joined with the bitterer prejudice bred of patriotism to produce a race-hatred between the holders of the two faiths. The Christians were Roman sympathizers, and friends of the enemies of the land. As a matter of fact the last charge was only half true. Christian unwillingness to serve in the royal armies was not nearly so marked as the distrust of them which made the King unwilling to accept their service as a rule.[1] Still a consideration of that kind was not likely to do much towards abating a popular antipathy.
Thus that race-hatred, so unintelligible to us Europeans, grew up between Christians and Zoroastrians; and according to the law of the East, that religion is the determinant of nationality, they rapidly became separate nations, for all that they dwelt in the same land. Such race-hatred can, as we see in India, be kept under control for generations by a Government resolved to keep the peace; but it blazes up like the fires from a long dormant volcano if it be given opportunity or permission for its indulgence. In Europe, Highland may despise Lowland, or one nation another. But put them to live together in one country (in Canada, for instance), and in a generation or so the hatreds die out, the races mingle, and a new, possibly a finer type of humanity is produced. It is only in the East that races (Kurd and Armenian, or Kurd and Assyrian) will live side by side for generations, each in villages of their own; doing life's business together fairly amicably, and obeying the orders of the Government (if any) to keep the peace—but mixing no more than oil and water, and abating no jot of mutual and bitter hatred.
- ↑ Sometimes they were employed, but there were probably few Christians among the "Azadan," the free tenants in chief who furnished the cavalry of the Sassanid feudal army—the "infantry" were undisciplined peasants.
