ETHNOGRAPHY
OF.
E U R O P E A N D A S I A .
CHAPTER X.
OF THE ANCIENT AND^MODERN POPULATION OF IRAN, OR
; THE MEDO-PERSIAN EMPIRE, FROM THE, TIGRIS
TO THE INDUS.
S ection, ‘1 .—General Observations.— Outline | of the Phy-
,':.isieal Geography of Iran.
T h e first appearance of the ancient Medes and Persians,
during the sixth century before our era, on the theatre of
human affairs, was almost as sudden as that of the Hunns,
or Turks', or Mongoles,‘in a later, age. , Shortly ■ before
>the period when they gained; they mastery of the world,
their name seems to have been' unknown to Europe and
to Western Asia. - The Greeks of the Homeric age, and
while the kingdom of Lydia was growing up in Asia
Minor, appear never to have heard of the Persians;
nor have we any proof that their existence was known,
except by the predictions of the Prophets, to the ancient
Hebrews. Even . in the historical records referring to
preceding times, which the Greeks afterwards found in the
East, there is no trace of an ancient empire, or even of
an independent nation, in the countries between the Tigris
and the Indus, dating its existence many generations
before Cyrus. The Assyrian Kingdom of N in us and
Semiramis and their successors is said to have reached
VOL. IV. B.