[69] Herodotus, vii, 83; Procopius, De Bel. Pers., i, 14, etc.
[70] Jn. Lydus, De Magist., iii, 34.
[71] Herodotus, i, 136. Jn. Lydus (loc. cit.) says the whole nation was trained to arms, and always ready to enter on a campaign.
[72] Tabari (N.), p. 245. In Zotenberg (p. 228) the number is given as eight score, which would probably weigh the horse too heavily. Some injunctions as to armour are given in Vendidâd, xiv (32). Here also thirty arrows are recommended. For slingers, thirty stones each man is the fixed number. The horse and his rider were so well shielded with metal that Ammianus speaks of them as an "iron cavalry"; xix, 1; cf. xxv, i.
[73] Ammianus, xxv, 1; Procopius, De Bel. Goth., iv, 13; Aedif., ii, 1.
[74] In Zotenberg, the reason why Kavádh was led to reform the taxation is accounted for by an anecdote (p. 241). One day while hunting he became separated from his party, and sat down to rest himself near a peasant's cottage. While there, he noticed a child bringing two or three grapes to its mother, who at once seized them and with great concern ran to attach them again to the vine, exclaiming that the inspector had not yet been round to assess the amount of the crop. The absurdity and harshness of the tithe law was thus practically exemplified to the Shah. Both versions relate that a strange scribe who ventured to dispute the soundness of the proposed financial change in an assembly convened to hear it announced, being convicted of starting a futile objection by Cavades, was thereupon, at a nod from the monarch, belaboured by his fellow scribes with their ink-horns till he expired. His point was that the relations of the land and its owners would vary continually, and he was met by the statement that there would be a yearly survey to readjust the burdens.
[75] Tabari (N.), pp. 152, 222; Ibid. (Z.), p. 241.
[76] Zachariah Myt., ix, 6.
[77] Besides the objective evidence, there is a direct statement of the fact; Theophylactus Sim., v, 6.
[78] The practical application of the doctrine of the Avesta has been described at considerable length by Max Duncker (op. cit., v), but the school of Darmsteter would aver that his exposition applies with more accuracy to the age of the Sassanians than to that of the Achaemenians, whom alone he deals with.