132 Meynard's Ibn Khordadbeh. [No. 2, 



lions instead of 720,000 a Dynars. The'only difficulty is caused by the 

 figure of Ibn Khordadbeh, 795 millions Mithqals (of silver). It is clear 

 that the author wants to say, that after the eighteenth year of Perwyz 

 the revenue increased, and as 795 is a higher sum than 600, 1 take that 

 this is the highest figure to which the revenue rose during his reign. 

 After these observations I change the figures, and translate the passage 

 of Ibn Khordadbeh as follows : " The Kheraj of the whole kingdom 

 which was gathered for the Chosroes Parwyz in the year 18 of his 

 reign amounts to 420 millions Mithqals (of silver, read ^J &U*fjl 

 »»ftj| <Ji)\ &jj&e j cftJf). This makes, reduced to the weight of Musul- 

 man Dirhems, 600 millions of Dirhems. Subsequently the revenue of 

 his kingdom rose to 795 Mithqals." 



The passage of Qodama I translate : " It is asserted that Chosroes 

 Parwyz counted in the year 18 of his reign the revenue (for *J^» 

 read <3 ^^) of his kingdom. He possessed all the provinces which I 

 have enumerated, the Sawad and the other districts, with the excep- 

 tion of the western part of the Musulman empire ; for the frontier of 

 his kingdom was Hyt, and the country west of it belonged to the 

 Greeks. He found that the revenue amounted to 42 millions Mith- 

 qals (of gold), this makes 600 millions of Musulman Dirhams (of 

 silver J." 



The Musulman Dirham was not known to the Persians, they count- 

 ed the revenue, as it seems, in Dirhams which had exactly the weight 

 of a Mithqal or of an aureus of Constantine of which 72 made a 

 Roman pound, and for this reason, in the original account which was 

 used both by Ibn Khordadbeh and Qodama, the sum was stated in 

 Mithqals. The money was weighed, and of course, if it contained alloy, 

 deduction was made. We are therefore able to calculate the income 

 with great accuracy, it is equal to 172,800,000 Rupees in value. If 

 we reduce it to English money, we must bear in mind that the pro- 

 portion of the value of gold to that of silver was not the same as in 

 our days. In the Greek empire, it was fixed by law as 14f : 1, and 

 gold was the standard. In the Persian empire, the proportion was 

 probably as 10 : 1, and I am inclined to believe that in the document 

 which Qodama and Ibn Kordadbeh used, the amount of the revenue 

 was stated both in gold and in silver. I have already observed that 

 at Qodama's time the proportion was 9 J : 1, and I have shown (das 



