Drawn by Boudier, from Costs and Flandin, Voyage en Perse,
vol. i. pl. xcvi.
Drawn by Boudier, from
a photograph of the
Naksh-i-Rustem bas-relief
taken by Dieulafoy.
The mountainous district is furrowed in all directions by deep ravines, with almost vertical sides, at the bottom of which streams and torrents follow a headlong course. The landscape wears a certain air of savage grandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points perpendicularly to the sky; mountain paths wind upward, cut into the sides of the steep precipices; the chasms are spanned by single-arched bridges, so frail and narrow that they seem likely to be swept away in the first gail that blows. No country could present greater difficulties to the movements of a regular army or lend itself more readily to a system of guerrilla warfare. It was unequally divided between some ten or twelve tribes:* chief among these were the Pasargadaa, from which the royal family took its origin; after them came the Maraphii and Maspii.
* Herodotus only mentions ten
Persian tribes; Xenophon
speaks of twelve.
The chiefs of these two tribes were elected from among the members of seven families, who, at first taking equal rank with that of the Pasargadaæ, had afterwards been reduced to subjection by the Achæmenidæ, forming a privileged class at the court of the latter, the members of which shared the royal prerogatives and took a part in the work of government. Of the remaining tribes, the Panthialad, Derusiæi, and Carmenians lived a sedentary life, while the Dai, Mardians, Dropici, and Sagartians were nomadic in their habits. Each one of these tribes occupied its own allotted territory, the limits of which were not always accurately defined; we know that Sagartia, Parseta-kônê, and Mardia lay towards the north, on the confines of Media and the salt desert,* Taokênê extended along the seaboard, and Carmania lay to the east. The tribes had constructed large villages, such as Armuza, Sisidôna, Apostana, Gogana, and Taôkê, on the sea-coast (the last named possessing a palace which was one of the three chief residences of the Achæmenian kings),** and Carmana, Persepolis, Pasargadæ, and Gabæ in the interior.***
* Parsetakênê, which has already been identified with the
Partukkanu (or Partakkanu) of the Assyrian inscriptions, is
placed by Ptolemy in Persia; Mardia corresponds to the
mountainous district of Bebahan and Kazrun.
** The position of most of these towns is still somewhat
doubtful. Armuza is probably Ormuz (or Hormuz) on the
mainland, the forerunner of the insular Hormuz of the
Portuguese, as the French scholar d’Anville has pointed out;
Sisidôna has been identified with the modern village of
Mogu, near Ras-Jerd, Apostana with the town of Shewâr, the
name seeming to be perpetuated in that of the Jebel Asban
which rises not far from there. Gogana is probably Bender
Kongûn, and Taokô, at the mouth of the Granis, is either
Khor Gasseîr or Rohilla at the mouth of the Bishawer. The
palace, which was one of the three principal residences of
the Achæmenian kings, is probably mentioned by Strabo, and
possibly in Dionysius Periegetes.
*** Carmana is the modern Kermân; the exact position of
Gabæ, which also possesses a palace, is not known.
The Persians were a keen-witted and observant race, inured to all kinds of hardships in their occupation as mountain shepherds, and they were born warriors. The type preserved on the monuments differs but little from that which still exists at the present day in the more remote districts. It was marked by a tall and slender figure, with sturdy shoulders and loins, a small head, with a thick shock of hair and curling beard, a straight nose, a determined mouth, and an eye steady and alert. Yet, in spite of their valour, Phraortes overpowered them, and was henceforward able to reckon the princes of Anshân among his vassals; strengthened by the addition of their forces to his own, he directed his efforts to the subjection of the other races of the plateau. If we may believe the tradition of the Hellenic epoch, he reduced them to submission, and, intoxicated by his success, ventured at last to take up arms against the Assyrians, who for centuries past had held rule over Upper Asia.
This was about 635 B.C., or less than ten years after the downfall of Elam, and it does not seem likely that the vital forces of Assyria can have suffered any serious diminution within so short a space of time.*