Persia occupies what is known as the tableland of Iran, and is a plateau bounded on the north by the Elburz Mountains, Armenia, and Afghanistan; the Bol-ur and Hindu-Kush in the east; the heights that are parallel to the Indian Ocean in the south; and the Persian Gulf, the chains of Zagros, and Ararat in the west.
The Zagros Mountains separated Persia on that portion of the Iran plateau from Assyria, which was known as part of Media. The Assyrians under Tiglath-Pileser scaled these mountains and conquered the Medes.
The Medes have always been considered with the Persians as forming part of one nation, being closely related to each other in language, religion, manners, and customs.
The Medes were the first to emerge from barbarism, owing to their nearness to the Assyrians. After the conquest of Babylon (B.C. 539) the Medes and the Persians descended from their mountains into the valley of the Tigris, under Cyrus, the first Persian king of the Achæmenidæan dynasty. The name Achæmenidæ was given by the Greeks to the descendants of a native chief called Akhamanish, and one of the oldest families of Persia. Cyrus marched through Asia Minor to Asiatic Greece, seized all the cities on his way, and made them pay tribute. Under Cambyses (B.C. 527) the countries of Syria, Palestine, Phœnicia, Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt—nearly all the old-world civilisation from the Mediterranean to the Indus—belonged to the Persian Empire. Hostilities were kept up between the Asiatics and Hellenes for two hundred years, until Alexander the Great ended them at the battles of Issus and Arbela (334-330 B.C.). For nearly a century Persia was under the vassalage of the Greeks, but still kept her ancient customs and her ancient cult of fire-worship, the national religion, although this was in a great measure undermined and weakened by the teachings of the Greek conquerors.
Fig. 242.—Naksh-i-Rustem, General View of the Rock-cut Tombs. (F.C.)
Fig. 243.—Persepolis. Tomb on the North-east. Elevation. (F.C.)
The Greeks were, in turn, overthrown by the Parthians, a northern Asiatic tribe who ruled in Persia down to B.C. 226, when the native Sassanidæ family of the south restored Persia to her former freedom, and installed again the ancient worship of Ahurâ-Mazda, and also tried to restore the art of the First Dynasty. The Greek and Roman influence was, however, too strong at this period to be entirely shaken off, in spite of the renewed display of patriotism. For instance, a great quantity of Greek furniture, utensils, and figures of Greek gods must have found their way into Persia during the reign of the Seleucidæ—the Greek rulers—and must have influenced the native Persian art; besides borrowed ideas from the art objects and other things that the Persians at a former time pillaged from the Greek temples and carried home with them. When the Arabs finally overthrew the Sassanid Dynasty and conquered Persia, the state religion of fire-worship was proscribed, but the Moslem religion never took the same hold in Persia as it did in other countries, the Persians adopting the secular form of it—the Shiah—as opposed to the more devout form, the Sunni. To this reason is assigned the independence of Persia to the present day amongst the other Moslem countries of the world.
