Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 1 (1897).djvu/271

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
197

ancestors to the humble station of private citizens.[1] As the lineal heir of the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression under which they groaned above five centuries since the death of Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. In the last of these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit of the nation was for ever broken.[2] The authority of Artaxerxes was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in Khorasan. Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces were confounded among the prostrate satraps. A third, more mindful of ancient grandeur than of present necessity, attempted to retire with a numerous train of vassals, towards their kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army of deserters was intercepted and cut off by the vigilance of the conqueror,[3] who boldly assumed the double diadem, and the title of King of Kings, which had been enjoyed by his predecessor.[4] But these pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian, served only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his soul the ambition of restoring, in their full splendour, the religion and empire of Cyrus.

Reformation of the Magian religion I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and the Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually adopted and corrupted each other's superstitions. The Arsacides, indeed, practised the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. The memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the Persians,[5] was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and mysterious language in which the Zendavesta
  1. D'Herbelot, Bibliothéque Orientale, Ardshir.
  2. Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. [3]. Herodian, l. vi. p. 207 [2]. Abulpharagius Dynast, p. 80. [The battle was fought at Hormuz, between Behbehan and Schuschter. The approved spelling of Artaban is Ardevan. He was the fifth Parthian king of that name.]
  3. See Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 65-71.
  4. [Ardeshir IV. of the small kingdom of Persis became, when he overthrew the Parthian monarchy, Ardeshir I. of the great kingdom of Persia. His title was "King of Kings of Eran and Turan". The Parthians were not completely quelled, though they had lost their king, till 232 A.D.]
  5. Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends and their own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent Zoroaster as a contemporary of Darius Hystaspis. But it is sufficient to observe that the Greek writers, who lived almost in the same age, agree in placing the æra of Zoroaster many hundred, or even thousand, years before their own time. The judicious criticism of Mr. Moyle perceived, and maintained against his uncle Dr. Prideaux, the antiquity of the Persian prophet. See his work, vol. ii. [Of Zarathustra or Zoroaster himself we know nothing. All the stories about him are mere fables; and it cannot be determined whether he was a god made into a man, or a man who really lived.]