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This monarch played a part in the later history of Buddhism comparable with that of Asoka in earlier ages . He waged war with the Parthians and Chinese, and his Empire which had its capital at Peshawar included Afghanistan, Bactria, Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan and Kashmir. The reasons of their fall are unknown but may be connected with the rise of the Sassanids in Persia.
Certainly there were Buddhists in India long after this time: even a great Buddhist king in the seventh century: but it seems more than probably that the spirit of intolerance went east with the eastward cyclic flow we have noted this evening: from Christianity to Zoroastrianism: from Zoroastrianism under the Sassanids to Brahminism under the Guptas.
In Armenia an Arsacid that is, Parthian house has survived and holds sovereignty: and Armenia is a sort of weak Belgium between Persia and Rome; inclining to the latter, of course, because ruled by Arsacids, who are the natural dynastic enemies of the Sassanids of Persia.
It is still more significant that the images stamped upon the panels with which the lids are decorated have little to remind us of the bas-reliefs of Assyria and Chaldæa, and it is not until we turn to the medals of the Parthians and Sassanids that we find anything to which they can be readily compared.
When Rome became the heir of Greece and the perpetuator of her traditions, we may believe that, under Trajan, she set about establishing herself in the country; but she soon found it necessary to withdraw within the Euphrates, and it was her loss when the Parthians fell from power to be succeeded in the lordship of Mesopotamia by the Sassanids.
Four years after the accession of this greatest of the Byzantines, the greatest of the Sassanids came to the throne in Persia: Chosroes Anushirwan: a wise and victorious reign until 579. There was an 'Endless Peace' sworn with Rome in 533; and not peace merely, but friendship and alliance; it was to last for all time, and did last for seven years.
The last king of the line of Sassanids, Yezdegerd III., having lived for many years as a fugitive, perished by the hand of an assassin . Meantime Egypt had submitted to the irresistible invaders under Amr, who was aided by the Christian sect of the Copts, out of hostility to the Greek Orthodox Church.
The exigencies of the climate remained the same, the habits and requirements of the various royal families that succeeded each other in the country were not sensibly modified, while the Sargonids, the Arsacids and the Sassanids all ruled over one and the same population.
King Ardeshir-Babechan restored fire worship in the years 229-243 A.C. Since then they have again been persecuted during the reign of one of the Shakpurs, either II., IX., or XI., of the Sassanids, but which of them is not known. It is, however, reported that one of them was a great protector of the Zartushta doctrines.
We had crept through clefts whose walls had sent back the howlings of the Ephthalites, the White Huns who had sapped the strength of these same proud Sassanids until at last both fell before the Turks. Over the highways and byways of Persia's glory, Persia's shame and Persia's death we four two men, two beasts had passed. For a fortnight we had met no human soul, seen no sign of human habitation.
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