PERSIA.

Great Divisions and Extent.] Modern Persia is at present divided into Eastern and Western; the former being denominated Afghanistan, whilst the latter still retains its wonted appellation. We are of course necessitated to treat these as distinct monarchies, and will commence with the latter. The range of country comprehended within the limits of these now separate states forms an extensive and lofty upland, sloping on all sides: on the S. to the Persian gulf and Indian ocean,—on the W. to the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates, on the N. to the basin of the lower Araxes, the Caspian sea, and basin of the Oxus,-and on the E. to that of the Indus. Thus considered, Persia is quite distinct in its physical features from all the countries in its vicinity; and, though comprehending several distinct basins on its vast surface, yet the points in which these resemble one another are so many and so peculiar, as to entitle them to the denomination of one whole. This great upland extends upwards of 20 degrees from the W. of the Zagros to that of the Afghanistan mountains, or nigh 1,200 B. miles, by 10 degrees of medial breadth; thus containing a surface of about 800,000 B. square miles. As the boundaries of Western and Eastern Persia are very indistinctly marked, and in a state of constant fluctuation, as the one or the other happens to prevail, it is impossible to be precise in this point. Had the political state of this extensive region allowed us to consider and describe it as one whole, the task of description would have been easier, its political and natural boundaries harmonizing together. Or, had we been permitted to avail ourselves of Kinnier's plan, who describes it according to the boundaries it possessed in the bright days of the Sassanian dynasty, when it reached from the Indus to the Euphrates, and from the Persian gulf to Mount Caucasus, the Caspian and the Oxus,-though the field of description would have been much larger, it would have also been still more distinct, and would have exhibited a more grand and interesting scene to the historian and the antiquary, the politician and the philosophical investigator. But we must bow to the necessity of the case, and describe it, not as it was, in the days of its glory, but as it now is-a mere 'magni nominis umbra,' frittered down into two insignificant monarchies, one of which exists but in name, and the other is silently and rapidly disappearing before the gigantic power of Russia, as snow before the vernal sun.

Name.] The name Persia is not that by which the natives have ever designated the extensive region to which that appellation has been given both by the ancients and moderns. The ancient and native designation of Persia, collectively taken, is Iran; the name Persia only belonged to a province of that region, and one which had no political consequence till the time of Cyrus. This extensive plateau was peopled by many tribes, of, perhaps, different races, of which the Persians, properly so called, formed only one race; but these having, in process of time, obtained the political ascendancy over the rest, the name was naturally transferred by the Greek

historians to the whole region, just as, in after times, the Roman historians disignated the same region by the name of Parthia, the Parthians being the ruling tribe at the time, and afterwards by the name of Persia, when the Persians again obtained the ascendancy. But the appellation of Persia having become stamped by the sanction of classical and even of sacred authority, it has continued to be the name of the whole region ever since. The name does not occur in Scripture till the time of the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity. It is the general opinion that under the name Elam, Persia is designated in the earlier sacred writings; but this seems to be a mistake, for, by that name, Persia, properly so called, was not meant, but only the southern and mountainous part of Media, to the N. of Susiana, and sometimes Susiana itself.1 On the Persepolitan monuments Persia is denominated Airan, in the Pehlivi language, or the old Persian, which was spoken and written in the time of the Sassanian dynasty. The same denomination is engraved, in the same character, on the Sassanian coins. On one of these Artaxerxes, the founder of that dynasty, is denominated 'Artachetre (in modern Persian, Ardeshir) the victorious, king of the kings of Airan and Anairan.' The Greek orthography of these Pehlivi terms is Arianoon and Anarianoon, or Arians and Anarians. In Pehlivi, Air or Eir signifies 'faith;' and in Scandinavian, Eer means the same. Airan, or Eiran, therefore, signifies the land of believers; and Anairan, or Aneiran, that of the unbelievers. This denomination, therefore, is expressive, not of a political, but of a religious union or agreement, and the system which united them was undoubtedly that of the Magi, of which Zoroaster was the reputed founder. The Scythians, beyond the Oxus, never received, but, on the contrary, solutely and steadily opposed the tenets of Zoroaster; and their country was on this account denominated Aneiran, or the land of unbelievers' or 'infidels:' just as at this very day, the Mohammedans designate the regions where their own faith is professed by the appellation of Islam, and where it is not by that of Kaufiristan, or the land of Kaufirs, or Kaffris.' The terms Aria, Ariane, Ariana, are exclusively given by Eratosthenes and Pliny to the whole of Eastern Persia. It is not, however, true, as Malte Brune affirms, that Ptolemy applies that name exclusively to Eastern Persia. He applies it only to the lower region of the Etymandrus river. Mela uses the name Ariane in the same extensive sense as Eratosthenes and Pliny. The Armenian geographer, Moses of Chorene, who flourished in the fifth century, and lived almost on the very spot where Magiism was professed, includes the whole Persian empire under the name of Ariana. Bochart, in his usual way of referring all Oriental words to Hebrew roots, having found that Herodotus and Pausanias affirm that the Medes were originally called Arii, and their country Aria, and that a nation nigh the Cadusians was denominated Ariania by Apollodorus, assigns the Hebrew noun har, a mountain,' as the origin of the appellation; and maintains that Media was called Hara because it was a mountainous region; while, dropping the aspirate, the Medes were called Arii, or 'mountaineers.' Bochart's etymon of the appellations Arii and Aria is altogether fallacious and inconclusive. The term Eiran, then, means the whole region where Magiism was the professed creed and popular belief. It is rather inaccurate in

If the Elymais of classical writers be identical with the Elam of Scripture, it settles the point that Elam is not Persia. Elam, indeed, is classed by the prophet Isaiah with Media; but so also is Kir in the very same chapter, so that we cannot absolutely infer that by Elam, Persia is meant.

Jones and Malcolm to include Assyria and Babylon under that designation, as the Magian tenets were never professed by the sovereigns of the one or the other: Zabiism, or 'the worship of the host of heaven' being the professed religion of these states. It must not be inferred, however, that because Eiran was the original designation of Persia at large, there was, therefore, a unity of political government, as well as of religious faith. The one might exist without the other, as it did in Hindoostan previous to the introduction of Mohammedanism, and as it still does in Europe, which, though denominated Christendom, or the region of Christianity,' consists of many political and mutually independent states.

Modern Divisions.-Western and Eastern Persia have been so constantly confounded as one political state, both by ancient and modern writers, down to the death of Nadir Shaw in 1747, that we feel it necessary to exhibit both under one table.

Remarks on the Comparative Geography of Persia.] We have not ventured, in the above table, to classify, with minute exactness, the ancient and modern divisions of this region; the difficulty of the subject deters us. Whenever the ancients went beyond the limits of Lesser Asia, or without those of the Roman empire, they seem gradually to have lost sight of their subject till it became immersed in almost total darkness. Let any one, for example, examine the geographical notices which have been given on the subject of Persia, from Herodotus down to Ptolemy, and he will find them to be utterly meagre, inconsistent, and contradictory. The reasons of this are obvious. No country has undergone so many revolutions as Persia-continually altering its political aspect, and disarranging its geographical nomenclature. Though the Greeks had much political connection with Persia, and though intercourse between Susa and Athens, or Thebes, or Sparta, was as frequent in ancient times as between London and Paris at the present day, yet, by some strange fatality, they have given us no light on its geography, and very little on the subject of its history. The Macedonian conquest, one would have thought, as it gave them a complete opportunity of ascertaining the geography and the language, religion and manners of Persia, would have furnished a fine theme for the pen of some Greek, especially when it is recollected that it was not a mere hasty, though successful, inroad, but that the whole region was traversed in three different routes by the armies of a prince, who was himself a learned and inquisitive conqueror. As to the Romans, we have received from them some additional notices of the region between Mount Taurus, and the Tigris; but nothing more. They were engaged in almost continual hostilities with the Parthians, and their successors the Persians; and very little intercourse, except what was merely political, ever took place between the rival powers. The religious and political institutions of the East, their total difference of language and manners, and their anti-commercial prejudices, together with that continual jealousy of foreign interference which lurks in the bosoms of Orientals and oriental despots, have thrown a perpetual bar in the way of geographical discovery, and even this has been increased by the intolerant prejudices of the Mohammedan faith. In fact, if we obtain little light on the subject of Persian geography from the ancients we do not obtain much more from those of the East, whether Arabian or Persian. They give us, indeed, a new political nomenclature such as the country happened to have at the time when they wrote; but they are not accurate in their descriptions; and it is impossible to verify their geography by comparing it with ancient, for they were neither acquainted with Greek nor Roman geography, nor with that of their own country, previous to the introduction of Mohammedism. The names, besides, which occur in their works are so different in their orthography from those mentioned in the Greek and Roman writers, that, but for some concomitant circumstances casually mentioned, it is nearly impossible to recognise them under such a disguise. It is, besides. extremely difficult to represent their true orthography in Roman

letters; and it has been wretchedly disfigured by such European travellers as were ignorant of the Oriental languages. In addition to all this, it often happens that the orthography of one author differs from that of another: one expressing it in Turkish, another in Arabic, and a third in Persian. D'Anville—who was undoubtedly the best geographer which Europe has yet produced-made up his map of Persia chiefly from the marches of Timoor-Bek in Sherefeddin, and from what other Oriental informa tion he could procure; but still his inap is exceedingly meagre, and very innaccurate, and he has been able to do very little towards elucidating its comparative geography. Still it was impossible for him, in the deficiency of his information, to do better. Persia having been, of late, explored in different directions by both French and British travellers particularly the latter, a great fund of additional know ledge has been obtained regarding its interior geography; it is, however, still very defective.

WESTERN PERSIA.

Boundaries of Western Persia.] Western Persia is at present bounded by Armenia and the Caspian sea, both in possession of Russia, on the N.; by Asiatic Turkey on the W.; by the Persian gulf on the S.; and by Afghanistan on the E. Its greatest extent is from the vicinity of Mount Ararat on the N.W., to that of Hevat on the S.E., or nearly 1,000 B. miles. But from the pass of Mount Zagros, near Holware, to the same point, and nearly the same latitude, is 900 B. miles. The medial breadth is about 600 B. miles; so that the whole area of Western Persia is little above half that of Persia at large.

Superficial Extent.] The tabular surface of Western Persia is thus variously estimated :

332,460

22 200

477,300

Bertuch, in the Weimar Journal of 1816, 15,240
Balbi,

It is clear, on the most superficial inspection, that the first, or Arrowsmith's admeasurement, is by far too much, whilst that of Bertuch errs as greatly in a contrary respect. Balbi, in the latest enumeration of 1828, assigns 466,000 B. square miles for Persia; But from this statement the khanate of Erivan and district of Nakshivan, which composed Persian Armenia, or the province of Aran, must be excluded, being now annexed, by conquest and treaty, to the Russian empire.

CHAP. I.-HISTORY.

FOR the earliest accounts of this extensive region we are indebted partly to sacred Scripture, and partly to the Greek historians. From the former we learn that Elum was a powerful monarchy in the days of Abraham, 1921 B.C. In the time of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, Media appears to have been a province of his empire, as, to this region, as well as that to the N. of the Kizil-Ozan, the Ten Tribes were transported by this victorious sovereign. Elam or Susiana also appears to have formed a dependent kingdom on the monarchs of Nineveh; but whether the empires of Nineveh and Babylon included ancient Persia, or Fars, and Kerman, and the other provinces of Western Persia, is doubtful; for the marvellous exploits of a Ninus or a Semiramis are romance, not history. It is by no means improbable that a number of independent sovereignties existed in the region collectively denominated Persia, long anterior to the times of a Dejoces or a Cyrus; but of these no monumental records exist.

Dejoces.] Setting aside the fabulous narratives of a Ctesias, a Diodorus