120 ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABU. 



cidse still subsisted in Persia, but in circumstances of 

 such feebleness and disunion as invited the wander- 

 m^ Arabs, about the begyniing of the thn-d century, 

 to take possession of Irak, which they found without 

 any regular government or means of defence. They 

 made themselves masters, for a time, of the whole 

 territory lying betAveen the passes of Hulwan and 

 the Ti-J-ris Malec fixed the seat of his new king- 

 dom at Anbar, on the Euphrates, where certain of 

 his countrymen, knowTi by the name of Armenians, 

 were already settled, who had been carried from 

 Arabia among the captives of Nebuchadnezzar. 1 he 

 capital was afterward transferred to Hira, a city 

 lovver down the river, by Amru, the third prince of 

 this dynasty, with whom the throne passed by mar- 

 riage from the descendants of Cahlan to the Lakh- 

 mians, another branch of the royal house of Saba m 

 Yemen. The following list of the kings of Hira is 

 furnished by Pococke and Hamza.* 



* Abulfeda and Hamza assign this kingdom a duration of 622 

 years, evidently reckoning from the dispersion of El Arem ; Ta- 

 biri 489 years, five months ; exclusive of three reigns, the length 

 of vVhich is not expressed. De Sacy fixes M^'-^c s reign A. D, 

 210- but he admits that It may be more ancient. 'OnpouTTOit. 

 sil'on vouloit, faire ^^monter un peu plus haul, r^tabhssemen 

 de Malec dans I'lrak. .1e regrette de ne pouvoir employer ici 

 I'ouvTage de Hamza." The parts of Hamza relative to the kings 

 of Hira and Gassan, which he had not seen, have since been 

 published by Rasmussen, late Prof ot O"",^^, ^.t. at Copen- 

 haeen in his Hist. Praecip. Arab. Reg. ante Islam. 1817. Ac- 

 cordmc^ to this chronology, the kingdom of Hira niust have 

 commenced about A. D. 12^ It is evident that ?°^nie of the ead 

 princes settled m Bahrem have been omitted ; buUhe Arabs hi 

 up the chasm, as usual, by making Amru reign \8 a, J ^ 

 olkais 114 years.— Price's £ssay, chap. IV. vu, " At this lime 

 ?obably happened the migration of those colomes ^-h'ch vvere 

 Ld into Mesopotamia by the chiefs Beer, Modar, and Rabiah , 

 from vvhom three provmces in tl.at country are sUll nan ed,- 

 Diyar Beer, Diyar Modar, and Piyar Rabjah, r-Qobt J\Qtt. c* 

 Alfragan, p. 232. 



