'A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English; with a Dissertation on the Languages, Literature, and Manners of Eastern Nations' [‎15v] (35/1826)

XIV
*
DISSERTATION.
Alexander, is called the ninth sovereign of this
line. He was assasinated about 330 B. C. If
thirty years are allowed therefore as the medium
of each reign, or 270 for the nine kings, Kaykubad’s
sovereignty may probably have commenced about
COO years before our era; which will comprehend
the whole of that period of Persian history for
which we are indebted to the Greeks. Sir Isaac
Newton, it may be objected, wfth other chronolo-
gists, have allowed but twenty years to a reign,
and made that the universal standard for all na
tions : but, with submission to those learned men,
nothing carries with it a stronger tendency to un
hinge all chronology than such an unmodified
system. For if no collateral circumstances of
situation, manners, and government, are taken into
the scale, much confusion must apparently rise.
From Zeno till the taking of Constantinople by the
Turks, the Emperors of Greece reigned hardly
fifteen years ; and the Caliphs, from the death of
Muhammad till the sacking of Bagdad by the
Moguls, little more than ten years each. But, in
those and other countries, which have been re
marked for a quick succession of princes, revolu
tions, and assassinations, it will always be observed,
have ever disturbed the course of nature : whilst,
in regular governments, the medium of reigns has
been often lengthened to periods equal or even
beyond what is above proposed. From the murder
of Henry IV. till the death of Louis XV. only three
princes have filled the throne of France ; making
about fifty-five years to a reign: whilst, in the dis
tracted state of that country, previous to Louis
XIII. five kings scarcely completed twelve years
each.—As the Persian historians mention therefore
no assassinations, nor uncommon convulsions of
government; and as the administration of public
affairs appears in general to have been fortunate
and steady; thirty years, in those ages, when, at
the same time, a greater simplicity of life perhaps
prevailed, seems to be a calculation by no means
stretched beyond the probable line of nature . 33
The Kayanian dynasty being supposed then to
commence nearly about 600 years before the birth
of our Lord, this brings us to the reign of that
king of the Medo-Persians, called by the Greeks
Cyaxares; which, according to Sir Isaac Newton’s
conjecture, is supposed to have begun in the year
of Nabonassar 137 (about 610 B. C.) From this
period till the Macedonian conquest, we have con
sequently the history of the Persians, as given us
by the Greeks, and the history of the Persians, as
written by themselves. Between those classes of
writers we might naturally expect some difference
of facts ; but we should as naturally look for a few
great lines, which might mark some similarity of
story: yet, from every research which I have had
an opportunity to make, there seems to be nearly
as much resemblance between the annals of Eng
land and Japan, as between the European and
Asiatic relations of the same empire. The names
and numbers of their kings have no analogy ; and
in respect to the most splendid facts of the Greek
historians the Persians are entirely silent. We
have no mentioned of the Great Cyrus, nor of any
king of Persia, who, in the events of his reign, can
apparently be forced into a similitude. We have
no Crcesus, king of Lydia ; not a syllable of Cam-
byses, or of his frantic expedition against the
Ethiopians. Smerdis Magus, and the succession of
Darius, the son of Hystaspes, by the neighing of
his horse, are to the Persians circumstances equally
unknown as the numerous assassinations recorded
by the Greeks. Not a vestige is, at the same time,
to be discovered of the famous battles of Marathon,
Themiopylce, Salamis, Plataa, or Mycale; nor of
that prodigious force which Xerxes led out of the
Persian empire to overwhelm the states of Greece.
Minutely attentive as the Persian historians are to
their numerous wars with the kings of Turan or
Scythia; and recording, with the same impartiality,
whatever might tarnish as well as aggrandize the
reputation of their country, we can, with little pre
tence to reason, suppose, that they should have
been silent on events of such magnitude, had any
records remained of their existence, or the faint
est tradition commemorated their consequences.
Xerxes, according to Herodotus, crossed the Hel-