Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/257

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. ^ZSS till the sceptre of Ninus and Semiramis dropt from CHAP, the hands of their enervated successors. The Medes ' and the Babylonians divided their power, and were themselves swallowed up in the monarchy of the Per- sians, whose arms could not be confined within the narrow limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by two millions of me?i, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, in- vaded Greece. Thirty thousand soldiers, under the command of Alexander the son of PhiHp, who was in- trusted by the Greeks with their glory and revenge, were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the house of Seleucus usurped and lost the Macedonian command over the east. About the same time, that, by an ignominious treaty, they resigned to the Romans the country on this side mount Taurus, they were driven by the Parthians, an obscure horde of Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper Asia. The formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India to the frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or Artaxerxes ; the founder of a new dy- nasty, which, under the name of Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs. This great re- volution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced by the Romans, happened in the fourth year of Alex- ander Severus, two hundred and twenty-six years after the christian era ^ Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the The Persian armies of Artaban, the last king of the Parthians; and it I^stT/ed by appears that he was driven into exile and rebellion by Artaxerxes. royal ingratitude, the customary reward for superior merit. His birth was obscure; and the obscurity latter of these great events happened one hundred and eighty-nine years before Christ, the former may be placed two thousand one hundred and eighty-four years before the same era. The astronomical observations found at Babylon by Alexander, went fifty years higher. •• In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the era of Seleucus. See Agathias, 1. ii..p. 63. This great event (such is the carelessness of the orientals) is placed by Eutychius as high as the tenth year of Comniodus, and by Moses of Chorene, as low as the reign of Philip, Ammianus Mar- cellinus has so servilely copied (xxiii. 6.) his ancient materials, which are indeed very good, that he describes the family of the Arsacides as still seated on the Persian throne in the middle of the fourth century.