The whole course of history seems to indicate a struggle of races in that quarter of the world, which may be used to illustrate the present inquiry. To a certain extent the scene of that struggle may be pointed out on the map. From the Caspian towards the south, and from the head of the Persian Gulf towards the north, the land soon rises to a great general elevation, but with marked and also highly diversified inequalities. Media would appear to have occupied the principal part of the great central space, defined by the mountains which form the outer line of this elevation. It corresponds with what is now the Province of Irak, and Ispahan is its principal city. Here, says Malcolm[895], we find the happiest climate that Persia can boast. To the south, near the Gulf, the summer heat is overpowering: as the country rises towards Shiraz the climate becomes temperate, and further improves as we advance northward, until we approach the hills that divide Irak from Mazenderan on the Caspian, where it deteriorates.
The Province of Fars or Persia proper.
Immediately to the south of Irak, and touching the Persian gulf, a little to the east of the Karoon and Jerokh, which are the eastern tributaries of the great central rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, is the Province of Fars, which ascends the hills to its capital town Shiraz, and then extends in a north-easterly direction towards the sandy deserts. This is the province[896] where the Persian race is still to be found in its greatest purity; and from this tract the name of Persia, attached by Europeans to the empire of Iran, is supposed to be derived[897]. From Fars or Pars, for both forms are understood to exist, is drawn the name Parsee, borne by the fire-worshippers, who migrated for safety into India: and the same root appears to be clearly traceable in the great Persian tribe of Pasargadæ, named by Herodotus[898] as the leading tribe of the country. But though the province of Fars now embraces a considerable range of country and diversity of climate, all that is recorded of the ancient Persians would seem to connect them particularly with its ruder and more mountainous parts: for we have every reason to believe that Herodotus spoke truly when he described the Persians, properly so called, as poor, and their country as hard and barren in comparison with the rich valleys of Media, which at an early date attracted and repaid the labours of agriculture. It was inhabited, as Herodotus[899] says, κατὰ κώμας, that is, in the Pelasgian fashion, at the time when Dejoces acquired the throne.
The conflict of race between a bold highland people of superior energies, and the more advanced, but also more relaxed inhabitants of the more favoured district, is indicated even amidst the indistinctness of the earliest efforts of history. Ethnologically the general character of the movement is that of a pressure, to adopt the language of Dr. Donaldson[900], of the High upon the Low Iranians; I would be understood, however, to signify by the terms High and Low a distinction in language and not one in altitude of site. The overthrow of the Median empire by the Persians, related in different forms by Ctesias and Herodotus, and again in Holy Scripture, whatever be its chronological epoch, may be taken as a great crisis in the struggle, at which the High Iranians established themselves in the country of the Low, and in permanent political ascendancy among them. The Magian revolution, doubtless a great reaction against this ascendancy, was of short duration. The invasion of Media by the Scythians, which Herodotus has reported as proceeding from beyond the Euxine and the Palus Mæotis, but which was more probably from the east of the Caspian[901], indicates, it is probable, another form of this reaction. This invasion took place under Cyaxares, the grandson of Dejoces: and we may perhaps consider Media as having at this time received Persian influences, possibly by the immigration of groups of Persian families, before the general ascendancy of that race, just as we see the Æolid houses, and the family of Perseus, finding their way into Southern Greece before the days of the Achæan race, and of the general Hellenic ascendancy in the country.
The resemblance of the modern Persian to the modern High German language has been observed[902]: and it has even been thought probable, for reasons which will presently be considered, that the German name may have been derived from that quarter. The Hellic ingredient of the Greek tongue is referred to a similar origin. On the other hand, we are told that a traveller[903], taking a popular rather than a scientific view of language, has noticed the strong resemblance between the Latin and the modern Sclavonian forms. Again, the structure of the Latin language, from its repelling certain more modern tendencies of the Greek, is taken to indicate an antiquity beyond that of the Greek: and there is also an opinion that the older Greek forms, like the Latin, bear marks of correspondence with the Sclavonic. All this would tend to sustain the belief that the Pelasgians, who formed the older portion, and the basis, of the population of Italy and Greece, were offshoots from the old, or Low Iranian tribes: and that the more recent element was High Iranian or Persian.
Relation of Germans to Celts.
Ethnological affinities, illustrative of what has here been advanced, have not escaped the attention of the Greek and Roman writers. What Strabo has said on this subject is particularly deserving of notice. His derivation of the German name from the Latin word Germanus may indeed be passed by as a notion which cannot be maintained, although it is supported by the opinion of Tacitus[904], that the name was recent: since even Roman inscriptions show, that it existed three hundred years before that historian. It is however very remarkable, that Strabo asserts the Germans and the Celts to have been nearly associated: μικρὸν ἐξαλλάττοντες τοῦ Κελτικοῦ φύλου τῷ τε πλεονασμῷ τῆς ἀγριότητος, καὶ τοῦ μεγέθους, καὶ τῆς ξανθότητος, τἄλλα δὲ παραπλήσιοι καὶ μορφαῖς, καὶ ἤθεσι, καὶ βίοις ὄντες[905].
And to Hellenes.
Now, the result of all that we have drawn from Homer thus far would be to connect the Celts with the Pelasgi, with Media, and with the Low Iranian countries: the ‘Germans’ with the Helli and with Persia. Observe, then, how the differences, noted by Strabo between Celts and ‘Germans,’ correspond with the Homeric differences between Helli and Pelasgi. First, as to ἀγριότης: let us call to mind the history of the name Ἀργεῖος; the use of Ἄγριος as an early Hellic proper name; the absence of names of this class among the Pelasgians; the rude manners of the Helli and the Pheres; the pacific habits, wealth, and advanced agriculture of the Pelasgian populations. Then as to stature: how this gift has Diana for its goddess, how it is a standing and essential element of beauty for women as well as men, how the Greek Chiefs in the Third Iliad are distinguished from the crowd by size,
ὥς μοι καὶ τόνδ’ ἄνδρα πελώριον ἐξονομήνῃς,
ὅστις ὅδ’ ἐστὶν Ἀχαιὸς ἀνὴρ ἠΰς τε μέγας τε[906],