1 The Iranian branch of the Aryans is represented in our times by the Tājiks of Turkestān. Cf. Les Aryens au nord et au sud de l’Hindou-Kouch, par Ch. de Ujfalvy, passim.
2 More correctly Paropanisus. See an article on “Bactria,” by E. Drouin, in the Grande Encyclopédie.
3 The mention of Bākhdi (= Balkh) in Fargard 1 of the Avesta, is perhaps still older.
4 The Greek historians, following a tradition which made the conquests of Sesostris (Rameses II.) even more extensive than they really were, maintain that this conqueror penetrated into Bactria and Scythia. Rameses II. flourished in the thirteenth century before our era. Cf. Maspero, Hist. Anc. des Peuples de l’Orient, p. 225. Equally fabulous is the account given by Diodorus Siculus of the conquest of Bactria by Ninus and Semiramis in B.C. 2180. Cf. E. Drouin, loc. cit.
5 This was the most easterly town of the Persian Empire. Authorities differ as to the site, some identifying it with Ura Tepe.
6 The oases at the embouchure of the Oxus were anciently styled Khwārazm, from a Persian word signifying eastwards. They constitute the modern Khiva. Soghdiana comprises Bokhārā and Samarkand, and the nomenclature is derived from Soghd, the old name for the source of its wealth, the river known to the Greeks as the Polytimetus and to moderns as the Zarafshan.
7 Cf. Nöldeke, Aufsätze zur Persischen Geschichte, p. 23.
8 Called the battle of Arbela, from a neighbouring city, just as the “crowning mercy” of Waterloo was in reality bestowed at a considerable distance from the town indelibly associated with it.
9 According to Grigorieff, this means the district lying between the Oxus and Shahrisabz.
10 The stadium was 600 feet in length; but, as the foot varied greatly in ancient time, this measure of length was never certain. The “great stadium,” otherwise known as the Alexandrian or Egyptian, was .12 of a geographical mile.
11 Grigorieff suggests the identification of this place with the old town of Baykand, or with Hezārasp, in the Khorasmian oasis.
12 It may perhaps be identified with Kalāt-i-Nādiri to the north-east of Meshed, called also the “Soghdian Rock.” The famous Roxana, whom Alexander soon afterwards married, was the daughter of a certain Oxyartes, who was among the captives taken with this fort.
13 Rollin, Ancient History, v. 210. See also Quintus Curtius.
14 He may, for example, have visited Iskander Kul, a lake which to this day bears his name.
15 Cf. Gutschmid, Geschichte Irans, p. 22.
16 In B.C. 327 Seleucus I. had been placed in charge of Syria and the East, and of Babylon—to which, with the aid of Antigonus, he added Susiana. In 316, owing to a quarrel with Antigonus, he fled to Egypt, but in 312 he re-entered Babylon. The era of the Seleucidæ dates from this event. Seleucus extended his dominions as far as the Oxus and the Indus. Not till 306 did he officially adopt the title of king. Gutschmid, op. cit. p. 24.
17 Cf. E. Drouin, loc. cit.
18 Diodotus seems to have prepared his subjects for this change of masters by issuing coins of the type struck by Antiochus II., but bearing his own portrait. Cf. Gardner, Greek and Scythian Coins, p. 20.
19 Hist. x. ad fin. xi. 34.
20 Gardner, Greek and Scythian Coins, p. 21.
21 Cf. Justin, xii. 4: “Parthis deinde domitis prefectus his statuitur ex nobilis Persarum Andragoras: inde postea originem Parthorum reges habuere.”
22 Parthian Coinage, Numismata Orientalia, vol. i. p. 2. Strabo, xi. 9. 2.
23 Justin, xii. 6: “Imperiumque parthorum a monte Caucaso multis populis indicionem redactis usque flumen Euphratem protulit.”
24 Ibid. xlii. 1.
25 Gardner, ibid. p. 6.
26 Gardner, ibid. p. 6.
27 See Note 1 at p. 6 of Chap. iii.
28 Strabo, xi. 8. 2.
29 This sentiment finds many echoes in Latin literature. Cf. Odes and Epistles of Horace, passim. It is curious to note the identity between the tactics of the Parthians and those of the hordes of Chingiz and Tīmūr. The usual charge of bad faith is brought by the Romans against their terrible enemies.
30 The Straits of Yenekale.
31 The three great reformers Lao-tse, Kung-fu-tse (Confucius), and Meng-tse (Mencius) flourished under the princes of this dynasty.
32 The greatest calamity which this ruthless despot inflicted on his country was the wholesale destruction of literature which he ordered, in view of keeping his people in ignorance. This atrocious measure was attended by the slaughter of many learned men. Cf. Legge, Analects of Confucius, p. 6.
33 Also called Khamil, a town about 700 miles east of Kulja.
34 According to Richthofen, the Yué-Chi were of Tibetan stock, but Vambéry and Gerard de Realle assert that they were Turks. Their nidus was to the north-east of Tangut.
35 Cunningham, Survey of India, vol. ii. p. 62.
36 Ct. d’Herbelot, Bib. Orient. vol. vi. p. 10; and Boulger, Hist. of China, p. 11.
37 Cf. Rapson, Indian Coins, in Grundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie, p. 7.
38 Cf. Ujfalvy, Les Aryens au nord et au sud de l’Hindou-Kouch, p. 64.
39 A distinctly Greek type survives to the present time in the mercantile and settled agricultural population of Bokhārā, and the neighbouring khanates, who are known as Tājiks.
40 Strabo (xi. 8) tells us that the Greek power in Bactria was overthrown by the Asii, Pasiani, Tokhari, and Sakarauli. The first two names are probably identical, and represent the royal family of the Tokhari. They may be identified with the Asiani of Trogus Pompeius. The Sakarauli are the Sarancæ of Trogus, and correspond with the Chinese Sé or Su, i.e. the Sakas. Cf. Cunningham, Survey of India, vol. ii. p. 65.
41 Cf. Journal Asiatique, Série Nouvelle, vii. p. 162, 1896.
42 Cf. Colonel Yule, Introduction to Wood’s Oxus, p. xxv.
43 Identified with Kandahār.
44 Cf. Drouin’s excellent article on “Bactria” in the Grande Encyclopédie.
45 General Cunningham states, without quoting any authority, that the Yué-Chi waged war with the Chinese in Khotan during this year (Survey of India, ii. 63).
46 General Cunningham, Survey, vol. ii. p. 64.
47 This point is worthy of note in that eminent scholars used to maintain that the names were practically identical. Cf. Vivien de St. Martin, Les Huns Blancs, 1849, p. 64.
48 These notes on the Ephthalites are taken principally from M. Drouin’s excellent Mémoire sur les Huns Ephthalites dans leur rapports avec les rois Perses Sassanides, privately printed in Louvain, 1895.
49 Their chiefs originally bore the title of Shen-Yü, which in the reign of Tulun (A.D. 402) was changed to Khākān, an ancient title which we now encounter for the first time in history.
50 The best accounts of the Sāsānide dynasty are to be found in Nöldeke’s admirable translation of the portion of Tabari’s annals dealing with that period—Geschichte der Araber und Perser zur Zeit der Sāsāniden, Leyden 1879, and his Aufsätze zur Persischen Geschichte, Leipzig, 1887. From these sources we have derived most of our details, and will therefore give no further references.
51 Or Artabanus.
52 Some authorities maintain that this city was founded by Shāpūr II. about 340.
53 Gūr means “wild ass.” The king, who is one of the favourites of Persian tradition, received this sobriquet on account of his passion for hunting wild asses. He usurped the crown.
54 The Sāsānides were fire-worshippers, disciples of Zoroaster.
55 This pass is traversed by the famous Georgian Military Road connecting Vladikavkaz with Tiflis.
56 Transoxiana was never included in the kingdom of the Sāsānides; the possessions of Achemenides stretched far farther east than those of the Sāsānians.
57 Cf. p. 21, note 2, supra.
58 Here we follow Malcolm (History of Persia), who bases his account on those of various well-known Persian historians, such as Mīrkhwānd and Khwāndamīr.
59 We are told that when Bahrām Gūr returned from this expedition to his capital, Ctesiphon, he appointed his brother Governor of Khorāsān, designating Balkh as his residence.
60 According to the Persian historians, the Khākān was named Khush-Nawāz. Nöldeke, however, disapproved of this reading, the invention he thinks of Firdawsi, and employs that of Akh-Shunwar.
61 Tabari tells us that Pīrūz had previously ceded to the Khākān the important frontier town of Tālikān.
62 Some of the means would hardly commend themselves to modern economists. Pīrūz remitted taxes and large sums from the treasury; but he also compelled the rich to feed their poorer neighbours from these taxes.
63 The more ancient form is Kavadh.
64 I.e. Ctesiphon.
65 We are told that this made him look upon Anūshirawān as a talisman, and the interesting detail is added that the mother and the boy were conducted back to Madā´in in a cart as became a princess. Wheeled traffic is unknown on these roads, but Professor Nöldeke refers us to Plutarch’s Artax. 27, where we are told that the king’s wife used that means of locomotion. In recent times Europeans have taken their carriages from Meshed to Teheran on Kobād’s route.
66 Persian historians assert that he was converted by a sham miracle, and that he continued to believe in Mazdak during the rest of his life. But his motives were probably purely political, and not based on conversion.
67 The famous Orkhon inscriptions which have been deciphered by MM. Radloff of St. Petersburg, and V. Thomsen of Copenhagen, belong to this branch of the Turks.
68 De Guignes, ii. p. 374.
69 Cf. De Guignes, vol. ii. p. 378.
70 Persian and Roman writers assert that Anūshirawān conquered Transoxiana, but this seems most improbable. For, as Nöldeke points out (footnote to page 159 of his Sāsānides), Huen-Tsang, who visited the country soon after these events, speaks only of Turkish and other barbarian States. Moreover, the State of Transoxiana at the time of the Mohammedan invasion augurs strongly against the extension of Persian rule.
71 For a full account of his life—historical and fictitious—we refer the reader to the Appendix of Nöldeke’s Sāsāniden, p. 474.
72 It was reconquered in 629 by Heraclius, the Byzantine emperor, who set up the Cross in the city which had first beheld the emblem of salvation; and the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross is kept on the 14th September in memory of that event.
73 The origin of this well-known expression is curious. The designation Yemen, or the “right hand,” was given by its northern neighbours to a strip on the south-eastern coast of the Red Sea. But in Arabic, as in the Latin and many other languages, the right hand is associated with good fortune. Hence by mistranslation the territory became known to the West as “The Blessed,” or “Felix.” It is well watered, and is better peopled than any other part of the Arabian peninsula.
74 The Ka`ba is said to have contained 160 idols, each tribe having its separate God; and so great was the toleration in ante-Mohammedan times that on the pillars of the temples there were also to be found images of Abraham and of the Virgin and Child. In the sixth century the primitive religion had lost its old signification and had developed into fetishism.
75 Swedenborg was fifty-eight ere he had his first vision.
76 There are two popular fallacies to be noted with regard to the so-called “Hegira.” In the first place, it should be transcribed as Hijra; and secondly, the word does not mean flight, but separation, for the incident to be recalled was not Mohammed’s flight to Medīna—but his separation from his family.
77 “Islām” is synonymous for Mohammedanism in all Arabic-speaking countries. Its literal meaning is “resignation”—a heart-whole submission to the divine will.
78 Khalīfa Rasūl Illāh was the full title of the “Successor of the Prophet of God.” The correct designation of the holder of the office is Khalīfa, while the office itself is Khilāfaa. The former word has till quite lately been transcribed “Khalif,” or Caliph. The self-styled successor of the Mahdi in the Soudan is, however, known to Europe under the correct designation, Khalifah.
79 The outraged hospitality was avenged, for the murderer was torn to pieces by the mob, while the body of Yezdijerd was embalmed and buried in his ancestral tomb at Istakhr.
80 He was the Prophet’s son-in-law, and had been elected in A.H. 44 by a council of six as successor to the stern `Omar, the second Caliph.
81 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. li.
82 Cf. Muir, Decline and Fall of the Caliphate, p. 208.
83 Tabari, Annales, Series II. p. 15. From this date until the appearance in Central Asia of Kutayba in A.H. 86, our history is little more than an enumeration of Arab governors in Khorāsān, whose rule was usually as uneventful as it was shortlived. We have, however, considered it fitting to enter here into detail somewhat disproportionate to the rest of our narrative, seeing that the facts have hitherto been only accessible in works of Oriental writers.
84 Müller, Der Islam, i. p. 354.
85 Tabari, Annales, II. p. 109.
86 He was not the son of the famous governor of Basra.
87 In the interim the post seems to have been filled for a short time by Khulayd ibn `Abdullah el-Hanafī (Tabari, II. p. 155).
88 Tabari, II. p. 156.
89 Vambéry considers Tarkhān (or Tarkhūn) to be an old Turkish title, which Mohammedan authors have regarded erroneously as a proper name.
90 Tabari, II. p. 156.
91 Tabari, II. p. 169. Tabari says he was the first to cross the mountains of Bokhārā on a camel, loc. cit.
92 Tabari, II. p. 169. The Persian Tabari does not mention this queen, but relates the same incident of the king of the Turks; Ba`lami, the Persian translator, also adds that the shoe was sold by Ubaydullah to the merchants of Basra. Cf. Zotenberg’s Chroniques de Tabari, tome iv. p. 19.
93 The direm, derived from the Greek drachma, contained 25 grains of silver, and was worth about 5d. of our money. On this basis the value of the shoe would be £4166 sterling!
94 Vambéry, History of Bokhārā, p. 20. The author says he has this fact from “Arabic authors,” but we have been unable to find any mention of it in either the Arabic or Persian versions of Tabari.
95 According to Tabari (II. p. 179), Sa`īd was met by a great Soghdian force on reaching Samarkand. The rival hosts stood facing each other till nightfall, but on the following day Sa`īd made a furious onslaught and put the defenders to flight, taking fifteen young nobles as hostages.
96 Narshakhi, ed. Schefer, p. 39.
97 Bellew and Vambéry both call him “Muslim,” a reading which has been adopted in the Russian translation of Narshakhi, published in Tashkent in 1897. The latter, indeed, contains a note to the effect that the name is written “Salm” in Arabic sources. It is also the spelling in the Persian Tabari. Salm was twenty-four years of age on his appointment. His father was `Ubaydullah, the famous governor of Basra.
98 This warrior held command of the Arab troops in Central Asia under several viceroys in succession, and thus gained the confidence of his troops and an intimate knowledge of Khorāsān and the adjoining tracts. The stability in the office of generalissimo went far to neutralise any disadvantages occurring from the frequent changes in that of viceroy.
99 Tabari (II. p. 394) tells us that Salm took his wife Umm Mohammed with him, and that she was the first Arab woman to cross the Oxus. She bore him a son, who was surnamed the “Soghdian.”
100 £55 reckoned in our currency.
101 Narshakhi’s account of these events brings the lack of discipline among the Arabs into a strong light, and serves to account for the vicissitudes of their rule in Central Asia.
102 This curious custom still survives in Merv. “One day,” writes O’Donovan, “the town-crier, accompanied by half a dozen other Turcomans, entered my hut, each to present me a new-born child. I could not catch the exact words; all I could understand was that one of the infants was O’Donovan Beg, another O’Donovan Khan, a third O’Donovan Bahadur. I forget what the others were. It turned out that the Tekkes’ newly born children are, as a rule, called after any distinguished strangers who may be on the oasis at the time of their births, or have resided there a short time previously, or after some event intimately connected with the tribe” (The Story of Merv, p. 329).
103 Cf. Aug. Müller, Der Islam, p. 411, who gives the date as A.H. 85.
104 An entertaining account of this cruel and witty governor will be found in d’Herbelot, under the article Heggiage-ben-Josef-al-Thakefi.
105 Merv has been styled by almost all European writers on the subject, “The Queen of the World.” Now the origin of this high-sounding title is the expression Merv-i-Shāhijān, a title used to distinguish this town from Merv er-Rūd. This word Shāhijān has been taken as a corruption of Shah-i-jahān, or “Queen of the World.” Yakūt says that Shāhijān means “Soul of the King.” The form as it now stands is probably “Arabicised” from an old Persian form Shahgūn, “what appertains to a king.” Cf. Rückert, Gram. Poet. und Rhet. der Perser (Gotha, 1874), p. xix. The mistranslation, if such it be, has shared the fate of most mistranslations of the kind, and become universal among Europeans.
106 It must be remembered that Bokhārā is the name of a kingdom as well as of a town.
107 Between Balkh and Merv er-Rūd, three days’ journey from the latter. Istakhri, the geographer, speaks of it as the most important place in Tokhāristān.
108 Dihakān = the man (i.e. the head man) of the dih, or village.
109 Vambéry seems to confuse the two accounts, for he says: “He had not yet arrived within the limits of ancient Bactria when the inhabitants of Balkh came out to meet him, and conducted him with honour into their city.” But Tabari speaks distinctly of an engagement, in connection with which he remembers an interesting detail. Among the captives taken at that time was the wife of a certain Barmek. She was taken into the harem of Kutayba’s brother `Abdullah, by whom she had a son, who was commonly regarded as the ancestor of the famous Barmecīdes of the court of Baghdād. The story was probably invented to give the family a less obscure lineage than that of humble immigrants from Balkh. Cf. Muir, History of the Caliphate, p. 358.
110 Cf. Tabari’s Annales, Series II. p. 1187, and Zotenberg’s Chroniques de Tabari, vol. iv. p. 157.
111 Neither version of Tabari gives any details of this siege, but Narshakhi’s account, of which we extract a portion, is most vivid.
112 Tabari says that he had gone five farsakhs, but mentions no place-name.
113 Narshakhi records that the lieutenant, who was named Varkā, was answerable for this catastrophe. A citizen of Baykand, it seems, had two beautiful daughters. These the lieutenant abducted, whereupon the father remonstrated with him, saying: “Baykand is a large town, why, when you have the whole population to select from, should you carry off my daughters?” As Varkā gave no answer, the enraged father drew out his knife and stabbed him, but not mortally.
114 Narshakhi tells that in Baykand, Kutayba found a heathen temple in which was a silver idol weighing 4000 direms; also a quantity of golden vessels which, when weighed together, amounted to 150,000 mithkals. But the most remarkable of his discoveries were two pearls, each the size of a pigeon’s egg. Kutayba on beholding them asked the people whence such large pearls had been brought. They replied, “that they had been brought to the temple by birds in their beaks.” When Kutayba sent intelligence of his conquest of Baykand to Hajjāj, he also despatched these two pearls, with the account of the tradition relating to them. The reply of Hajjāj ran thus: “We have read your story, and it has filled us with wonder; but more wonderful than the two large pearls, and the birds that brought them, is your generosity in having sent to me these precious prizes you had taken. May the blessing of God be upon you.”
115 Ed. Schefer, p. 43. Khartūm may possibly come to offer a parallel.
116 Vambéry, Bokhara, p. 25.
117 Tabari, Annales, Series II. p. 1195.
118 Scholars have hitherto failed to read this satisfactorily. The forms that occur are Kur-Bughanūn, Kurighanūn, etc. Professor Houtsma has suggested that the termination should be read nūīn, i.e. prince.
119 Narshakhi.
120 Not, of course, to be confounded with Fārāb opposite Chārjūy; but the reading of the name is doubtful.
121 The italics indicate three excellent puns in the original Arabic. Hajjāj had a universal reputation as a master of this difficult tongue. The words may be transcribed as follows: Kiss bi Kissa wansif Nasafan waridd Wardan.
122 Narshakhi’s version of the campaign is full of discrepancies, and the events of the years 88–91 are perforce presented to the reader without much regard for chronology or natural sequence. The results are to be found in Bellew’s epitome (Yarkand Expedition, p. 117).
123 Annales, Series II. p. 1201.
124 Vambéry says, evidently following his Turkish Tabari: “Their women ... tore their faces!”
125 One of the most famous tribes of Yemen.
126 Vambéry says a yearly tribute of 2,000,000 direms!
127 Narshakhi, ed. Paris, p. 40.