PERSIA 



of its civilization. Media became a 

 powerful empire under Cyaxares 

 (d. 584 B.C.), who overthrew both 

 the Assyrians and the Scythians. 

 When he came to the throne the 

 paramount power of the East was 

 Nemitic, but he left it Aryan. His 

 son, Astyages, was attacked by an 

 army of Persians under Cyrus, and 

 in 550 the empire of Media passed 

 into the hands of the kindred 

 Aryan people of Persia, 



Decline of the Empire 

 After conquering Croesus, king 

 of Lydia, and overthrowing Baby- 

 lon, Cyrus was assassinated by 

 Tomyris, queen of the Massagetae. 

 Cambyses, his eldest son, succeeded 

 him in B.C. 529. He invaded 

 Egypt, which he brought under 

 tribute, but his mind became un- 

 hinged and he destroyed himself. 

 Darius, a usurper, attacked and 

 reduced the Greek cities of Thrace 

 and Macedonia and refounded the 

 Persian Empire on a more solid 

 basis. Xerxes in 481 launched a 

 great attack upon Athens, but 

 received a check through the 

 defence of Thermopylae by the 

 Spartans. He won a naval en- 

 gagement at Artemisium, after 

 which he succeeded in taking 

 Athens, but he was badly beaten in 

 a sea-fight off Salamis and re- 

 treated in great disorder to Persia. 

 Artaxerxes and Cyrus the Younger 

 saw the beginning of the decline 

 of the Persian Empire. The rise 

 of Macedonia under Philip and 

 Alexander brought about the tem- 

 porary fall of Persia. Persepolis 

 and Pasargadae were occupied in 

 330, and the victorious Macedonian 

 tide swept E., Hellenising a very 

 large portion of Central Asia. 



At the death of Alexander, his 

 empire almost at once fell into dis- 

 memberment, and what is now 

 Persia was ruled by the dynasty of 

 the Seleucids, descendants of one 

 of the generals of Alexander. The 

 Parthians, a Turanian tribe from 

 the N., whose home lay within the 

 modern provinces of Khorassan and 

 Astrabad, produced the Arsacicl 

 dynasty, about 249 B.C., who 

 gradually seized the whole of Per- 

 sian soil, but it was menaced by 

 the surrounding barbarians. It 

 had, however, relations with China 

 and Rome on either side, and the 

 latter power invaded it in 53 B.C. 

 Successive Roman generals in- 

 vaded Parthia, and after long- 

 continued fighting, in which victory 

 inclined, now to one, now to the 

 other side, a truce was observed. 



The Parthian power gradually 

 declined, and its place was taken 

 by the Sassanian dynasty, which 

 marked a new and splendid epoch 

 in Persian history. Under its sway, 

 Iran recovered its independence 



instead of constituting one of the 

 provinces ruled by a Parthian king. ' 

 Once its king, Ardashir, had fully 

 established his power, he threw 

 down the gauntlet to the Romans, 

 and indicted a heavy defeat upon 

 them. He was also instrumental in 

 reviving the Zoroastrian religion, 

 with its picturesque rites of fire- 

 worship. His successor, Shapur, 

 defeated the Romans on several 

 occasions, and in A.D. 260 captured 

 Valerian, the Roman emperor. He 

 was, however, beaten by Odena- 

 thus of Palmyra, whose country 

 became a buffer state between 

 Persia and Rome. 



The Sassanian dynasty included 

 a number of brilliant kings, of 

 whom Shapur the Great (310-381) 

 who also carried on war with Rome, 

 is the most notable. His successors 

 had a long and arduous struggle 

 with the White Huns, Bahram 

 (d. 448), mentioned by Omar Khay- 

 yam as a great hunter, defeating 

 them with tremendous loss, as did 

 his descendant Firuz, who, how- 

 ever, was finally worsted by them 

 in A.D. 483, when Persia fell under 

 their dominion. The Sassanian 

 dynasty, however, ultimately suc- 

 ceeded in crushing the White Huns 

 in 523. During the period of this 

 dynasty commercial and artistic 

 relations were founded with China, 

 to the lasting benefit of both 

 Persian and Chinese art. With the 

 coming of Noshirwan in 531 peace 

 was concluded with Byzantium, but 

 was soon broken by that monarch, 

 who captured Antioch in 540, and 

 spread terror throughout Syria, 

 extorting an enormous indemnity. 



Coining of the Turks 

 In this reign we first hear of 

 the coming of the Turks from Cen- 

 tral Asia. Noshirwan committed 

 the folly of poisoning certain 

 Turkish envoys, whereupon their 

 countrymen invaded Persia. They 

 were, however, easily repulsed. 

 Once more Byzantium made war 

 upon the Persian monarch, who sur- 

 prised the invaders by night, and 

 inflicted a crushing defeat upon 

 them. Hormazd, son of Noshirwan 

 by the daughter of the Khan of the 

 Turks, exhibited tyrannical ten- 

 dencies and entangled himself in 

 war with Byzantines. His Turkish 

 kinsmen took advantage of this, 

 and invaded his realm, but were 

 badly beaten, 588, and lost an 

 enormous booty. Tired of the 

 irregularities of Hormazd, his 

 nobles conspired against him, and 

 he was assassinated. 



His son, Chosroes II (q.v.) was 

 beaten in the field by his late father's 

 enemies, but in 591 was restored by 

 a Byzantine army. Taking ad- 

 vantage of the confusion in the 

 Byzantine empire, he invaded Syria 



in 611, sacked Antioch, and took 

 Damascus Jerusalem, and Alexan- 

 dria. In 623, however, Armenia, 

 then a dependency of Persia, was 

 invaded by Heracliua, and Chosroes 

 was taken by surprise. He fled, and 

 was never afterwards able to rally. 

 Finally he was taken prisoner, and 

 put to a lingering death. The 

 most magnificent of the Persian 

 monarchs, he had no capacity for 

 administration, and was scarcely a 

 match for the brilliant Heraclius. 



Arab Conquests 



The Persian empire, worn out by 

 the long struggle with Byzantium, 

 and with only a boy as heir to the 

 throne, was nearing its end. During 

 a period of anarchy, in 633 the 

 Arab leader Khalid led a Beduin 

 army against Iran, defeated the 

 Persian forces, but retired later. 

 The Arabs returned, however,under 

 Mothanna, and Yezdigird, the last 

 of his line, was entirely broken at 

 the battle of Nehavend in 642. 

 For some years Persian resistance 

 continued, but finally the Arabs 

 poured into Iran, which became a 

 dependency of the Ommiad Turks. 

 These conditions obtained until 

 749, when a revulsion against Arab 

 methods and language set in. 



The Abbasides, a rival family to 

 the Ommiads, conspired against 

 the latter, and massacred many of 

 their adherents. The Abbasides 

 found their strongest adherents in 

 Persia, but still rebellion broke 

 out from time to time. During the 

 Golden Age of Islam, which per- 

 haps found its apogee in the reign 

 of Haroun Al Raschid, Persia was 

 still entirely under the regime of 

 the Caliphate, but national feeling 

 had never become extinguished, 

 and the Zoroastrian religion con- 

 tinued to be practised in secret. 

 But the Seljuk Turks had now 

 occupied Transoxiana, and thus 

 threatened the Arabian empire. 

 Finally, they prevailed, and in 

 1037 founded a dynasty. 



The Crusades affected the ror- 

 tunes of Persia only indirectly, 

 but undoubtedly Persia, as a great 

 repository of art, science, and 

 mysticism, exercised, like Byzan- 

 tium, much influence upon the 

 European invaders, whose dress, 

 horse-equipment, miniature paint- 

 ing, art of design, tapestries and 

 mode of thought were all directly 

 influenced by Persian models. 



The picture of Persian history 

 grows darker during the devastat- 

 ing invasion of the Mongols, who 

 swept over W. Asia and Europe 

 like a destroying wind. Invading 

 Turkistan in 1218, they advanced 

 to Transoxiana under Jenghiz 

 Khan, and onward to Merv and 

 Khorassan, which they speedily 

 overran. They devastated W. and 



