376 
SHAPOUR. 
the Koureh Shapour of Ebn Haukal.* The great province in which 
it was included, had been particularly favoured by Cyrus, and his 
dynasty: it was their native seat, and contained their palaces, their 
treasures and their tombs. When their empire was overthrown, this 
portion was still administered by a race of native princes,-j* * § who, after 
an interval of five hundred years, revived their pretensions to the throne 
of Cyrus, J and re-established in their ancient seats, the religion and 
the empire of the Caianian Kings. The Princes of the house of Sassan 9 
who thus came forth from it as from the cradle of their strength, re¬ 
garded it as the original and favourite appanage of their crown ; and 
marked their peculiar connection with it by imposing their names on 
its four districts,§ a division which, amid all the revolutions of their 
dominions, is even yet recognized. || Here, therefore, the revival of 
the worship of fire, the great object of their dynasty, was established 
more generally and more permanently, than in other parts of their 
monarchy; for in the tenth century, when the Mahomedans had been 
three hundred years in possession of Persia, 44 no town or district of 
44 Fars was without a fire-temple and the division of Shapour in 
particular, contained two at least of the four temples which Ebn 
Haukal has particularised in the province.** 
In this district accordingly, which was connected with the house of 
* Ebn IIaukal, p. 89. The Sabura of Golius ad Alfraganium, quoted by 
Vincent; Nearchus , 2d edition, p. 329. I( ; 
+ Strabo, lib. xv. p. 708. In De Sacy, u Memoires sur diverses Antiquites de la 
« Perse,” 1793, p. 34. 
t Anct. Univ. Hist. xi. 66. Artaxerxes demanded from the Romans the cession of 
all the provinces which Cyrus had possessed; but Sapor II. his descendant and suc¬ 
cessor, advanced still higher pretensions, and claimed all the country to the river Sirymon , 
in Macedonia, the original boundary of Darius Hystaspes. 
§ Compare however the division of Ebn Haukal, p. 82. 
j| Niebuhr says otherwise, tom. ii. p. 166; but Sir Harford Jones, who,had better 
opportunities of ascertaining the fact, asserts it. Vincent, p. 329, p. 485. 
f Ebn Haukal, p. 85. 
** Ebn Haukal, p. 95. 
