The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5 (of 6). Duncker Max

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to the east of Iran, calls its native land Airyao Dahvyu, i. e. abode of the Airyas; or Airyao Danhavo, i. e. land of the Airyas, in contrast to the Anairyao Danhavo, i. e. the non-Arian lands.20 In his inscriptions king Darius styles himself "a Persian, son of a Persian, an Arian (ariya) of an Arian tribe,"21 and therefore the name must have held good of the west of Iran also, and have included all the nations of Iran, though afterwards it continued in use more especially for the tribes of the east. The inhabitants of the modern Persian kingdom call their kingdom by the general name of Iran. Iran is only the regular new Persian form of the old name, which in the west was pronounced Ariyana, and in the east Airyana.

      We remember that the ruling nation of India called themselves Arya, and this name compared with Airya and Ariya shows us that the nations of Iran assumed the same title with very little difference. Among the Greeks Ariya and Airya became Areioi and Arioi, and the name of the land, Ariyana and Airyana, became Ariana. We have learnt the meaning of the names Aryas, Ariyas, Airyas; they signify "the noble or ruling people" (IV. 8). Much the same is the sense of the name Artæans,22 which, according to the assertion of Herodotus, was the title by which the Persians called themselves; it signifies "the exalted," or "mighty." The Persians may have assumed it after they became the ruling people in Iran and Hither Asia.

      These distinctions show us that the Aryas whom we found on the Indus and in the Panjab, and who forced their way from thence to the conquest and colonisation of the valley of the Ganges, and then extended their dominion over the Deccan, and imported their religion and their civilisation into those wide regions, were closely connected with the group of nations which occupied the table-land of Iran. It is obvious that this relationship was most strictly maintained and most strongly marked where the intercourse between the neighbouring nations was most lively, i. e. among the nations of Eastern Iran. The conclusion drawn from the common title of the two nations on the west and east of the Indus, and from the statements of Herodotus about the manners of the eastern and the name of the western nations of Iran, is confirmed by the examination of the existing remnants of the ancient languages of Iran, whether spoken in the east or the west. This evidence derived from the names and the language is confirmed yet further by the coincidence in certain traits of religion and worship.

      We are not in a position to fix the place from which and the time when the Arian tribes entered the table-land of Iran and peopled it. That Iran was not their native country is clear from the divergence of the Arian stock from the common stem of the Indo-Europeans (IV. 4). Still less can we decide whether the Arians found an older population already settled in Iran. So far as the ancient monuments of east and west allow us to form an opinion, there exist no elements of an alien language from which we could deduce the existence of an earlier population, which the Arians conquered. Yet we cannot deny that tribes of an alien origin and character were settled on the western spurs of the mountain wall of Iran, in the north no less than in the south.23 The foreign elements which the later forms of the language of Iran have adopted are due to the influence which the Semitic neighbours of the Arians on the west, and the dominion of the Arabs, exercised on Iran. As to the direction in which the Arians entered Iran, we can only conclude, from their close relationship to the Arians of India, that they peopled the east of Iran before the west. If the Arians of India came into the Panjab, as we assumed, soon after 2000 B.C., the Arians of Iran entered the eastern part of that country at a date certainly not later. According to the list of dynasties furnished by Berosus, the Arians about 2500 B.C. were not only settled in Iran, but already possessed the western part of the country. He represents the Medes as conquering Babylonia in 2458 B.C., and from this date down to 2224 B.C. mentions eight Median kings as ruling over Babylon (I. 241, 247).

      In spite of their cruel treatment, the nucleus of the ancient Arian population of Iran has not succumbed to the alien dynasties, the Seleucids, Arabs, and Mongols who have invaded the land since the fall of the Achæmenids; and the ancient territory has been maintained, with some losses, even against the incursions and immigrations of the Sacæ, Yuëchis, and Turkish hordes. As in the vast regions of the Indus and the Ganges, so in Iran the ancient language still lives on the lips of the modern population. Yet the changes have been great. Under the Arsacids the Old Persian passed into Middle Persian, which at a later time was known by the name of the Parthians, the tribe at that time supreme in Persia. Pahlav and Pehlevi mean Parthian, and, as applied to language, the language of the Parthians, i. e. of the Parthian era.24 In the west this older Middle Persian grew up out of the Old Persian, in the east out of the Old Bactrian. In the latest period of the dominion of the Sassanids, the recent Middle Persian or Parsee took the place of Pehlevi. When the kingdom of the Sassanids succumbed to the Arabs, and Arabic became the language of the ruling people in Iran, the reaction which took place in the eastern districts of the country against the dominion of the Abbasids brought about the formation of the new Persian, which was finally completed when the national reaction broke out in the beginning of the eleventh century of our era. Beginning from Merv, Balkh, and Sejestan (the ancient Haetumat), that rising found its strongest point in Ghasna and Cabul. It did not preserve the religion, but it saved the language, nationality, and independence of Iran. The change from the Middle Persian to the modern began with the north-eastern dialects; in the south-east the Afghans and Beluchees still speak in ancient forms, closely akin to the dialects of the peasants of the Panjab. To this day the greater part of the entire population of Iran consists of the descendants of the Arians, in spite of all the distress and ruin which the land has suffered,25 though the residuum of foreign elements is larger here than beyond the Indus, especially in the north-west, in Aderbeijan, and above all in Bactria and Sogdiana, in the north-east. The descendants of the Arians are still recognised by the formation of their bodies, which appeared so striking to Western nations in antiquity – the slender growth, the semicircular, united eyebrows, and the yellow skin, which becomes browner towards the east. The Persians and Afghans still possess a sound judgment, a keen intelligence, and lively sense of poetry – characteristics which, as we saw, belonged in a pre-eminent degree to the Arians of India.

      CHAPTER II.

      THE KINGDOM OF THE BACTRIANS

      Among the ruins of the residence of the kings of Asshur at Chalah, on the confluence of the Greater Zab and the Tigris, was discovered the obelisk which Shalmanesar II., who reigned from 859 to 823 B.C. over Assyria, erected in memory of his successes. In the tribute offered to him we find the rhinoceros, the elephant, the humped ox, and the camel with two humps (II. 320). This species of camel and the yak are found in Bactria, on the southern edge of the Caspian Sea, and in Tartary, and we afterwards find elephants in the possession of the rulers of Bactria.26 Hence, in order to obtain these animals for tribute, the armies of Shalmanesar must have advanced as far as the eastern tribes of the Iranian table-land. From the inscriptions of Tiglath Pilesar II., it is clear that he advanced along the same table-land as far as the Hilmend and the Arachoti, if not as far as Bactria. Among the lands subjugated in 745 B.C., he enumerates Nisaa, Zikruti, and Arakuttu. In Nisaa we cannot mistake Nisæa in the east of Media (p. 31). The Zikruti were no doubt the Sagartians of Herodotus, the Açagarta of the old Persian inscriptions.27 Arakuttu represents in a Semitic form the name of the Arachoti, the Harauvati of the Achæmenids (p. 8). So far as we can at present judge from inscriptions, the successors of Tiglath Pilesar did not carry their campaigns further to the east of Iran, and we can assert with certainty of both the sovereigns who raised the power of Assyria to its summit, Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (681-626 B.C.), that they made no conquests in this direction.

      If the inscriptions of the Assyrians leave us in almost total darkness about Bactria, the Medo-Persian epic poetry can give us full information about the country. When Ninus, king of Assyria, had subjugated all the nations of Asia as far as the Nile and the Tanais, he made an attempt upon Bactria, but without success. The entrance into the land was difficult, the number of warriors great, and they knew how to fight bravely. Then Ninus collected an army of two millions of soldiers, which was opposed by Oxyartes, the king of the

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