs of the existence of this council of nobles are numerous in the history of 

 Persia ; but it is very interesting to find the same constitution among the Harri, an 

 Aryan caste which, about the epoch of Rameses II, governed the country of the Mitanni. 

 Cf. Dhorme, op. cit., p. 67. 



