Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/358

 346 IRAN the Tigris and Euphrates. A wide and deep channel, branching off near Hit, skirting the Syrian desert, and entering the Persian gulf by a separate mouth, was probably the ancient western limit. The part east of the Tigris is the most fertile, and forms in a large measure the storehouse of the remainder of this district. Nearly all of Turkish Khuzistan, however, is but little cultivated, though its soil has every characteristic of luxuriant fertility. The cli- mate and products of the region are mainly de- scribed in the articles upon the two principal towns, Bagdad and Bassorah. IRAN. See PERSIA. IRANIC RACES AND LANGUAGES. The Iranic or Persian races form a branch of the Aryan or Indo-European family. They inhabit a ter- ritory in the immediate vicinity and west of the Indie races or Aryans proper. The first traces of the Iranic branch are found north of the Hindoo Koosh, near the elevated plateau of Pamir, and at the sources of the Oxus. In historic times the Iranians appear on the shores of the Oxus and of the rivers of upper Sogdiana, and spreading southwest through Badakhshan and Balkh, they people the entire country of the vast plateau known in a limited sense as Iran or Persia, excepting the S. E. corner, in- habited by the Brahooees, a Deccanese or Dra- vidian race. The Afghans have an Iranic lan- guage strongly interwoven with Sanskritic ele- ments, for which reason some class them among the Indie races. Beyond the Persian district the Iranic branch extends over the mountainous re- gion of Armenia into Asia Minor. It is prob- able that in the flourishing period of the Per- sian empire the Iranic races were spread also over the plateau on the Kur as far N. os the Caucasus ; it is less probable that, as some sup- pose, they were scattered over the regions be- yond the Caucasus, and mingled with the Slavs. Colonies of Iranians, however, were to be found as far as the Crimea, and mingled with the Thracians. It is thus established that the Iranians were in ancient times the connecting link between the Indo-Europeans of Asia and of Europe. At an early period the Iranians and Indians probably formed but a single group of races. The Arya of the Indie was the Airya of the Iranic race, and apparently they had the same religion. In what period their separation took place is unknown. The first Iranic race that appears in history is that of the Medes. Their earliest territory is not clearly defined, but it probably comprised very nearly the same regions as their strictly his- torical habitat, reaching in the east as far as the Caspian gates, and in the north not quite as far as the mountains N. of Atropatene. The southern boundary was Susiana, and in the west the territory was separated from that of the Assyrians and Babylonians by the Zagros. According to Berosus, the Medes were an important race as early as 2400 B. 0., at which time, he says, there was a Median dy- nasty in Babylonia. Syncellus calls Zoroaster IRANIC RACES, &o. the founder of this dynasty; but though this name may have been furnished by Berosus him- self, as Eusebius intimates, it does not fol- low that this Zoroaster was identical with the founder of the Iranian religion. More impor- tant than this single statement by Berosus are the contents of the Assyrian cuneiform inscrip- tions, which do not speak of the Medes as the conquerors, but as the subjects of the Assy- rian empire. The oldest notice is probably one found in the inscription of the elder Tiglath- pileser, about 1100 B. C., in which a country named Amadana is spoken of in connection with Elam as a conquered territory. The Medes are mentioned again on the black obelisks of the 9th century, and more frequently in the inscriptions of Sargon toward the close of the 8th century. He and his successors Sennache- rib and Esarhaddon speak of Media as if it were a distant country, and the Assyrians evi- dently did not consider it as important to con- quer as Asia Minor and Egypt, It is therefore probable that the Semitic race was spread at that time much further over the mountainous districts of the Zagros than they were in more recent historical times. The Assyrian inscrip- tions agree with the statement of Herodotus that the Medes were at an early period subjects of Assyria. He adds that they were the first people to cast off the yoke after 520 years, and with this period of the revolt of the Medes he begins the history of the foundation of the Median empire. (See MEDIA.) The oldest sources we possess for the history of the Ira- nians represent them as divided into several races. Those most frequently mentioned are the races of the western territory. Herodotus distinguishes among the Medes the BusB, the Paretaceni, the Struchates, the Arizanti, the Budii, and the Magi. The Persians he divides into Pasargadffi, Maraphians, Maspians, Pan- thialffians, Derusiseans, and the Germanians, all of whom were engaged in husbandry, and four nomadic tribes, the Daans, Mardians, Dropi- cans, and Sagartians. The special territories occupied by these tribes are not known. The remark of Herodotus that the Pasargadte were the principal tribe, and that the Achaemenides were one of its clans, shows that each of these tribes consisted of several subdivisions. The Iranic races are also to this day subdivided into numerous tribes. The Indus is now the east- ern boundary of these races. Near this river dwell the Belooches and Afghans. In the da- maun or borderland of India are several Af- ghan tribes which are sometimes collectively designated as Lohani, and others further west, on the Solyman mountains, forming together the transition from the Indie to the Iranic race. A very few of them are still nomadic ; the oth- ers are husbandmen and traders. Still further west are the Afghans proper, and S. of them the Belooches, the latter not of purely Iranic origin. (See AFGHANISTAN, and BELOOCHIS- TAN.) The Afghans are a well built people, with an elongated head, horizontal eyes, and