King of Persia

“ Hath burst on us and all the Persian realm!
Messenger
Be well assured, the tale is but begun—
The further agony that on us fell
Doth twice outweigh the sufferings I have told!
Atossa
Nay, what disaster could be worse than this?
Say on! what woe upon the army came,
Swaying the scale to a yet further fall?
Messenger
The very flower and crown of Persia's race,
Gallant of soul and glorious in descent,
And highest held in trust before the king,
Lies shamefully and miserably slain.
Atossa
Alas for me and for this ruin, friends!
Dead, sayest thou? by what fate overthrown? ”

“ Did you never observe how great is the property of the Spartan kings? And their wives are under the guardianship of the Ephori, who are public officers and watch over them, in order to preserve as far as possible the purity of the Heracleid blood. Still greater is the difference among the Persians; for no one entertains a suspicion that the father of a prince of Persia can be any one but the king. Such is the awe which invests the person of the queen, that any other guard is needless. ”

“ He was, however, up the last, treated with the utmost distinction, and the king strove by the richness of the presents which he bestowed on this occasion, to lessen the chagrin which the Russian envoy might be expected to feel on receiving his dismissal from the Kajar court. [3] The whole people of Persia seemed to be united in the determination to enter upon a religious war, and the king's last scruples were removed on his receiving intimation of the threat that if he should still decline to lead his people to battle, his subjects would find another leader for themselves. ”

“ They thrust a floating promontory.
But beds are wet with many a tear
⁠Where late the longed-for love lay warm;
New luxury of grief is dear
⁠To our fair Persians: some mailed form
She kissed 'Goodbye,' her love, her own,
Each misses, left in wedlock lone.
Men of Persia, here in council, seated round this ancient roof,
Sounding deep, for sore the need is, let us put it to the proof,
How it fareth with King Xerxes, great Darius' golden heir,
Lord of lieges, mighty dynast, who made Persia rich and fair ”

“ At the age of fourteen or fifteen he is married to a wife, of whom, the chances are, he soon grows tired. He then marries another, and then a third, and his anderoon goes on increasing. Up to the present time no prince royal of Persia has ever had the good fortune to travel abroad. Were the king or the heir-apparent to do so, many of the arts of civilization might, to some extent, no doubt, be introduced into Persia on his return ; but the risk of finding his throne threatened by others is at all times too great to admit of the Shah venturing to leave Persia. ”

“ The feeling of the Persian towards his king is one of which moderns can with difficulty form a conception. In Persia the monarch was so much the State, that patriotism itself was, as it were, swallowed up in loyalty; and an absolute unquestioning submission, not only to the deliberate will, but to the merest caprice of the sovereign, was, by habit and education, so engrained into the nature of the people that a contrary spirit scarcely ever manifested itself. ”

“ The cause of our revolt, therefore, being of this sort, has justice on its side; but the advantage which you yourselves will gain if you receive the request of the Lazi we shall forthwith tell. To the realm of Persia you will add a most ancient kingdom, and as a result of this you will have the power of your sway extended, and it will come about that you will have a part in the sea of the Romans through our land, and after thou hast built ships in this sea, O King, it will be possible for thee with no trouble to set foot in the palace in Byzantium. ”

“ I had goloshes on over my boots, and rode off with one of B⸺’s servants to the house of the Eyn-ul-Molk (eye of the state) ; such titles, not being hereditary ones, are usual among the statesmen and great officials of Persia.
“The Sword of the State,” “The Pillar of the Kingdom,” “The Shadow of the King,” are all titles in actual use; they are sufficiently high-sounding and poetical even to satisfy a Persian’s sense of dignity.
No sooner is a prince born, than the king proceeds to give him a title, which as he grows in dignity and years is often changed for a higher one ”

“ Yes, Persia has indeed fallen into a pit, and we must pull her out, but the pit is not simply one of political difficulty, it is the pit of Muhammadanism, Persia’s most real difficulty, and we must annex Persia for the King of Kings. ”

“ The Story of Ali Aba and the Forty Robbers Destroyed by a Slave
The Story of Ali Khujeh, a Merchant of Bagdad
THE STORY OF BEDER, PRINCE OF PERSIA, AND JEHAUN-ARA, PRINCESS OF SAMANDAL, OR SUMMUNDER. Persia was an empire of such vast extent, that its ancient monarchs, not without reason, assumed the haughty title of King of kings. For not to mention those subdued by their arms, there were kingdoms and provinces whose kings were not only tributary, but also in as great subjection as governors in other nations are to the monarchs. ”

“ Scarcely an evening passes without a dance, private theatricals, or other festivity given by one or other of the Embassies, entertainments which his Imperial Majesty himself frequently graces with his presence.
There is probably no living sovereign of whom so little is really known in Europe as Nasr-oo-din, "Shah of Persia," "Asylum of the Universe," and "King of Kings," to quote three of his more modest titles. Although he has visited Europe twice, and been made much of in our own country, most English people know absolutely nothing of the Persian monarch's character or private life. ”

“ A cheerful submission was rewarded with honours and riches; but the prudent Artaxerxes, suffering no person except himself to assume the title of king, abolished every intermediate power between the throne and the people. Extent and population of Persia His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia, was, on every side, bounded by the sea or by great rivers,—by the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus ”

“ The reigning family of Persia are the hereditary chiefs of the royal Kajar tribe, and still preserve the customs of that position. They have not changed the manly habits of a warlike race for the luxury and lethargy which sapped the energies and ruined the lives of so many monarchs of Persia. Up to the time of the present ruling dynasty the princes of the blood were immured in the harem, where their education was left to women and their attendants, and until the death of the King his destined successor was not known. ”

“ Cambyses, successor to Cyrus, crushed the oldest power of the world, that of the Pharaohs; and the third Persian king crossed the Bosporos, that he might embody in the colossal Persian empire the eastern lands of Europe and the borders of the Pontos. Persia, by the personal greatness of some of its rulers, by the healthy force of its original inhabitants, as well as by marked good-fortune, thus attained a position in the history of the world hitherto equalled by no other country ”

“ Rome has turned Christian; so, to cement his alliance with Rome and insure Roman aid against powerful Persia, the Armenian king has had himself coverted likewise, and his people follow suit with great piety;—which sends Shah Sapor, King of the kings of Iran and Turan, Brother of the Sun and Moon, to it with a missionary as well as a dynastic zeal; and a war that is to be of nearly thirty years' duration has been in process along the frontier since 336. Persia, better called a kingdom, perhaps, than an empire, commands about forty millions of subjects ”

“ The conquests of Phoenicia, Cyprus, Egypt, and the Greek islands were undertaken, it is probable, mainly with this object; and these parts of the Empire were always valued chiefly as possessing skilled seamen, vessels, and dockyards, from which the Great King could draw an almost inexhaustible supply of war-ships and transports. Persia at times had the complete command of the Mediterranean Sea, and bore undisputed sway in the Levant during almost the whole period of her existence as an empire. ”

“ But the mother had more prudence, and said: "Let me give thee timely counsel, and breathe not a syllable to any one on the subject. God forbid that thou shouldst again be thrown into prison, and confined in chains. Recollect thine is the succession; the army is in thy favor; thy father is old and infirm. Have a little patience and in the end thou wilt undoubtedly be the King of Persia.
"The gold and jewels, the imperial sway,
The crown, the throne, the army, all he owns,
Will presently be thine ”

“ Had the Ten Thousand perished under the attacks of the Persian horse, or even under the weapons of the Kurds, or amid the snows of Armenia, the opinion of Persian invulnerability would have been strengthened rather than weakened by the expedition. But the return to Greece of ten thousand men, who had defeated the hosts of the Great King in the centre of his dominions, and fought their way back to the sea without suffering more than the common casualties of war, was an evidence of weakness which could not but become generally known, and of which all could feel the force. ”

“ If the wealthy families of Persia remained in their old mode of life in the country, with their flocks, such a position might keep up a feeling of independence and freedom which was hardly compatible with the unlimited power of the king and the interests of the empire. ”

“ The Persians were ruled by independent chieftains, or petty kings, who acknowledged fealty to Media; so that Persia was really a province of Media, as Burgundy was of France in the Middle Ages, and as Babylonia at one period was of Assyria. The most prominent of these chieftains or princes was Achaemenes, who is regarded as the founder of the Persian monarchy. To this royal family of the Achaemenidae Cyrus belonged. His father Cambyses, called by some a satrap and by others a king, married, according to Herodotus, a daughter of Astyages, the last of the Median monarchs. ”

“ From that time forward Persia was the assailed and not the assailant. The Great King either was not, or did not feel himself in a position to assume the offensive beyond the waters which separated Asia from Europe.
In reckoning up the results of a great war it is instructive to appreciate what was: it is impossible to ignore what might have been. Of the issues, military, political, and social, of this Græco-Persian war, the military issue is perhaps the least important from the point of view of world-history. ”

“ Pierson and I visited a magnificent palace which was in course of construction by the Imād-u-dowlet. Some idea of its size may be given when I say that there was stabling for two hundred horses. In Persia, when a man passes fifty, he begins to be seized with a mania for building, but he takes care not to finish the works he undertakes, being thoroughly persuaded of the certainty of his own death in case of the completion of the edifice.
Some ten years after I had left Kermanshah, Imādieh—so the place was called—was presented (I dare say much against the grain) to the king. ”

“ It was a far cry to Peloponnese from the banks of the Peneius, and a supremacy in Thessaly under Persia was better than no supremacy at all. It is not strange, then, if, in their providence of the future, they made friends of the mammon of Persian unrighteousness.
It would flatter Greek conceit to think that their own renegade countrymen could have so much influence for evil with the Great King; and the part which these families of the Peisistratidæ and Aleuadæ are represented to have played in determining the great war was doubtless greatly exaggerated. ”

“ The modern kings of Persia have palaces in many parts of their dominions, whither they resort for the climate or for the chase. To these palaces are attached villages, in which provisions are collected for the use of the court as soon as the motions of the King are decided. [28] —For a graphic description of the Persian mode of hunting the antelope, with hawks as well as dogs, see Sir John Malcolm’s Sketches of Persia. ”

“ During this period Persia had many men of culture, and, indeed, she boasted of one literary king.
Sultān Ahmed Ilkhāni, who reigned over Bagdad, Azerbaijān, and some parts of Asia Minor, conducted his court with great pomp and splendor. He was one of the most accomplished men of the age, being an artist and illuminator as well as a musical composer. His beautiful calligraphy, in various languages, was highly celebrated, and his poetical productions, in both the Persian and Turkish tongues, were considered very meritorious. ”

“ and also celebrate the skill of the Scythians in that art, who sent once to Darius, King of Persia, an ambassador that made him a present of a bird, a frog, a mouse, and five arrows, without speaking one word; and being asked what those presents meant, and if he had commission to say anything, answered that he had not; ”

“ The silver, next in value and endurance, of which were the arms and breast, stands for Persia. Centuries ago Persia was the great Power of the earth. At one time it would seem as if she never would decay or ever have a rival; but her day came, and she has dwindled down to the little kingdom and monarchy—the Persia of to-day. Her power is gone, she is consumptive, and will soon disappear as a separate kingdom. ”