Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/433

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 411 a cup of water. ''Be of good courage," said the caliph, "your Hfe is safe till you have drunk this water." The crafty satrap accepted the assurance, and instantly dashed the vase against the ground. Omar would have avenged the deceit, but his companions represented the sanctity of an oath ; and the speedy conversion of Harmo/an entitled him not only to a free pardon, but even to a stipend of two thousand pieces of gold. The adminis- tration of Persia was regulated by an actual survey of the people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth ; ^'^ and this monument, which attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have instructed the philosophers of every age.^-' The fliffht of Yezdeg-erd had carried him beyond the Oxuspeatii ofths ^ *^ '11 ^^^ lung and as far as the Jaxartes, two rivers "^ ot ancient and modei-n a.d. ea renown, which descend from the mountains of India towards the Caspian Sea. He was hospitably entertained by Tarkhan, '^ prince of Fargana,"*-' a fertile province on the Jaxartes ; the king of Samarcand, with the Turkish tribes of Sogdiana and Scythia, were moved by the lamentations and promises of the fallen monarch ; and he solicited by a suppliant embassy the more solid and powerful friendship of the emperor of China. ^" The virtuous Taitsong,"** the first of the dynasty of the Tang, may be OiJlJ.apo'; auaypaijirivaL ira(Tav TT/i' i/v aiiToi' o'lKOVixepTiy, sytveTO Se rj avaypatjiq Kal ai'BpMmjJV Kol KTriyiiv Kal (^urioK (Chronograph, p. 283 [su6 A.M. 5i3i])- '"'Amidst our meagre relations, I must regret that d'Herbelot has not found and used a Persian translation of Tabari, enriched, as he says, with many extracts from the native historians of the Ghebers or Magi (Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 1014). [It is now accessible in Zotenberg's French translation, referred to in previous notes.] ^*The most authentic accounts of the two rivers, the Sihon (Jaxartes) and the Gihon (Oxus), may be found in Sherif al Edrisi (Geograph. Nubiens. p. 138), Abulfeda (Descript. Chorasan. in Hudson, torn. iii. p. 23), Abulghazi Khan, who reigned on their banks (Hist. Genealogique des Tatars, p. 32, 57, 766), and the Turkish Geographer, a Ms. in the king of France's library (Examen Critique des Historiens d'Alexandre, p. 194-360). [It should be remembered that the Oxus or Amu Darya (which now, like the Jaxartes or Syr Darya, flows into the Aral) then flowed into the ("aspian. The course changed about A. D. 1573. Recently there have been thoughts of diverting it into its old course.] great gates between China and Western Asia, — north and south, respectively, of the Celestial Motmtains. Farghana lies in front of the southern gate, through which a difticult route leads into the country of Kashghar.] ■*•* Eo redegit angustiaruni eundem regem exsulem, ut Turcici regis, et Sogdiani, et Sinensis, auxilia missis Uteris imploraret (Abulfed. Annal. p. 74). The connexion of the Persian and Chinese history is illustrated by Fr^ret (M^m. de 1' Academic, torn. xvi. p. 245-255), and de Guignes (Hist, des Huns, torn. i. p. 54-59, and for the Geography of the borders, tom. ii. p. 1-43). [The Tang dynasty, founded in 626, put an end to the long period of dis- integration and anarchy which had prevailed in China since the fall of the Han dynasty (a.d. 221).]
 * After the conquest of Persia, Theophanes adds, avraj fit rw xpo>"C ^KeXeva-ef
 * ^ ITarkhan is not a proper name, but a Turkish title.]
 * The territory of Fargana is described by Abulfeda, p. 76,77. [There are two
 * Hist. Sinica, p. 41-46, in the iiird part of the Relations Curieuses of Tht?venot.