417 



NADIR SHAH. 



N^EVIUS, CNEIUS. 



413 



short time no small degree of power. In order to understand clearly 

 the circumstances which facilitated the rise of Nadir, it is necessary 

 to make a few remarks on the internal state of Persia at that time. 



In the early part of the 18th century, Persia was attacked and 

 eventually conquered by the Afghans. In 1722 Shah Hussein, the 

 Suffaveau monarch of Persia, abdicated the crown to Mahmud, the 

 Afl'ghan conqueror. Hahmud was succeeded in 1725 by Ashraff; 

 who reigned at Ispahan and had the supreme power, though Tamasp, 

 the son of Hussein, maintained a precarious independence in a distant 

 part of the empire. Though the power of the Suffavean monarchs 

 had been entirely overthrown by the Afghans, yet the latter had not 

 been able to establish their own authority in the distant provinces of 

 the kingdom ; and the consequence was, that Khorassan and other 

 remote provinces were left without any regular government. Nadir 

 was thus enabled to prosecute his schemes without interruption ; and 

 having at length raised a body of 5000 men, he joined Tamasp in 

 1727, and declared his intention of expelling the Afghans from his 

 native country. The oppressive rule of the Afghans and the renown 

 of Nadir quickly brought great numbers to his standard; and having 

 been invested with the supreme command by Tamasp, which he had 

 acquired by putting to death Futteh Ali, who had previously com- 

 manded the forces of the king, he marched against the Afghans and 

 took Mushed in the same year. He followed up his first success 

 with several brilliant victories ; Ispahan fell into his power ; Ashraff 

 was taken and put to death ; and by the close of the year 1729 few 

 if any Afghans were left in Persia. 



Such sudden and unexpected success rendered Nadir exceedingly 

 popular ; and he appears from this time to have resolved upon seizing 

 the royal power as soon as circumstances would allow him to do so. 

 In 1730 he received from Tamasp a grant of the four finest provinces 

 of the kingdom, Khora-san, Mazanderan, Seistau, and Kerman ; and 

 was requested at the same time to assume the title of sultan. This 

 honour however he declined ; but at the same time he ordered money 

 to be struck in his own name, which in the East is regarded as a 

 virtual assumption of the sovereignty of the country. 



In 1731 Nadir was engaged in a war with the Turks, whom he 

 defeated on the plains of Hamadan ; but having been obliged to march 

 to Khurassan to quell a rebellion, TAmasp seized the opportunity of 

 assuming the command of the army, and marched himself against 

 the Turk*. Being defeated in battle, ho concluded a treaty with the 

 Turks, by which ho ceded to them several provinces of the Persian 

 empire. As soon as Nadir heard of this treaty, he took advantage of 

 tlie discontents which it excited, to carry into execution the plans he 

 had long meditated for seizing the royal power. He published a 

 proclamation, in which he bitterly inveighed against the peace, and 

 announced his intention of prosecuting the war. Having thus secured 

 the good will of the people, he invited Tamasp to bis cirnp ; and on 

 his arrival, he caused him to be seized and carried away to Khorassan. 

 Instead however of proclaiming himself king, he considered it more 

 prudent for the present to place on the throne the son of Tamasp, 

 who wa* an infant eight months old. 



Having completed these arrangement*, Nadir continued the war 

 against the Turks, and after experiencing some reverses, lie obliged 

 them to sue fur peace, which was granted in 1735. The infant sovereign 

 of Persia having died about the tame time, Nadir summoned a grand 

 council, con.-iting of almost every person of rank and consideration 

 in the kingdom, to meet in the plains of Chowal .Mogam, which extend 

 from the neighbourhood of Ardebil to the mouth of the Cyrus, in 

 order to take into consideration the state of the kingdom. Upwards 

 of 100,000 persons are said to have attended this assembly, in which 

 the sovereignty was offered to Nadir, who accepted it with apparent 

 reluctance, on the 20th of February 1736, on condition that the Sueah 

 sect, which had hitherto been supported by the great majority of the 

 Persian^, should be entirely abolished, and the feet of the Suuees 

 established in it* place. He also stipulated that the Imaum Jaaffer 

 should be placed at the head of the national religion ; and that as there 

 were four orthodox sects among the Suuees, the Persians should bo 

 considered as a fifth, under the name of the sect of Jaaffer. It is 

 ditlicult to determine the reasons which induced Nadir to make thii 

 violent change in the religion of the country ; but it appears most 

 probable that he wished to destroy the Sheah sect, since it bad always 

 warmly supported the dynasty of the Suffaveau princes. All the 

 religious property of this sect, which was very considerable, was 

 confiscated by Nadir, and this impolitic attack upon the established 

 religion tended to produce discontents at the very commencement of 

 his reign. Nadir hitmelf appears to have possessed little or no religion; 

 and the Koran as well a* the Gospels, which were translated into 

 Persian by his order, were frequently the subjects of his merriment 

 and sarcasm. 



Soon alter his accession to the throne, Nadir made vigorous prepara- 

 tion* for the extinction of the Afghans as a separate power; and as 

 this object could not be accomplished without the reduction of the 

 city and province of Candahar, which were then in the possession of 

 the brothers of Mohammed, the late Afghan .monarch of Persia, he 

 commenced the war by the invasion of this province. The city of 

 Candahar fell into his power in 1 738, and many of tho Afghans fled 

 into tlie northern province* of Hindustan, where they were hospitably 

 received. Nadir required of the Emperor of Delhi that none of the 



WOO. DIV. YOI,. IV. 



Afghan fugitives should find shelter in his dominions, but as no atten- 

 tion was paid to his demands, he marched into Hindustan in the 

 following year, and after defeating the Mogul troops, entered Delhi 

 on the 8th of March, where he seized the imperial treasures which 

 had been amassed in the course of nearly two centuries by the Mogul 

 monarchs. Soon after his arrival, a report having been spread through 

 the city that Nadir was dead, the inhabitants made a general attack 

 upon his soldiers. Nadir in vain endeavoured to undeceive the 

 populace ; his moderation only inflamed the fury of those whom, 

 according to Hindoo historians, it was his desire to save ; and at length, 

 unable to restrain the people, he gave orders for a general massacre. 

 These commands were too well obeyed ; and from sunrise till noon 

 the inhabitants were butchered by his soldiery without any distinc- 

 tion of sex and age. At the intercession of Mohammed, the emperor 

 of Delhi, Nadir at length commanded the massacre to be stopped ; 

 and it is recorded as a proof of the high state of discipline of his 

 troops, that his commands were immediately obeyed. The number of 

 those who perished in this massacre is variously stated by different 

 writers. Fraser says that 120,000 persons were killed ; but a Hindoo 

 historian reduces the number to only 8000. (Scott's ' Translation of 

 the History of the Dekkau,' vol. ii. p. 207.) 



Nadir did not attempt to make any permanent conquests in Hin- 

 dustan. He returned to Persia in the following year, and directed 

 his attention towards tho reduction of the nations on the north of 

 Persia. He crossed the Oxus in order to punish the sovereign of 

 Bokharah, who had, during his absence in Hindustan, made inroads 

 into Khorassan. This monarch having submitted to his power, Nadir 

 next marched against the king of Khaurizm, whose dominions extended 

 westward of Bokhara!) along both banks of the Oxus as far an the 

 Caspian. The king of Khauriztn, refusing to submit to Nadir, was 

 defeated in battle, taken prisoner, and put to death, 1740. 



By these conquests Nadir had completely secured the peace of 

 Persia. He had delivered bis native country from tlie tyranny of the 

 Afghans, and had extended its dominions to the Indus on the east, 

 the Oxus on the north, and almost to the plains of Baghdad on the 

 west. The Turks, who frequently endeavoured during his reign to 

 extend their domhiions, were always repulsed with loss; and the 

 Russians were glad to enter into alliance with this all-powerful 

 conqueror. Hitherto Nadir had ruled with moderation and justice; 

 but the latter port of his reign was disgraced by acts of the foulest 

 tyranny and oppression. His conduct during this period has been 

 described, even by a partial historian (Mirza Mahadi), as exceeding in 

 cruelty and barbarity all that has been recorded in history of the most 

 bloody tyrants. In 1743 his eldest son, Keza Kouli, who had distin- 

 guished himself by his bravery in many actions, was deprived of sight 

 by order of his father. The possession of absolute power appears to 

 have called forth in tho mind of Nadir, as it has often done in the 

 minds of other absolute monarchs, some of the worst passions of human 

 nature avarice, jealousy, and cruelty. During the early part of his 

 reign Nadir was distinguished by the greatest liberality ; and after he 

 had obtained the immense wealth of the imperial house of Delhi, he at 

 first remitted three years' taxes. But the possession of such enormous 

 wealth appears to have excited in him the desire of accumulating 

 more ; and the taxes were increased to meet the insatiable demands 

 of the royal treasury. It has been already stated that the proscription 

 of the Sheah sect had tended to render him uupopular. Nadir, aware 

 of this, ceased to trust any of the native Persians, who belonged almo.it 

 entirely to the Sheah sect, and placed his chief dependence on the 

 Turks and Afghans in his army, who were Suuees. So great was his 

 suspicion of his own subjects, that he is said to have formed the design 

 of putting to death every Persian in the army. Some of tho principal 

 officers of his court, having learnt that their names were included in 

 the proposed massacre, resolved to save themselves by the assassina- 

 tion of the tyrant, and, having entered his tent during the night, put 

 him to death, on the 19th or 20th of June 1717. Nadir was succeeded 

 by his nephew AIL 



The life of Nadir Shah was written in Persian by his secretary, 

 Mirza Mohammed Mahadi Khan, who attended him in all his expe- 

 ditions, and has been translated into French by Sir VV. Jones. Fraser 

 also published from Persian manuscripts, which he obtained in India, 

 The History of Nadir Shah, formerly called Thamas Kuli Khan, the 

 present Emperor of Persia,' London, 1742. Many interesting particu- 

 lars relating to Nadir are given by Hanway in hia ' Historical Account 

 of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea,' London, 1753-54, which 

 have considerable value, since Hanway had personal knowledge of 

 many of the facts which he has recorded. A detailed life of Nadir is 

 also given by Malcolm in his second volume of the ' History of Persia." 



NJSV1US, CNEIUS, a native of Campania, and one of the earliest 

 Roman poets, was older than Ennius, and the contemporary of Livius 

 Andronicus. He served in the first Punic war, and afterwards wrote 

 an epic poem on the came, 'De Bello Punico.'and another called 'Ilias 

 Cypria,' He also wrote several dramas in imitation of the Greek, and 

 other comedies on national or Roman subjects, such as ; March UM exul,' 

 ' Vindemiatore*,' &o. Of all these, the titles and a few scattered lines 

 are all that have come down to us. (' Fragmenta Poetarum Latinnrum, 

 quorum Opera non extant,' by Stephanus, 1664 ; and also Maittaire, 

 ' Corpus Pottarum.') Cicero, ' De Oratore,' ii. 69, 70, and iii. 12, praises 

 him for bis unaffected simplicity and native humour, It appears that 



