The other Iranian peoples, who had been in part already subject to the Medes, in part only subdued by Cyrus, were in a similar position to the rest of the Iranian tribes. They were now all united in one kingdom; the rising of the Medes, Sagartians, Parthians, Hyrcanians, Margians, Sattagydes, and of a part of the Persians after the assassination of the Magian, was the last attempt to maintain the ancient independence of the race. All stationary and many nomadic Iranian, or as they call themselves, Aryan tribes, speak the same Aryan language, varying little in dialect, serve the same pure and true god Ahuramazda, “the god of the Aryans,” as the Susan translation of the Behistun inscription calls him.
The list of the subject districts which Darius enumerates, shows how much more his interests were directed to these nations than to his subjects in the west. In the inscription on his tomb he calls himself with pride, not only a Persian but also “an Aryan of Aryan race.” It is remarkable that the Babylonian translation omits this addition while the Susan retains the Persian words: he boasts that he was the first to draw up Aryan inscriptions and to send them into all countries [only retained in the Susan]. Thus the tribal distinctions were not yet abolished, but were repressed; the empire of the Achæmenides was not, like that of the Sassanides, the “empire of Iran and Extra-Iran”; but it had paved the way for the event that the Aryans of Iran, unlike their brothers in India, were to become a united nation.[b]
FOOTNOTES
[23] [See Chap. II.]
Bas-relief from the Palace at Persepolis
