[277] Gibbon (chap, lvii.) speaks of this victory as the “memorable day of Qandacan” which “founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd kings.” He gives the date as A.D. 1038.
[278] Mohammad, who, as stated above, had been nominated by his father Mahmūd to succeed him in Ghazna, had been almost immediately deposed by his brother Mas`ūd.
[279] Malcolm, op. cit. i. p. 199.
[280] Müller, op. cit. i. 77.
[281] Vide supra, p. 112, note 1.
[282] Cf. Gibbon, chap. lvii. De Guignes gives a somewhat different version of the relations between the Emperor and the Turk (vol. iii. p. 191). He says: “Constantin-Monomaque qui regnoit alors à Constantinople, ne crut pas devoir négliger l’alliance d’un prince qui faisoit trembler toute l’Asie: il lui envoya des ambassadeurs pour lui proposer de faire la paix, et Thogrulbegh y consentit.” This difference is due to the fact that Gibbon’s authorities were Byzantine, while De Guignes’ were Mohammedan.
[283] It would, however, be wrong to regard these Turks as uncultured people; for though few traces of their early literature have come down to us, testimony is not wanting to the fact that they had, long before they began their westward migrations, a written language and perhaps a literature.
[284] He was not received in audience by the Caliph till A.H. 451 (1059). In 455 (1063), in spite of his outward show of respect, Toghrul Beg practically forced the Caliph to give him his daughter in marriage. But, in the same year, as Toghrul was about to claim his bride, fortune suddenly deserted him, and he died at the age of seventy in Ray, where, according to Mīrkhwānd (see ed. Vüllers, p. 65), he wished to celebrate his nuptials.
[285] His name is familiar to the English public through the medium of `Omar Khayyām. All who have read Fitzgerald’s admirable translation of the Rubaiyāt know the story of the three famous schoolfellows—`Omar Khayyām, the poet; Nizām ul-Mulk, the statesman; and Hasan ibn Sabbāh, “the Old Man of the Mountain.” These three, as schoolboys at Nīshāpūr, had sworn that whichever of them should rise highest in the world should help the others. Of two of them we shall have to speak below.
[286] His was not actually their first expedition, for, in 1050, parts of Armenia had been laid waste and countless Christians massacred by the Turks. Cf. Gibbon, chap. xlvii.