Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/424

 ��HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NISHAPUR

��madan material (Arab and Persian) to prove the existence of Nishapur in Sasanian times has already been given. To the statements above quoted from Mustaufi and Yakut, assigning the foundation to Shapur I, may be added the authority of Hamzah of Isfahan (eleventh century a.d.);^ while Shapur II is to be accredited with the city's origin, according to the his- torians Tabari (900 a.d.) and Masudi (943) ;2 and we further add that Firdausi (1000) associates Nishapur, in the reign of the Sasanian king Yazdagard II (438-457 A.D.), with the old Persian cities of Tus, Bust, and Merv.^ Besides these and other Moslem references, there are a number of Armenian allusions to historic events connected with Nishapur in Sasanian times, which show how important a metropolis the city was during that period.* From Christian Syriac sources we know that by 430 a.d. Nishapur, as the capital of the district Abr- shahr, was the see-city of the Nestorian diocese of the same

��145-146, 177-179 ;=§ 16, tr. Blochet, pp. 166, 168, 172 — see full titles above, p. 162, n. 2). There are other ref- erences in Pahlavi literature to show that Nishapur was prominent in Sasa- nian times, e.g. Arta Viraf, 1. 35 (ed. Haug and West, text, pp. 7, 148, glos- sary, pp. 229, 250), Bahman Yasht, 1. 7 ; Epistle of Manuschihar, 2. 1. 2 ; Yosht-i Fryano, 6. 2 ; and see West, 8BE. 5. 194 ; 18. 325 ; and Grundr. iran. Philol. 2. 108.

1 See Hamzah of Isfahan, ed. Gott- waldt, p. 48, Leipzig, 1848 ; and com- pare Marquart, ErdnSahr, p. 49. It should be noted that Mustaufi in another passage (cited by Barbier de Meynard, Diet. geog. p. 578, n. 1) states that Khusrau I (531-579 a.d.) laid out the city in a form 'like a chessboard,' and he adds (with an apparent confusion of dates) that A.D.) 'enlarged it.' Terrier, p. 104,

��who believed that Alexander the Great destroyed the town, says, 'Shahpoor restored it, and, to perpetuate the fact, gave it his name, and erected an im- mense statue, which remained stand- ing until the first invasion of the country by the Mussulmans, who in their zeal destroyed it.' The author- ity (local ?) for this statement about the statue (repeated by Curzon, 1. 261) I have not been able to find.

2 See Tabari, tr. Noldeke, Gesch. Pers. Sas. pp. 59, 67 ; Masudi, Prairies d'or, tr. Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille, 2. 188, Paris, 1861.

8 Firdausi, tr. Mohl, 7. 377.

made to Nishapur by Elishe Vartapet (fifth century a.d.) and Lazar P'arpec'i in Langlois, Collection des historiens de VArmenie, 2. 186, n. 1, 229 ('sa- ('priests').
 * See, for example, the allusions

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