'Outram & Havelock's Persian Campaign. By Capt. G. H. Hunt, 78th Highlanders. To Which Is Prefixed, a Summary of Persian History, an Account of Various Differences between England and Persia, and an Inquiry into the Origin of the Late War. By George Townsend, Author of "Russell's Modern Europe Epitomised"' [‎14] (35/390)

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persia in
didat himself, who was long anterior to the
Persian, and, as we shall have occasion to
show, probably also to the Median dynasty,
as known to us, received them as the primeval
traditions of his race, our opinion of their im
portance may be fully justified." The high
antiquity of the Persian language has also
been pointed out by Sir William Jones, who
believed it to have been the original Syriac or
Chaldean, the parent of the Sanscrit, the
Zend, and the Parsi, and to have furnished
an important element in the Greek, Latin,
and Gothic tongues.
Such were the people who in the earliest
times of which we possess authentic records
attracted the attention of their neighbours,
and prepared to play an important part upon
the stage of human life. Two dynasties, with
a long interregnum between them, are sup
posed to have reigned in Persia previous to its
conquest by Alexander of Macedon, B.C. 331.
The former that of the Pischdadians, which
lasted between five and six centuries, and the
latter that of the Kaianites, which exceeded
seven. The first ruler is said to have been