690 
SHIRAZ. 
remains can be traced in or near its site, like those of Babylon 
or Nineveh, so early an origin must be denied ; though, possibly, 
we might find it to have been the Corra of Ptolemy. It is 
situated in latitude 29° 33! 55", and is now the capital of the 
province of Fars, formerly the kingdom of Persia-Proper; but 
which, in earliest time, bore the name of Elam, from the eldest 
son of Shem, whose descendants were its first people. It was 
also called Paras: hence the Persis, and Persia, of the classic 
authors ; but the natives themselves do not recognise it by any 
of those appellations ; and in the time of Cyrus it was known by 
that of Iran ; which name was afterwards extended to the whole 
empire when he became its master. This latter circumstance 
might support Xenophon’s account of the royal birth of Cyrus, 
against the legend of Herodotus, who represents him as the son 
of a mere Persian nobleman. Had his paternal origin been so 
comparatively low, it seems hardly probable that when he be¬ 
came sovereign of the more extensive country of the Medes 
through the bequeathment of his mother’s brother, he would not 
rather have distinguished his maternal descent, by giving its 
nobler name to the united kingdoms, than swallow up the 
greater in the less ; and also bestow an appellation, which could 
only remind the proud monarchs of the East, that their for¬ 
midable rival was the son of a petty lord in an only minor king¬ 
dom. But when we regard Cambyses as the king of Iran, and 
his son, the mighty conqueror who endowed his royal ally of 
Media with territories on all sides ; then Iran becomes of conse¬ 
quence in its prince, and the kingdom of his natural inheritance 
very properly gives its name to the empire of which he is the 
acknowledged founder. 
Shiraz, which has now usurped the station of Persepolis, as 
