Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/67

OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 45 correspondence of the Turkish and Roman arms ; and their union must have subverted the throne of the house of Sassan. F'ersia had been lost by a king; it w^as saved by a hero. Exploit* of After his revolt, V^aranes or Bahram is stigmatized by the sonA^sM of Hormouz as an ungrateful slave : the proud and ambiguous reproach of despotism, since he was truly descended from the ancient princes of Rei/^ one of the seven families whose splendid as well as substantial prerogatives exalted them above the heads of the Persian nobility. ^^ At the siege of Dara, the valour of Bahram was signalised under the eyes of Nushirvan, and both the father and son successively promoted him to the command of armies, the government of Media, and the superin- tendence of the palace. The popular prediction which marked him as the deliverer of Persia might be inspired by his past victories and extraordinary figure ; the epithet Giubin is ex- [Chobin] pressive of the quality of dn/ wood ; he had the strength and stature of a giant, and his savage countenance was fancifully compared to that of a wild cat. While the nation trembled, while Hormouz disguised his terror by the name of suspicion, and his servants concealed their disloyalty under the mask of fear, Bahram alone displayed his undaunted courage and ap- parent fidelity ; and, as soon as he found that no more than twelve thousand soldiers would follow him against the enemy, he prudently declared that to this fatal number heaven had reserved the honours of the triumph. The steep and narrow descent of the Pule Rudbar ^' or Hyrcanian rock is the only pass through which an army can penetrate into the territory 15 Ragae, or Rei, is mentioned in the apocryphal book of Tobit as already iv flourishing, 700 years before Christ, under the Assyrian empire. Under the foreign ^ names of Europus and Arsatia, this city, 500 stadia to the south of the Caspian gates, was successively embellished by the Macedonians and Parthians (Strabo, 1. .xi. p. 796 [c. 13, 6]). Its grandeur and populousness in the ixth c^-ntury is exaggerated beyond the bounds of credibility ; but Rei has been since ruined by wars and the unwholesomeness of the air. Chardin, Voyage en Perse, torn. i. p. 279, 280. D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Oriental, p. 714. [Rei or Rayy was a little to the south of Teheran.] 1* Theophylact, 1. iii. c. 18. The story of the seven Persians is told in the third book of Herodotus ; and their noble descendants are often mentioned, especially in the fragments of Ctesias. Yet the independence of Otanes (Herodot. 1. iii. c. 83, 84) is hostile to the spirit of despotism, and it may not seem probable that the seven families could survive the revolutions of eleven hundred years. They might however be represented by the seven ministers (Brisson, de Regno Persico. 1. i. yD. 190); and some Persian nobles, like the kings of Pontus (Polyb. 1. v. p. 540 [c. 43, § 2]) and Cappadocia (Diodor. Sicul. 1. xxxi. torn. ii. p. 517 [c 19]), might claim their descent from the bold companions of Darius. 1' See an accurate description of this mountain by Olearius (Voyage en Perse, p. 997, 998), who ascended it with much difficulty and danger in his return from Ispahan to the Caspian sea.