THE

BENARES MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1852.

I.

PERSEPOLIS.

It was stated in the article on Nineveh, in the last number of this Magazine, that that city was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians B. C. 606. The alliance of these two nations lasted but a short time, and was entirely dissolved by Cyrus the Great in B. C. 559, at the Battle of Pasargadæ, and a new Empire, called henceforth the Persian Empire, and comprising Media, Persia, Assyria, Babylonia, Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, founded on the ruins. There does not seem to have been any capital city to this vast Empire: three royal residences are mentioned, Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana, but there is no mention of Persepolis.

It is almost certain that Persepolis did not exist, at any rate not in the magnificent form which it subsequently assumed, in the time of Cyrus. No mention is made of such a place; Cyrus was not buried there; and there are no traces of an antiquity so remote as his time. Till of late years, the general opinion was that Cyrus was the founder of Persepolis, but the recent researches in the cuneiform inscriptions have led M. Lassen and Major Rawlinson to conclude that the great platform on which the city was built, and the Chehel Minar (the 40 pillars), and the building on the third terrace behind the Chehel Minar were constructed by Darius, that is, about 100 years after the total destruction of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The other chief builder of Persepolis was, as is proved by inscriptions on the remains, Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius.

B

The plan on which we propose to proceed in this article, is to give a hasty sketch from the writings of the Greek Historians, of what we already knew of Persian History before these remains were discovered, and then to give an account of some of the remains themselves, chiefly those of Persepolis, Murgháb, Naksh-i-Rustam, and Behistan; from which it will be seen how much additional knowledge has been gained, on this interesting subject, from the late researches.

The commencement of the Persian Empire is to be dated from the revolt of the Persians from the Medes. The manner in which this revolt began, as related by Herodotus, though it has the appearance of being legendary, need not be entirely disbelieved. The story tells us how Cyrus gave out that he had received authority from the King of the Medes to act as general over the different tribes of the Empire. They readily acquiesced in the supposed order of their king, and Cyrus bade them attend him on an occasion which he appointed. When they came to receive his commands, he took them into a field covered with thistles, and ordered them to clear it. The task was a long and difficult one, but they nevertheless performed it. On the next day Cyrus invited them to a feast, and took care to make them as happy with mirth and good cheer as they had been miserable the day before from poor fare and hard work. When the feast was concluded and they had expressed their sense of the striking contrast between the two states of life to which Cyrus had introduced them, he is reported to have said, "Men of Persia, thus it is with you: those who are willing to obey me, a thousand good things await, bearing in their train no toil befitting slaves: those who are not willing to obey me, innumerable labours worse than those of yesterday will attend. Freedom follows where I lead, and Providence has designed me to bring these good things into your hands."

On this stirring appeal, they readily attached themselves to the fortunes of Cyrus, and aided him in throwing off the galling yoke of the Medes. After a few minor engagements, their efforts were crowned with success at the battle of Pasargadæ, in B. C. 559. Cyrus, being now at the head of a new Empire, carried his arms westward, and conquered first of all the kingdom of Lydia under Croesus. It seems strange that the Persian conquest of Asia Minor should have preceded that of the Assyrian empire, which then comprised all the countries westward of the Tigris as far as

Egypt, and therefore lay directly in the route which the Persian Army would have to take. But so the history tells us, without making any reference to the difficulty, and from what has already been discovered in the remains in and around Persepolis, it does not seem likely that this difficulty will ever be cleared up. The only inscription yet found, which speaks of Cyrus, is that on his tomb at Murgháb, which merely contains the few words, "I am Cyrus, the Achæmenian." Of his exploits and personal history nothing has yet been added to our former stock of knowledge.

Cyrus was succeeded by Cambyses, of whose career in Persia very little is known. He is chiefly remarkable for his conquest of Egypt. He was succeeded by an impostor called the Pseudo-Smerdis, who contrived by the assistance of the Magi to retain his seat on the throne for the space of seven months. We come now to a more important and better known period of Persian History, the reign of Darius. He was of the Achæmenian tribe, and was chosen king (so the story goes) because his horse was the first to neigh on the meeting of the nobles for the choice of a king-this having been the pre-concerted sign by which they were to be guided in their election. He proved himself not unworthy of the high position in which chance had thus placed him. He began his reign by dividing his enormous empire into satrapies, 20 in number, and appointing a certain amount of tribute to be paid by each. At the first establishment of these divisions of the empire, the satraps seem to have been charged merely with collecting the tribute and forwarding it to the royal treasury. In the later times of the Persian empire they came to be erected into separate military governments, and this proved to be the remote cause of its final dismemberment.

One of the most remarkable events in the reign of Darius is his expedition into Europe to avenge, on the Scythians beyond the Danube, the losses which the empire had sustained from those barbarous hordes about 120 years before. Historians have not acquainted us with the details of this expedition; and it is fairly a matter of wonder how Darius came to avenge on the Scythians of Europe an outrage committed on his empire by the Scythians of Asia. But the fact seems so well established, that it does not admit of doubt. It certainly bespeaks a greater facility of locomotion than we have generally given the ancients credit for. We know, however, that it was undertaken by Darius in person, and that it was unsuccessful. He built a

bridge over the Danube, and committed the care of it to the Greeks, while he himself penetrated further into the country. As it was not certain that he would return by the same way, he fixed 60 days as the limit, beyond which the Greeks were not required to maintain the defence of the bridge. The story of his giving them a leathern thong having 60 knots in it, one of which was to be untied every day, if true, argues a very low state of scientific knowledge, and one hardly compatible with what we know of the civilisation of the Persians and the neighbouring countries, (to say nothing of the Greeks,) at this period of their history. This expedition, as may well be imagined, did not add much either to the reputation or to the strength of the empire; but the loss and disappointment were more than counterbalanced by the conquests of Otanes, one of Darius' generals, over Byzantium, Chalcedon, Imbros, and Lemnos. This is the most flourishing period of Persian History. There was no power in its immediate neighbourhood, nor indeed within many hundreds of miles, which could hope to throw off the Persian yoke, and to recover its independence.

It was in the midst of this career of victory and glory, that the memorable war arose between Persia and Greece, which of course we cannot here enter upon, further than to remark that the inscriptions seem to make no allusion to these famous wars. It is remarked by Richardson, in his Preface to his Arabic and Persian Dictionary, that no Persian writer, whose work he had been able to consult, contained any account of the Invasion of Greece. It is not so much to be wondered at that no Persian writings remain to attest the facts related by the Greeks, considering the radical changes which that country underwent before it was accessible to Europeans; but it is surely a matter of wonder that the later Dynasties, those founded by Arsaces and Sassan, should have been so wrapped up in their own exploits as to have left us no record of the mighty deeds of their forefathers.

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But of more importance even than these extensive conquests, and these openings up of the Eastern and Western world to each other, is the change of religion in this part of the East attributed to the personal influence of Darius. is seldom that in the history of times so early as these, we find an account of anything more than the conquests and magnificence of great kings; here we have a subject shewing that some great steps in civilisation and general progress had been taken. It is doubtful, as Heeren shews, whether historians have been right in supposing Zoroaster to have been con

temporary with Darius.

What Zoroaster has recorded of himself in the Zend Avesta points apparently to lands over which Darius had no control, and to a period earlier than his era. He shews, from the places mentioned in the Zend Avesta, that the native land of Zoroaster was Northern Media, Azerbijan, the country between the Kúr and the Araxes; that he first appeared as legislator and reformer; and that quitting this district, he passed into lands eastward of the Caspian, and came to Bactra, the residence of King Gustasp, his disciple and admirer. Again, in the commencement of the Vendidad there is a catalogue of the provinces and chief cities of Gustasp's kingdom; which, from their oriental names, may be easily recognised. We learn from this that all the countries east of the Caspian, as far as Hindustan, were subject to that King. Khorasan, Bactriana, Sogdiana, Aria, Kabul, and even Lahore, occur in the list; while no mention is made of Persia and Susiana; nor of the capitals, Persepolis, Susa, and Babylon. Yet these were the usual residences of Darius, and could hardly have been omitted if he were the Gustasp who patronised Zoroaster. Heeren adduces other reasons to prove that Zoroaster was not contemporary with Darius, but those which we have mentioned will perhaps be considered sufficient. But this much is certain, that Darius was instrumental in establishing the tenets of Zoroaster throughout the whole of his extensive dominions, and we may therefore look upon this reign as the great religious epoch between the establishment of Christianity and that gradual corruption of the earliest religious knowledge which resulted in Sabæanism. The bearing of this subject upon the visit of the Magi, to worship the Saviour of the world, can only be mentioned in this place in passing.

Xerxes the son of Darius succeeded, a name memorable in Grecian rather than in Persian History. Indeed the name Xerxes does not appear in Oriental History at all, but as his father's reign is stated to have lasted 60 years, it is probable that the reign of Xerxes is to be included in that. If so, he is the Isfundir of the Persian Historians, the father of Bahman, the Artaxerxes Longimanus of the Greeks.

The only other king of the Achæmenian Dynasty, of whom remains are found in the monuments which we are about to describe, is Artaxerxes Ochus; but as we know very little of importance respecting him, we may pass on from this period, about three centuries and a half B. C., to the rise