Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/253

I OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 231 "plunged singly to oppose the torrent of gleaming arms, ex- hibiting such acts of gigantic force and valour as never king had before displayed. A few of his friends, roused by his They defeat words and actions, and that innate honour which inspires the videa, and sub- brave, seconded their lord so well that, wheresoever he turned a.d.iosseioss] his fatal sword, the enemies were mowed dov'n or retreated [Battle of before him. But now, when victory seemed to blow on his ^™^ standard, misfortune was active behind it ; for, when he looked round, he beheld almost his whole army, excepting that body he commanded in person, devouring the paths of flight." The Gaznevide was abandoned by the cowardice or treachery of some generals of Turkish race ; and this memorable day of Zendecan ^^ founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd kings.^*' The victorious Turkmans immediately proceeded to the elec- Dynasty of tion of a king ; and, if the probable tale of a Latin historian i" jnkians. a.d. deserves any credit, they determined by lot the choice of their new master. A number of arrows were successively inscribed with the name of a tribe, a family, and a candidate ; they were drawn from the bundle by the hand of a child ; and the im- portant prize was obtained by Togrul Beg, the son of Michael, the son of Seljuk, whose surname was immortalised in the greatness of his posterity. The sultan Mahmud, who valued himself on his skill in national genealogy, professed his igno- rance of the family of Seljuk ; yet the father of that race appears to have been a chief of power and renown.^ For a style of Ferishta has been improved by that of Ossian. [The translation of Briggs, i. no, is as follows : " The king undismayed even by the defection of his officers gallantly rode his horse to the spot where he perceived the conflict most bloody, performing prodigies of valour, unequalled perhaps by any sovereign ; but his efforts were vain ; for, when he looked round, he beheld nearly the whole of his army, excepting the body which he commanded in person, in full flight ".] I The Zendekan of d'Herbelot (p. 1028), the Dindaka of Dow (vol. i. p. 97), is probably the Dandanekan of Abulfeda (Geograph. p. 345, Reiske), a small town of Chorasan, two days' journey from Maru [Persian, Merv], and renowned through the East for the production and manufacture of cotton. "•The Byzantine historians (Cedrenus, torn. ii. p. 766, 767 [ii. p. 566, ed. Bonn] ; Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 255 [xvii. 25] ; Xicephorus Bryennius, p. 21 [p. 26, ed. B.]) have confounded, in this revolution, the truth of time and place, of names and persons, of causes and events. The ignorance and errors of these Greeks (which I shall not stop to un.'avel) may inspire some distrust of the story of Cyaxares and Cyrus, as it is told by their most eloquent predecessors. Willerm. Tyr. 1. i. c. 7, p. 633 [ed. Bongars.]. The divination by arrows is ancient and famous in the East. '* D'Herbelot, p. 801. Yet, after the fortune of his posterity, Seljuk became the thirty-fourth in lineal descent from the great Afrasiab, emperor of Touran (p. 800). The Tartar pedigree of the house of Zingis gave a difl'erent cast to flattery and fable ; and the historian Mirkhond derives the Seljukides from Alankavah,