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So Sassanian history is, on the whole, uninteresting. Their culture stood for no great ideas; only for a narrow persecuting church. West Asia was not ready yet for great and world-important doings; it must wait for these till Mohammed, who struck into the very least promising quarter of it, and kindled in the barbarous wilderness a light to redeem the civilization of the western world.
It was in the year A.C. 641 that the battle of Nehavend, ever after called by the Moslems the Victory of Victories, laid at the feet of the followers of the Prophet the kingdom of Iran or Persia, and brought to an end the Sassanian Monarchy.
These coffins are often in brick vaults, usually placed haphazard in the ground, as in earlier times. Bricks small, hard, and yellow. The western custom of cremation was never adopted, in spite of the Hellenization of culture. Sassanian Period; c. 220-650 A.D. Characteristics. Unglazed bowls with Hebrew and Mandaitic magical inscriptions. Bronze no longer used except for coins.
The general condition of the population was satisfactory. Most of the Sassanian monarchs seem to have been desirous of governing well; and the system inaugurated by Anushirwan, and maintained by his successors, secured the subjects of the Great King from oppression, so far as was possible without representative government.
During the Sassanian period there was nothing very remarkable in the Persian tactics. The size of armies generally varied from 30,000 to 60,000 men, though sometimes 100,000, and on one occasion as many as 140,000, are said to have been assembled. The bulk of the troops were footmen, the proportion of the horse probably never equalling one third of a mixed army.
And as the Cross as the recognised symbol of the Christ is not of older date than the conquest of Rome by the Gauls, and more or less resulted therefrom, it is clear that the same remark applies if we consider the Moslems to have adopted their symbol as that of the land they conquered from the Sassanian kings, rather than as one with the primal and natural interpretation of which they were content.
The Chosroes, jealous of the western victories of Justinian, listened to the pleadings of the Ostrogoths, and declared war; peace came again in 563, on the basis of a yearly tribute from Rome to Persia, but with compensations, such as toleration for the Christians in Persia. there were reforms in the army and in taxation; improvements in irrigation; encouragement of learning; revision of the laws; some little outburst in literature and culture generally: the culmination, in all but extent of territory, of the whole Sassanian period.
And not only was the star-like object in question the symbol of the Sun-God Mithras, but it was, as any student of the coins of the Sassanian dynasty can see, substituted for the disc.
The general character of the Persian religion, as revived by the founder of the Sassanian dynasty, has been described in a former chapter; but it is felt that the present work would be incomplete if it failed to furnish the reader with a tolerably full account of so interesting a matter; more especially, since the religious question lay at the root of the original rebellion and revolution which raised the Sassanidae to power, and was to a considerable extent the basis and foundation of their authority.
The Khrafcthraghna. Magnificence of the Sassanian Court; the Throne-room, the Seraglio, the Attendants, the Ministers. Midttude of Palaces. Dress of the Monarch: 1, in Peace; 2, in War, Favorite Pastimes of the Kings. Hunting. Maintenance of Paradises. Stag and Boar-hunts. Music. Hawking. Games. Character of the Persian Warfare under the Sassanians. Sassanian Chariots. The Elephant Corps.
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