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BABYLONIAN LITERATURE.
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very moderate antiquity, must also destroy the pretensions which are raised with regard to the name of Kúthámí. Now numberless traits prove that Yarbúká is a Chaldæan of comparatively modern times. He speaks of the city of Kazvin, which appears to have been founded in the time of the Sassinides;[1]
- ↑ M. Barbier de Meynard has kindly communicated to me the following information on this subject: “The accounts furnished by Mahometan chroniclers as to the origin of Kazvin, will not allow our assigning a date to this city anterior to the Christian era. The national vanity of the Persians, we know, neglects no occasion of placing the founding of their old capital cities in the obscurity of primitive ages. Their historians have adopted a naive form on this point, which constitutes at once the disorder and the vitality of their memorials. They attribute the foundation of such towns as Balkh, Rhages, Susa, etc., to the mythical kings Taomurs and Houchgen of the fabulous dynasty of the Pichdadiens. The silence which they preserve as to Kazvin has, therefore, a significance which criticism cannot ignore. A very popular cosmographer in the East, Hamd-Allah, of Kazvin, has compiled a sketch of his native city, for which he has consulted local legends no less than the writings of his predecessors. Among the records that he brings forward, one only quotes Shahpúr, son of Ardéchir (Sapor I.), as the founder of a little town named Shadpúr, which was the cradle of Kazvin. Hamza of Ispahan names Behram I., without resting his assertion on any proof. On the contrary, Shahpúr Zúl-Aktaf (Sapor II.) is almost universally considered as the founder of this city. That prince, wishing to subdue his warlike neighbours, before attacking the Roman empire, constructed a fortified town, about A.D. 330, a sort of outpost destined to hold the hordes of Deïlem in awe. The ruins, of which (Hamd-Allah) Kazvini has not ventured to fix the date, have
