Persius

“ In what manner the mongrel Persius revenged the filth and venom of Rupilius, surnamed King, is I think known to all the blind men and barbers. This Persius, being a man of fortune, had very great business at Clazomenæ, and, into the bargain, certain troublesome litigations with King; a hardened fellow, and one who was able to exceed even King in virulence ”

“ The Life itself, though not free from the suspicion of interpolation and undoubtedly corrupt and disordered in places, is probably trustworthy. The MSS. say it came from the commentary of Valerius Probus, no doubt a learned edition of Persius like those of Virgil and Horace by this same famous “grammarian” of Berytus, the poet’s contemporary. The only case in which it seems to conflict with the Satires themselves is in its statement as to the death of Persius’s father. ”

“ The poem takes the form of a dialogue between Persius and a Friend. Persius recites a line (possibly from Lucilius) which looks like the beginning of a poem. "Who will read stuff like that?" asks the Friend. "Well," says Persius, "what does that matter! The opinion of thick-headed Rome isn't worth a d——n! If only I could say what I think! But when I look at our gloomy way of living, and our affectation of morality, I feel that I must have my laugh out (1–12) . ”

“ Turning now to some other practices, we may begin by glancing at the widely diffused lustration of a babe with saliva. The object of the custom is said to be protection against the Evil Eye. Persius, in the first century of the {262} Christian era, describes with great scorn a grandmother or superstitious aunt as taking the child from its cradle and rubbing its forehead with spittle applied with the middle finger.262.1 Nor is the custom by any means extinct. ”

“ In each case a friend warns the poet of the dangers of such an attack. Both poets justify themselves by the example of Lucilius, and his free-spoken attacks upon his contemporaries. Persius rejects all appeal to the depraved opinion of his own time, and asks for readers who have caught the spirit of the masters of the old Greek comedy; Juvenal promises to spare the living and to confine his attacks to the dead.
SATIRE I
P. "O the vanity of mankind! How vast the void in human affairs!"
F. "Who will read stuff like that?" ”

“ 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 proper was a table-land, lying between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, with deep valleys and rapid rivers. It was such a country, with such a climate, as required a constant struggle by mankind for existence. Thus was produced a vigorous race, a race of our own blood, Aryans, that had one great wave of emigration to the West, peopling Europe, and a later wave into India. The Persians were quick, keen-witted, lovers of art and poetry, filled with energy and courage, and having a very high regard for truth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ And the growing corn was trodden under the weight of armed feet, And every woman in Persia cursed the sound of a song too sweet, Cursed the insensate longing for life in the heart of a sick old man; But the king of Persia with all his armies marched on Masinderan. Many a day they marched in the sun till their silver armour was lead To sink their bodies into the grave, and many a man fell dead. And they passed the mouth of hell, and the shadowy country gray, Where the air is mist and the people mist and the rain more real than they. ”

“ The Mediterranean, the Egean, the Propontis, the Euxine, the Caspian, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Gulf or Bed Sea washed its shores, bounding almost all its western, and much of its northern and southern sides; while the sands of the Sahara, the deserts of Arabia and Syria of India and Thibet, filled up the greater part of the intervening spaces. The only countries of importance which can be viewed as in any sense neighbors of Persia are European and Asiatic Scythia, Hindustan, Arabia, Ethiopia, and Greece. ”

“ Persia proper was a small country, three hundred miles from north to south, and two hundred and eighty from east to west, inhabited by an Aryan race, who brought with them, from the country beyond the Indus, a distinctive religion, language, and political institutions. Their language was closely connected with the Aryan dialects of India, and the tongues of modern Europe. Hence the Persians were noble types of the great Indo-European family, whose civilization has spread throughout the world. ”

“ Mardon and Tharybis the massy spear
Grasp with unwearied vigour; the light lance
The Mysians shake. A mingled multitude
Swept from her wide dominions skill'd to draw
The unerring bow, in ships Euphrates sends
From golden Babylon. With falchions arm'd
From all the extent of Asia move the hosts
Obedient to their monarch's stern command.
Thus march'd the flower of Persia, whose loved youth
The world of Asia nourish'd, and with sighs
Laments their absence; many an anxious look
Their wives, their parents send, count the slow days,
And tremble at the long-protracted time. ”

“ EFFECT ON THE GREEK ARMY. If Chaldea, Assyria, Babylon, presented stupendous and venerable antiquities reaching far back into the night of time, Persia was not without her wonders of a later date. The pillared halls of Persepolis were filled with miracles of art—carvings, sculptures, enamels, alabaster libraries, obelisks, sphinxes, colossal bulls. ”

“ 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 Persians were originally the inhabitants of that poor and insignificant province called Persis, which was included between the Persian Gulf in the south and Mêdia in the north, and which stretched eastward from Susiana (Elam) to the deserts of Karmania. The great empire won by their arms, extended from the Mediterranean to the Jaxartes and Indus. Xenophon says that the Persians in early times led a life of penury and hard toil, as they inhabited a rugged country which they cultivated with their own hands (Kyrop. vii. 5, 67) . ”

“ In their national character, the Persians were warlike, they were early taught to ride, and to handle the bow, and by the manly exercises of hunting, they were inured to bear the toils and fatigues of a military life. Their national valour, however, soon degenerated, and their want of employment at home soon rendered them unfit for war. In the reign of Xerxes, when the empire of Persia was in its most flourishing state, a small number of Greeks were enabled repeatedly to repel for three successive days an almost innumerable army. ”

“ 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 ”

“ And when the Babylonians sunk into a more complicated idolatry, the Persians, who succeeded to the sovereignty of Asia, renewed under their Princes, and particularly under Darius, the son of Hystaspes, these rites, which had been, in a great degree, effaced, and forgotten. That king was devoted to the religion styled Magia [936] ; and looked upon it as one of his most honourable titles, to be called a professor of those doctrines. The Persians were originally named Peresians, from the Deity Perez, or Parez the Sun ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There was much that is interesting about the ancient Persians. All the old authorities, especially Herodotus, testify to the comparative purity of their lives, to their love of truth, to their heroism in war, to the simplicity of their habits, to their industry and thrift in battling sterility of soil and the elements of Nature, to their love of agricultural pursuits, to kindness towards women and slaves, and above all other things to a strong personality of character which implied a powerful will. ”

“ The early Persians are represented as having oval faces, raised features, well-arched eyebrows, and large dark eyes, now soft as the gazelle's, now flashing with quick insight. Such a people were extremely receptive of modes and fashions,--the aptest learners as well as the boldest adventurers; not patient in study nor skilful to invent, but swift to seize and appropriate, terrible breakers-up of old religious spells. ”

“ After the time, therefore, when the Persians had taken from the Romans the city of Nisibis and certain other places in Mesopotamia, whenever they were about to make an expedition against the Romans, they disregarded the land outside the River Euphrates, which was for the most part unwatered and deserted by men, and gathered themselves here with no trouble, since they were in a land which was their own and which lay very close to the inhabited land of their enemy, and from here they always made their invasions. ”

“ So long as the carpets of Babylon and Sardis, the shawls of Kashmir and India, the fine linen of Borsippa and Egypt, the ornamental metal-work of Greece, the coverlets of Damascus, the muslins of Babylonia, the multiform manufactures of the Phoenician towns, poured continually into Persia Proper in the way of tribute, gifts, or merchandise, it was needless for the native population to engage largely in industrial enterprise.
To science the ancient Persians contributed absolutely nothing. ”

“ The passage rends thus:-
“All Greeks know that, so long as they regarded Persia as their common enemy, they were at peace with each other, and enjoyed much prosperity, but since they have looked upon the King (of Persia) as a friend, and quarrelled about disputes with each other, they have suffered worse calamities than any one could possibly imprecate upon them.”
The Persian empire was founded by Cyrus, about B.C. 560, and rapidly rose to be perhaps the greatest power of the world of that age. ”

“ HISTORIC OUTLINE. ORIGIN OF PERSIAN LITERATURE—ACCAD AND SUMER—LITERATURE OF NINEVEH—BABYLON—ĪRĀN OR PERSIA—PHYSICAL FEATURES—PERSIAN ART—MANUSCRIPTS—EARLY LITERATURE—THE ARABIAN CONQUEST—LITERATURE OF MODERN PERSIA—PERSIAN ROMANCE.
Every nation has a literature peculiarly her own, even though it may find its sources in foreign fields. As Persia was founded upon the ruins of more ancient monarchies, as she gathered into the halls of her kings the spoils of conquered nations, so also her literature was enriched by the philosophy and science, the poetry and mythology of her predecessors. ”

“ It is the common possession of their age, their nation, and the culture which it had attained; and marks in the most striking fashion the contrast of the relative values of Persian and Greek civilisation and political institutions. A handful of Greeks bid splendid defiance to the sovereign of the enormous Persian empire, to the sheer bulk of his army, and to all the intrigues of his satraps. It was the victory of Greek subtlety and skill over the rigid and mechanical organisation of Persia, of Greek science over the intellectual poverty of the East, of Greek tactics over Persian confusion ”