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 chap, xlii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 387 a disciple of Plato was seated on the Persian throne. Did they expect that a prince, strenuously exercised in the toils of war and government, should agitate, with dexterity like their own, the abstruse and profound question which amused the leisure of the schools of Athens ? Could they hope that the precepts of philosophy should direct the life, and control the passions, of a despot whose infancy had been taught to consider his absolute and fluctuating will as the only rule of moral obligation ? 54 The studies of Chosroes were ostentatious and superficial, but his example awakened the curiosity of an ingenious people, and the light of science was diffused over the dominions of Persia. 55 At Gondi Sapor, 56 in the neighbourhood of the royal city of Susa, an academy of physic was founded, which insensibly be- came a liberal school of poetry, philosophy, and rhetoric. 57 The annals of the monarchy 58 were composed; and, while recent and authentic history might afford some useful lessons both to the prince and people, the darkness of the first ages was embellished by the giants, the dragons, and the fabulous heroes of Oriental romance. 59 Every learned or confident stranger was enriched by the bounty, and flattered by the conversation of the monarch : he nobly rewarded a Greek physician,' 30 by the 54 A thousand years before his birth, the judges of Persia had given a solemn opinion t£ fSaffiXtvovri Xltpcrlwv i^tivai-iroUtiv rh h.v f3ovki)Tai (Herodot. 1. iii. c. 31, p. 210, edit. Wesseling). Nor had this constitutional maxim been neglected as an useless and barren theory. 55 On the literary state of Persia, the Greek versions, philosophers, sophists, the learning or ignorance of Chosroes, Agathias (1. ii. c. 66-71) displays much in- formation and strong prejudices. 56 [For this town (to be sought in the ruins of Shahabad) see Noldeke, op. cit. 41-2. It was the capital of Susiana.] 57 Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. iv. p. dccxlv. vi. vii. 58 The Shah Nameh, or book of Kings, is perhaps the original record of history which was translated into Greek by the interpreter Sergius (Agathias, 1. v. p. 141), preserved after the Mahometan conquest, and versified in the year 994, by the national poet Ferdoussi. See d'Anquetil (M^m. de PAcademie, torn. xxxi. p. 379), and Sir William Jones (Hist, of Nadir Shah, p. 161). [The Shahnama was begun by Dakiki and completed by Firdausi (who died a.d. 1020). The material probably goes back to a lost ChodaiDama, or book of Lords, drawn up by the orders of Nushirvan, and worked up into a fuller form under Yazdegerd iii. (633-637). See Noldeke, Tabari, p. xv.] 59 In the fifth century the name of Restom or Rostam, an hero who equalled the strength of twelve [leg. 120] elephants, was familiar to the Armenians (Moses Chorenensis, Hist. Armen. 1. ii. c. 7, p. 96, edit. Whiston). In the beginning of the seventh, the Persian romance of Rostam and Isfendiar was applauded at Mecca (Sale's Koran, c. xxxi. p. 335). Yet this exposition of ludicrum novaa historic is not given by MaraGci (Refutat. Alcoran, p. 544-548). 60 Procop. Goth. 1. iv. c. 10. Kobad had a favourite Greek physician, Stephen of Edessa (Persic. 1. ii. c. 26). The practice was ancient ; and Herodotus relates the adventures of Democedes of Crotona (1. iii. c. 125-137).