Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/302

 162 DAMQHAN AND ITS ENVIRONS

of Kumis' (^Shahr-i Kumi8[K\)^ whose outlines can be traced today in mound after mound of sand-buried ruins about fifteen miles southeast of the town, spread over the probable site of the ancient Parthian capital, Hecatompylos, as will be explained in the next chapter. The names Kumis and Damghan are used at times synonymously in certain itineraries of the earlier Oriental geographers, and the history of the two places is prac- tically the same, even though it is necessary to make a topo- graphical distinction between them, and to regard Damghan as having succeeded to the rank and title of Kumis as the princi- pal city of the district of that name, just as Teheran has super- seded Rai, its own more ancient neighbor.^ In tracing the history of the city it will, therefore, be found convenient to combine the allusions to Damghan, Kumis, and Hecatompylos at different periods as referring practically to one and the same center.

The ' City of Kumis * is fabled to have been used by the accursed King Azh-Dahak, of Babylon, as a harem when he ruled over Iran twenty-six centuries before the Christian era, if we are to believe the statement in a Pahlavi book of the ninth century of our chronology. ^ His reign lasted a thou-

tikene'; Strabo, 11. 9. 1 (p. 514), A slightly different view, though agree-

' Comisene and Chorene are among ing in the main with the points here

the parts of Parthia ' ; Isidor of Cha- presented, may be found in Le Strange,

rax, 8-10, ' Thence (after Choarene Eastern Caliphate, pp. 365, 369.

and before Hyrcania) is Comisene, ^ This statement is found in the

58 schoeni ; in it there are 8 villages, Pahlavi Shatroihd-l Airdn, 18, and

in [each of] which is a halting-place, reads: Satrdistdn KumiS panj-burj

but there is no city.' In connection Az-i Dahdk pat Capstan kaH; md-

with the classical references through- niSm Pahlavigdn{?) ano [tamman]

out this chapter and the next, I am hut [;yahvunt'] pa\_pavan] xutdih Yaz-

indebted to my friend and former dakart-i Sdhpuhrdn kart, 'Azh-Dahak

pupil, Dr. Charles J. Ogden, of Colum- the ruler made the City of Kumish, of

bia University. See also Marquart, five citadels, his harem ; (and) under

Erdnsahr, pp. 71-72. the reign of Yazdagard the residence

1 This is at least the view I hold of the Champions (? or Parthians or

with regard to the problem of Kumis Parsis) was made there.' See Pahlavi

and Damghan, as will be further devel- Texts, I, Shatroihd-l Aird7i, § 18,

oped in the next chapter (p, 177, n. 2). ed. Jamasp-Asana, p. 20, Bombay,

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