Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/465

 TUS AND ITS ANCIENT LOSE

��The fame of Tus remains undying through the renown of its poet Firdausi, the author of Persia's great national epic, who first

��anian monarchs mentioned above ; see, for example, Firdausi, Shah Namah^ tr. Mohl, 2. 472-662 ; 3. 2-215, 333 ; Tha'alibi, Histoire des rois des Perses, tr. Zotenberg, pp. 125, 130-138, 166-246; Mirkhond, History of the Early Kings of Persia, tr. Shea, pp. 224, 232-233, 2i2, 247-252, London, 1832. Firdausi (2. 483, 487-493, and often) calls him the Sipah-ddr, ' Commander of an army ' ; and the same title, under the form Sipdh-pat, is used of him in connection with the founding of the city of Tus when mentioned in the Pahlavi list of the 'Cities of Iran,' § 14 (tr. Modi, pp. 65, 145, 177; tr. Blochet, pp. 166, 168, 172); this Pahlavi work also implies that the office of ' Sipah-pat remained for nine hundred years ' in his family ; and even today the commander-in-chief of the forces of Khurasan has his head- quarters at Mashad, as successor of the ancient city of Tus, as noted above. According to Masudi, Prairies, 4. 73, Shahrastani, Kitdb al-Mildl, tr. Haar- briicker, 1. 298, and the Dabistan, tr. Shea and Troyer, 1. 52, Tus founded his city on the site of a fire-temple originally built by Faridun ; the cir- cumstances that led to the foundation are mentioned in the Persian preface to Macan's Shdhndma, p. 32, cited by Modi, Shatroihd-i Airdn, p. 145.

The importance of the city may have drawn Alexander to it when he led his troops from Hyrcania through the valley of the Kashaf River while in pursuit of Bessus (as noted above), for Tus, or Tusa, is certainly the place to which Arrian (3. 25. 1) alludes, though erroneously spelt in the texts as llova-la (Greek T being mistaken for S, or so written under the influence of

��the familiar name of Susa, SoCo-a) ; for the identification see Droysen, Ge- schichte Alexanders, p. 282, n. 4 ; Mar- quart, Untersuchungen, 2. 65; Chin- nock, Arrian' s Anabasis Translated, p. 176, n. 1 ; Sykes, JBAS. 1910, p. 1114.

In addition to the Pahlavi refer- ences already given in regard to Tus as founder of the city, there is another reference to it as a town or province in Bd. 12. 24 ; 20. 30, thus showing its position during the Sasanian period. According to Firdausi (Shah Ndmah, tr. Mohl, 6. 415-419; cf. also Justi, Grundr. iran. Philol. 2. 526), Yazda- gard I was killed in 420 a.d. by the kick of a horse at Lake Sab (Chash- mah-i Sabz) near Tus. (Cf. p. 212, note 1, and Sykes, Geog. Journal, 37. 3-4.) From sources other than Ira- nian we know that under the Zoroas- trian sway of the Sasanians the city of Tus shared with Nishapur(p.250 above) the distinction of being the seat of a Nestorian Christian bishop. See Guidi, Ostsyrische Bischofe, in ZDMG. 43. 396, 398, 400, 406 ; Marquart, Erdn- Sahr, pp. QQ, 75 ; Labourt, Le Chris- tianisme sous la dynastie sassanide, p. 120, Paris, 1904; and cf. Sykes, JBAS. 1910, p. 1118.

When the Arab conquest of Persia came, Tus fell before the invaders, as did the other cities of Khurasan in the year 650 (31 a.h.) ; see Tabari, Chronique, la version persane de Bel'ami, tr. Zotenberg, 3. 571, Paris, 1867-1874. Details regarding the city and its topographical features down to Firdausi's time are found in the Arab-Persian geographers mentioned in the present chapter and the preced- ing one ; see also Le Strange, Eastern

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