[79] Some remains, almost certainly those of fire-temples, exist, but they are architecturally insignificant, being, in fact, merely low stone towers a few feet square. The interior was only a cell with just room enough to accommodate a small altar, on which a perpetual fire was kept up; see Ferguson, Hist. Archit., Lond., 1874, i, 202; cf. Perrot and Chipiez, Persian Art, i, 892.
[80] The chief work which gives representations of Sassanian architecture is that of Flandin and Coste, Voyage en Perse, Paris, 1851. Many have been copied by Rawlinson, op. cit.
[81] About twenty miles due east of the northern end of the Dead Sea.
[82] See Tristram's Land of Moab, Lond., 1873, and for a restoration, Ferguson, op. cit., i, 392. The slabs have now been removed to a Berlin museum, where they are attributed to the Ghassanides, an Arab dynasty.
[83] See the reproductions in Flandin and Coste, etc., op. cit.
[84] The work on which the well-known poem of Firdausi was founded (c. 1,000). There is much theological exegesis in Pahlavi, but, except the Avesta and its commentaries, this is post-Mohammedan. Much of it has been translated by West, as stated above. The chief works in the collection are the Dinkard, a sheaf of treatises in nine books; the Bundahish, or "Story of Creation," a sort of Iranian Genesis, but of greater length; and the Sad-Dar, a controversial work, in which the follower of Mazda is taught to refute the "twaddle" of Christians and, guardedly, of Mohammedans.
[85] For the details of this war we have the first-rate account of Procopius (De Bel. Pers., i, 12-22), an eye-witness of a great part of it. Additional information on some events can be gleaned from Zachariah Myt. (ix, 1-7) and Jn. Malala, both nearly contemporary. The later chronicles are practicably negligible.
[86] Jn. Malala, xviii, 441; the inference may be drawn by comparing the passage with Procopius.
[87] Zachariah Myt., ix, 2. The exact wording of the sentence is doubtful, but the intention is clear.
[88] Procopius, loc. cit., 13.