Page:1909historyofdec04gibbuoft.djvu/446

388 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xlii deliverance of three thousand captives; and the sophists who contended for his favour, were exasperated by the wealth and in- solence of Uranius, their more successful rival. Nushirvan be- lieved, or at least respected, the religion of the Magi ; and some traces of persecution may be discovered in his reign. 61 Yet he allowed himself freely to compare the tenets of the various sects ; and the theological disputes in which he frequently presided, diminished the authority of the priest and enlightened the minds of the people. At his command, the most celebrated writers of Greece and India were translated into the Persian language : a smooth and elegant idiom, recommended by Mahomet to the use of paradise, though it is branded with the epithets of savage and unmusical by the ignorance and presumption of Agathias. 62 Yet the Greek historian might reasonably wonder that it should be found possible to execute an entire version of Plato and Aristotle in a foreign dialect, which had not been framed to express the spirit of freedom and the subtleties of philosophic disquisition. And, if the reason of the Stagyrite might be equally dark or equally intelligible in every tongue, the dramatic art and verbal argu- mentation of the disciple of Socrates 63 appear to be indissolubly mingled with the grace and perfection of his Attic style. In the search of universal knowledge, Nushirvan was informed that the moral and political fables of Pilpay, an ancient Brachman, were preserved with jealous reverence among the [Bozare] treasures of the kings of India. The physician Perozes was secretly dispatched to the banks of the Ganges, with instructions to procure, at any price, the communication of this valuable work. His dexterity obtained a transcript, his learned diligence accomplished the translation ; and the fables of Pilpay M were 61 See Pagi, torn. ii. p. 626. In one of the treaties an honourable article was inserted for the toleration and burial of the Catholics (Menander, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 142 [fr. 11; p. 213 in F. H. G. iv.]). Nushizad, a son of Nushirvan, was a Christian, a rebel, and — a martyr ? (D'Herbelot, p. 681.) 62 On the Persian language, and its three dialects, consult d'Anquetil (p. 339-343) and Jones (p. 153-185) : aypla rivl yKuiTrri ko. kfiovtroTirri, is the character which Agathias (1. ii. p. 66) ascribes to an idiom renowned in the East for poetical soft- ness. 63 Agathias specifies the Gorgias, Phtedon, Parmenides, and Timseus. Re- naudot (Fabricius, Bibliot. Greec. torn. xii. p. 246-261) does not mention this Bar- baric version of Aristotle. 64 Of these fables, I have seen three copies in three different languages : 1. in Greek, translated by Simeon Seth (a.d. 1100) from the Arabic, and published by Starck at Berlin in 1697, in 12mo. 2. In Latin, a version from the Greek, Sapientia Indorum, inserted by Pere Poussin at the end of his edition of Pachymer (p. 547-