BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 67 



very moderate antiquity, must also destroy 

 the pretensions which are raised with regard 

 to the name of Kuthami. Now numberless 

 traits prove that Yarbuka is a Chaldaean of 

 comparatively modern times. He speaks of 

 the city of Kazvin, which appears to have 

 been founded in the time of the Sassinides j 1 



1 M. Barbier de Meynard has kindly communicated to me the 

 following information on this subject : " The accounts furnished by 

 Mahometan chroniclers as to the origin of Kazvin, will not allow 

 our assigning a date to this city anterior to the Christian era. 

 The national vanity of the Persians, we know, neglects no occasion 

 of placing the founding of their old capital cities in the obscurity 

 of primitive ages. Their historians have adopted a naive form on 

 this point, which constitutes at once the disorder and the vitality 

 of their memorials. They attribute the foundation of such towns 

 as Balkh, Rhages, Susa, etc., to the mythical kings Taomurs and 

 Houchgen of the fabulous dynasty of the Pichdadiens. The 

 silence which they preserve as to Kazvin has, therefore, a sig- 

 nificance which criticism cannot ignore. A very popular cos- 

 mographer in the East, Hamd- Allah, of Kazvin, has compiled a 

 sketch of his native city, for which he has consulted local legends 

 no less than the writings of his predecessors. Among the records 

 that he brings forward, one only quotes Shahpur, son of Ardechir 

 (Sapor I.), as the founder of a little town named Shadpiir, which 

 was the cradle of Kazvin. Hamza of Ispahan names Behram I., 

 without resting his assertion on any proof. On the contrary, 

 Shahpur Zul-Aktaf (Sapor II.) is almost universally considered as 

 the founder of this city. That prince, wishing to subdue his 

 warlike neighbours, before attacking the Roman empire, con- 

 structed a fortified town, about A.D. 330, a sort of outpost des- 

 tined to hold the hordes of De'ilem in awe. The ruins, of whirh 

 (Hamd- Allah) Kazvini has not ventured to fix the date, havr 



