descendants of the illustrious Pishdadians, or lawgivers,
who-had reigned over the land for many ages before the
great reverses which their power sustained. Persia recovered
her ancient dominion and greatness in the third
generation before Kai Khosru, or Cyrus the Great, with
whom began the second line of monarch s .; The existence
of the earlier Persian monarchy seems to—be generally
looked upon as an historical fact, even by those who take
a moderate and sober view of the credibility of eastern
writers ; but. it is mtterly irreconcilable with all -that the
Greeks have left respecting Persia and Assyria. The
Three first Kaianian princes were,* evidently, Astyages, Darius
the Mede, and Cyrus, under whom the power of the
Medesr and Persians became formidabletto* Babylon, Herodotus
makes no mention of any Median oil Persian
monarchy, which had preceded tljat erected -by Astyages
and his ancestors. He virtually denies th ^ faet by afeti#
buting the antiquity of 700 years" to the sdominioh of the
Assyrians. The same' construction may be put-on tlie
silence of Xenophon. It is plain, from his account pi' the
birth and fortunes of Gyrus that he knew nothing of a former
empire over whieh the ancestors of his favourite-hero
had reigned with great splendour and power. -AJhird Greek
writer, a contemporary of Xenophon, who had^lo’yedbetter
opportunities than either of becoming acquainted with the
history of Asia, was Ctesias, who resided inthecentre of the
Persian empire, and is supposed to have had access to the
archives of the monarchy. Ctesias differs from Herodotus
in many respects; hut fully agrees with him in regard to the
greater antiquity of the Assyrian compared with the Persian
monarchy, and carries it much further. If his account
is' at all founded on truth, Persia was long subject1 to the
Assyrians, who, in the time of Semiramis, had possession
even of the eastern part, and-earried on war with the princes
of India. Without attaching a high degree of credit to
the authority of Ctesias, we may presume that, residing
as he did at Susa, and engaged in collecting information
respecting the ancient* history of the East, he must have
heard the tradition of the existence of an earlier Persian
monarchy preceding that of the Assyrians, or at least coeval
with it, and equally powerful, had any tradition of the
kind existed, during his time in Persia; and when he makes
the Assyrian empire extend over all Upper Asia, he enables
us to draw, with certainty, this conclusion :—that the
ancient Persians had, in his times, no tradition of such a
dynasty as the Pishdadian.* .
But the true character of the stories which fill the Shah-
nameh and- the Persian history of Mirkhond, ean be
determined with some degree of certainty, since the sources
are pr©bablyt,yet, extant whence the materials of these
stories were derived-.
There are passages 'in • the Zendavesta containing- the
really ancient traditions referring to Kaiomorts and Jem-
shid, and some of the events noticed . in the story of
Ferdusi. It; seems evident that, these afe the sole foundations
©n which the poet, who probably had a slight know-
« l& ^ o f the’ contents of the old Persian Scriptures, span out
the thread?oMhqpShahnameh. And how did he proceed?
By metamorphosing, ancient patriarchs, the first men/ who
^fed Mkflocks like Abraham and Moses and listened to the
revelations''of -the* Supreme Maker1 of the new earth, into
kings and warriors, just as other Mohammedan writers trans-
iformed'tSolomon into a magician, and the early patriarchs
and‘prophets of the Old Testament into-champions and men
at arms The ZehdiSh traditions have little in (Offlaon
, * Ah«IiunciftdpA ,contained injtha propihe^es.of Jeremiah has been adverted
to, as proving the existence of a monarchy in ^ersia.' It commences thus : | | | |
“ Ecee ego cohfringam arcum Aelam;
Et sumiaam. fortitudinem eorum.” *I
* * * * *
“ Et ponam solium meum in Aelam, .
” Et perdam mne reges etprincipes.”*
But this prfrpAecy was 'tJelifetfed duriiig' the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon, an&subseqtifently to the commencement of the dynasty of Kaianians
or Achsemenidse.
Justin recprds tlie existence of a Median or Persian monarchy, said to have
been powerful' in Asia before the efa of the Scythian invasion. But it is plain
that he founded his'relation on that of Herodotus; and that his Persian monarchy
"was subsequent to Deioces.
t Strabo, Geography, p. 720.