Persian Empire

“ Its antagonist, the Persian, empire, comprised the whole of modern Asiatic and much of modern European Turkey, the modern kingdom of Persia and the countries of modern Georgia, Armenia, Balkh, the Punjaub, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, Egypt and Tripoli.
Nor could a European, in the beginning of the fifth century before our era, look upon this huge accumulation of power beneath the sceptre of a single Asiatic ruler with the indifference with which we now observe on the map the extensive dominions of modern Oriental sovereigns ”

“ After a journey of nine months through Persia, I am strongly of opinion that if the Empire is to have a solid and permanent resurrection, it must be through the enterprise of Persians, aided it may be by foreign skill and capital, though the less of the latter that is employed the more hopefully I should regard the Persian future. ”

“ These broken stones, dug from the desert, are all that is left to tell us of a great and dominant race for ever passed away. The Persian empire came afterwards into prominence, and was a mighty power when in its prime. ”

“ It was, in the first place, destined to be the permanent political system of the Persian dominion for all the ages during which that empire continued to be the neighbour of the Greek of Europe and of Asia. In the second place, it is impossible to realize the ability of the Persian race at its highest point of development, and the enlightened character of some, at least, of its rulers, without fully appreciating the main details of the great scheme of imperial and provincial government which Darius promulgated. ”

“ He resolved to bring the whole force of the Persian empire together to subdue the Athenians, from whom he had suffered so great a disgrace. Three years were [pg 216] spent in active preparations for a new expedition which should be overwhelming. All the allies of Persia were called upon for men and supplies. Nor was he deterred by a revolt of Egypt, which broke out about this time, and he was on the point of carrying two gigantic enterprises—one for the reconquest of Egypt, and the other for the conquest of Greece—when he died, after a reign of thirty-six years, B.C. 485. ”

“ The Persians were quick to learn, and gladly appropriated to themselves the civilization of Nineveh and Babylon; but luxury and dissipation will unnerve the strongest empire, and after a time the designing beauties of the harem became the rulers of weak and wicked princes, and though Persian magnificence lasted from Darius to the last Persian king, their final failure was due to their own corruption as much as to the forces of Alexander the Great. ”

“ Its influence, extending for centuries over Western and Southern Asia—from the frontiers of Affghanistan to the Levant, from the Persian Gulf to the shores of the Ægean Sea—was potent in modifying a vast population, destined to give birth to many civilised States. From its loins proceeded the empire of Persia,—which was, in fact, in all respects only a modification of the empire which it supplanted ”

“ Persia has little hope of escaping the Russian policy of oppression and absorption, unless either English or German troops are allied with her native forces against the common foe. There is no longer, therefore, a hope that Persian literature may be revived, and the intellectual resources of the empire again developed, unless the civilized nations of Europe come to her rescue. ”

“ His reign of twenty-nine years was one constant succession of wars, in which he was uniformly successful, and in which [pg 096] success was only equaled by his magnanimity. His empire extended from the Indus to the Hellespont and the Syrian coast, far greater than that of either Assyria or Babylonia.
Degeneracy of the Persian conquerors. The result of the Persian conquest on the conquerors themselves was to produce habits of excessive luxury, a wide and vast departure from their original mode of life, which enfeebled the empire, and prepared the way for a rapid decline. ”

“ The monarch governed by no council, and the laws centered in the principle that the will of the king was supreme. The only check which he feared was assassination, and he generally spent his life in the retirement of his seraglio, at Susa, Babylon, or Ecbatana.
The Persian empire was the last of the great monarchies of the Oriental world, and these flourished for a period of two thousand years. When nations became wicked or extended over a large territory, the patriarchal rule of the primitive ages no longer proved an efficient government. ”

“ The concerns of an empire so vast as that of Persia would have given ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch who was determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian sovereigns there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and self-denial to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of their office. ”

“ The rule of the Parthians.When the Romans in the last age of the republic came into immediate contact with Iran as a consequence of the occupation of Syria, they found in existence the Persian empire regenerated by the Parthians. ”

“ Swarms of slaves provided whatever was required by the wealthy, and it was the Persian's boast that his sword brought him the luxury of the world in tribute.
It has been estimated that the total population of Persia did not exceed 2,000,000. A small proportion of these were peasants who tilled the arable soil. Agriculture was held honorable and was encouraged by the national religion. The great majority of men were soldiers.
Since the soldier's life was thought to be worthy of a Persian, we may do well to consider whatever features characterized the service in this empire. ”

“ In the Old Testament this country is called Elam.
493 Ptolemy says that this last bore the name of “Alexander’s Island.”
494 Persis was more properly a portion only or province of the ancient kingdom of Persia. It gave name to the extensive Medo-Persian kingdom under Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire, B.C. 559.
495 The Parthi originally inhabited the country south-east of the Caspian, now Khorassan. Under Arsaces and his descendants, Persis and the other provinces of ancient Persia became absorbed in the great Parthian empire. ”

“ Thus the Empire of the Greeks, which at first brake into four kingdoms, became now reduced into two notable ones, henceforward called by Daniel the kings of the South and North. For Ptolemy now reigned over Egypt, Lybia, Ethiopia, Arabia, Phœnicia, Cœlosyria, and Cyprus; and Seleucus, having united three of the four kingdoms, had a dominion scarce inferior to that of the Persian Empire, conquered by Alexander the great. All which is thus represented by Daniel: [2] And the king of the South [Ptolemy] shall be strong, and one of his Princes [Seleucus, one of Alexander's Princes] ”

“ During the last two thousand years, whose history we possess, Persia has been repeatedly overrun by foreign conquerors, and the sequel of each conquest has been the same, namely, that the influence of climate and of luxurious Persian habits has relaxed the energies and the original virtues of the invaders, and disposed them in turn to fall victims to another conquering people. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But with hardly any exceptions they had been the merest puppets, now in the hands of Turkish ministers, now under the protection of practically independent dynasts. The real rulers of Persia during the years 874–1231 were, as we have seen, the Samanids, the Buyids, the Ghaznevids, the Selyuks, the Salgharids and the Khwarizm shahs. We now come to a new period in Persian history, when the numerous petty dynasties which succeeded the Seljuks were all swallowed up in the great Mongol invasion. ”

“ In return for the advantage conferred by this article, Persia, on her side, engaged to obstruct the advance of the armies of any European power seeking to pass through her territory for the purpose of invading India. From this time forth the Persian court was destined to become the place of residence of ministers plenipotentiary from the sovereigns of England and of Russia; and as Persia was thus assumed to be a civilized power, she was obliged thenceforth to conform herself in some respects to the practices of civilized nations. ”

“ THE foundation of the kingdom of Persia, which the Orientals call Iran, dates back beyond the historic ages of Asia, and consequently of the whole world. Though we cannot fix with any degree of certainty the period of the establishment of the four fire-worshipping dynasties anterior to the invasion of the Musulmans, still it seems indubitable from documents recently discovered in various Persian historians, that those dynasties were preceded by several others. ”

“ Falsehood they look upon in all cases where it facilitates their ends, not only justifiable, but highly commendable, and good faith, generosity, and gratitude are alike unknown to them. * * * * In short, to close this outline of the Persian diameter," I shall add, without the fear of confutation, that from my own observation, I feel inclined to look upon Persia at the present day to be the very fountainhead of every species of tyranny, cruelty, meanness, injustice, extortion, and infamy, that can disgrace or pollute human nature, or have ever been found in any age or nation." ”

“ By continual conquests, the Persians were now reduced to only two outlets for their energies, in two opposite directions—in the east towards India, in the west towards Greece. Everywhere else their advance was arrested by the sea or other obstacles almost as impassable to their heavily armed battalions: to the north the empire was bounded by the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and the Siberian steppes; to the south, by the Indian Ocean, the sandy table-land of Arabia, and the African deserts. ”

“ The great empire of Persia, which covered the world from the shores of the Euxine to the sources of the Nile, and from the Ægean to limits undefined, beyond the regions of mystery through which the Indus flowed, was to be invaded. It had endured for centuries as an immense and impregnable power. Fierce tribes dwelt in the fastnesses of its snow-clad mountains, numberless caravans crept across its scorching deserts, gigantic cities flourished upon its fertile plains. Nations were lost among the uncounted millions of its population. ”

“ Persia was originally a small province on the Persian Gulf, still known as Fars. But Persia Proper included, besides the sandy plain on the gulf, a mountainous plateau north of it, and was bounded by Media on the north, by Carmania on the east, by the Persian Gulf on the south, and by Elam on the west. Its people were of the Aryan race, and at first subject to the Medes. They revolted under Cyrus the Great, and became the controlling power in the conquest of Nebuchadnezzar's dominion. ”

“ The ambition of Persia, still the great monarchy of the world, was permanently checked and crippled; the strength of generations had been wasted, and the immense extent of the empire only served yet more to sustain the general peace, from the exhaustion of its forces. ”

“ The Government is despotic; the emperor is called the Shah. The people are courteous and refined in manner, witty, and fluent in speech; they are of Aryan stock and Mohammedan faith. The original empire of Persia was established by Cyrus 537 B.C. A century later decay set in. Revival under Parthian and Sassanian dynasties lasted from 138 B.C. till A.D. 639. Persia became then a province of the Arabs. From the 14th century it fell under Mongol sway, and again in the 16th century under Turkish. The present dynasty was founded in 1795. The future of the country is in Russian and British hands. ”

“ History, however, has some splendid exceptions to this rule, and Persia has had three successive periods of intellectual prosperity,—three times has the national spirit awakened as from a torpor, and for a season it has gleamed like a star in the Orient, but three times it has either died out, or been crushed beneath the storm of conquest. ”

“ All the force of traditional hatred and revenge was therefore added to their avarice, and lust for power, when these fearless warriors sprang to the saddle and rode to the conquest of Persia. Their terrible war-cry of Allah-il-Allah, rang through rifled cities, and seemed to rise from the very dust which was spurned from the feet of Arabian horses, until Persian nationality was crushed by the invaders. ”

“ Persia was a small, rocky, hilly, arid country about three hundred miles long by two hundred and fifty wide, situated south of Media, having the Persian Gulf as its southern boundary, the Zagros Mountains on the west separating it from Babylonia, and a great and almost impassable desert on the east, so that it was easily defended. Its population was composed of hardy, warlike, and religious people, condemned to poverty and incessant toil by the difficulty of getting a living on sterile and unproductive hills, except in a few favored localities. ”