expressed at her rise. But it is perhaps more astonishing that she
passed so many centuries in obscurity before she became an important
state, than that she raised herself at last to the first position among
the Oriental nations. Her ambition and her material strength were plants
of slow growth; it took several hundreds of years for them to attain
maturity: when, however, this point was reached, the circumstances
of her geographical position stood her in good stead, and enabled her
rapidly to extend her way over the greater portion of Western Asia.




CHAPTER II.


_Early notices of the Parthians. Their Ethnic character and connections.
Their position under the Persian Monarchs, from Cyrus the Great to
Darius III. (Codomannus.)_


The Parthians do not appear in history until a comparatively recent
period. Their name occurs nowhere in the Old Testament Scriptures.
They obtain no mention in the Zendavesta. The Assyrian Inscriptions
are wholly silent concerning them. It is not until the time of Darius
Hystaspis that we have trustworthy evidence of their existence as a
distinct people. In the inscriptions of this king we find their country
included under the name of Parthva or Parthwa among the provinces of
the Persian Empire, joined in two places with Sarangia, Aria, Chorasmia,
Bactria, and Sogdiana, and in a third with these same countries and
Sagartia. We find, moreover, an account of a rebellion in which the