PERSIA (HISTORY.) 



475 



their greatness and power. Cobacl (until 531) sub- 

 dued the Huns; and, though he had recovered his 

 throne, in 498, by their assistance, yet, at a later 

 period, he waged a successful war against them, 

 against Athanasius, the Indians, and Justinian I. 

 His youngest son and successor, Chosrou Aimshirvaii 

 (from 531 to 579) was distinguished for his uncommon 

 wisdom and valour. Under him the Persian empire 

 extended from the Mediterranean to the Indus, from 

 the laxartes to Arabia and the confines of Egypt. 

 He waged successful wars with the Indians and 

 Turks, with Justinian and Tiberius, and the Arabs, 

 whom he delivered from the oppression of petty 

 tyrants, and suppressed the rebellions of his brother 

 and his son. The Lazians iu Colchis, wearied with 

 the Greek oppression, submitted themselves to him ; 

 but, when he attempted to transfer them into the 

 interior of Persia, they again placed themselves 

 under the dominion of Justinian, whose arms were 

 now victorious. Anushirvan died of grief during 

 the negotiations for peace. War continued under 

 Hormuz (Hormisdas IV., from 579 to 59, until the 

 reign of Chosrou II. until 628), under whom the 

 Persian power reached its highest pitch. By suc- 

 cessful wars he extended his conquests, on the one 

 side to Chalcedon (616), on the other over Egypt to 

 Lybia and .^Ethiopia, and finally to Yemen. But 

 the fortune of war was suddenly changed by the 

 victorious arms of the emperor Heraclius. Chosrou 

 lost all his conquests, and his own son Sirhes made 

 him prisoner, and put him to death (628). The 

 decline of Persia was hastened by continued domestic 

 feuds. Sirhes, or Kabad Shirujeh, was murdered in 

 the same year. His son Ardshir (Artaxerxes) III., 

 but seven years old, succeeded him, and was mur- 

 dered, in 629, by his general Serbas (Sheheriar.) 

 The chief Persians prevented Serbas from ascending 

 the throne ; and, after numerous revolutions, suc- 

 ceeding each other so rapidly that the historians 

 have confounded the names, Yezdegerd III., a 

 nephew of Chojrou, ascended the throne in 632, at 

 the age of sixteen. He was attacked by caliph 

 Omar, in 636, and Persia became a prey to the 

 Arabs and Turks. Yezdegerd lost his life in 651. 



With the conquest of Persia by the caliphs begins 

 the history of the modern Persian empire. The 

 dominion of the Arabs (see Caliph] lasted 585 years, 

 from 636 to 1220. As some of the Arab governors 

 made themselves independent, and Persian and 

 Turkish princes possessed themselves of single pro- 

 vinces, Persia continued to be divided into numerous 

 petty states. Among the principal dynasties were, 

 in the north and north-east, 1. The Turkish house of 

 the Thaheridis in Khorasan, from 820 to 872 ; 2. the 

 Persian dynasty of the Soffafides, which dethroned 

 the one last named, and ruled over Khorasan and 

 Farsistan until 902 ; 3. the Samanide dynasty, which 

 established its independence on Khorasan in 874, 

 under Ahmed, in the province Mavaralnar, and 

 lasted to 999. Ishmael, Ahmed's son, dethroned the 

 Sofiarides, and became powerful ; and under his 

 descendants originated, 4. the Gaznavides, in 977, 

 when Sebektechin, a Turkish slave and governor of 

 the Samanides at Gazna and Khorasan, made himself 

 independent at Gazna. His son Mahmood subdued, 

 in 999, Khorasan, and, in 1012, Farsistan, and thus 

 put an end to the dominion of the Samanides. He 

 subsequently conquered Irak Agemi (1017) from the 

 Bouides, and even extended his conquest^ into 

 India. But his son Masud was stripped of Irak 

 Agemi and Khorasan by the Seljooks (from 1037 to 

 1044) ; and the Gaznavides, weakened by domestic 

 divisions, became, under Malek Shah (1182), a prey 

 to the Gourides. 5. The sultans of Gour (Gourides) 

 became powerful, in 1150, by means of Aladdin 



Hosain, but lost their ascendency, after several 

 great reigns, partly by the encroachments of the 

 princes of Khowaresm, and partly by domestic dis- 

 sensions. 6. The dynasty of the Khowaresmian 

 shahs (from 1097 to 1230) was founded by Aziz, 

 governor of the Seljooks in Khowaresm, or Karasm, 

 where he rendered himself independent. Tagash 

 (1192) destroyed the empire of the Seljooks, and 

 took Khorasan from the Gourides. His son Moham- 

 med conquered Mavaralnar, subdued the Gourules 

 and Gazna, and occupied the greater part of Persia. 

 But, in 1220, the great khan of the Monguls, Gengis 

 Khan, and his heroic son Gelaleddin Mankbern, 

 deprived him of his dominions ; and he died in 1230, 

 after a struggle of ten years, in a lonely hut in the 

 mountains of Curdistan. In western and north- 

 eastern Persia reigned, 7. Mardawig, a Persian 

 warrior, who founded a kingdom at Dilem, in 928, 

 which soon extended over Ispahan, but was destroyed 

 by the Bouides. 8. The Bouides (sons of Bouia, a 

 poor fisherman, who derived his origin from the Sas- 

 sanides), by their valour and prudence, extended 

 their sway over the greater part of Persia, and, in 

 945, even over Bagdad. They were chiefly distin- 

 guished for their virtues and love of science, and 

 maintained themselves until 1056, when Malek 

 Rahjrn was obliged to yield to the Seljooks. 9. 

 The Seljooks, a Turkish dynasty, as is supposed, 

 driven by the Chinese from Turkestan, first became 

 powerful in Khorasan, with the Gaznavides. To- 

 grulbeg Mahmood, a brave and prudent warrior, 

 drove out the son of Mahmood, the Gaznavide 

 sultan, in 1037 ; extended his dominion over Mava- 

 ralnar, Aderbijan, Armenia, Farsistan, Irak Agemi, 

 and Irak Arabi, where he put an end to the rule of 

 the Bouides at Bagdad, in 1055, and was invested 

 with their dignity, as Emir el Omrah, by the caliphs. 

 Some of his descendants were distinguished for great 

 activity and humanity. The most powerful of them, 

 Malek Shah, conquered also Georgia, Syria, and 

 Natolia (Roum). But the empire gradually declined, 

 and was divided into four kingdoms, which were 

 destroyed by the shahs of Khowaresm (1162 and 

 1195), the atabeks of Aleppo (1139), and the Mon- 

 guls (1194). Gengis Khan established the power of 

 the Tartars and Monguls in Persia (12201405). 

 Those Persian provinces which had been acquired 

 by Gengis Khan fell to his younger son, Tauli, in 

 1229, and then to the son of the latter, Hulaku, at 

 first as governors of the Mongolian khans, Kajuk 

 and Mangu. Hulaku extended his dominion over 

 Syria, Natolia, and Irak Arabi. He or his successor 

 became independent of the great khan, and formed 

 a separate Mongolian dynasty in those countries, 

 which sat on the throne till the death of Abusaid, 

 without heirs, in 1335. His successors, also descen- 

 dants of Gengis Khan, had merely the title of khans 

 of Persia. The empire was weak and divided. 

 Then appeared (1387) Timurlenk (Tamerlane) at 

 the head of a new horde of Monguls, who conquered 

 Persia, and filled the world, from Hindoostan to 

 Smyrna, with terror. But the death of this famous 

 conqueror was. followed by the downfall of the 

 Mongul dominion in Persia, of which the Turkomans 

 then remained masters for a hundred years. These 

 nomadic tribes, who had plundered Persia for two 

 centuries, wrested, under the reigns of Kara Jussuf 

 and his successors, the greatest part of Persia from 

 the Timurides, were subdued by other Turkoman 

 tribes under Usong Hassan (1468), and incorporated 

 with them. They sunk before Ishmael Sophi (1505), 

 who artfully made use of fanaticism for his political 

 purposes, and whose dynasty lasted from 1505 to 

 1722. Ishmael Sophi, whose ancestor Sheikh Sophi 

 pretended to be descended from Ali, took from the 



