the almost entire disappearance of art from Western Asia under the Parthians, is, compared with that of Achaemenian times, rude and grotesque.  In architecture, indeed, they are not without merit though even here the extent to which they were indebted to the Parthians, which cannot be exactly determined, must lessen our estimation of them; but their mimetic art, while not wanting in spirit, is remarkably coarse and unrefined.  As a later chapter will be devoted to this subject, no more need be said upon it here.  It is sufficient for our present purpose to note that the impression which we obtain from the monumental remains of the Sassanian Persians accords with what is to be gathered of them from the accounts of the Romans and the Greeks.  The great Asiatic revolution of the year A.D. 226 marks a revival of the Iranic nationality from the depressed state into which it had sunk for more than five hundred years; but the revival is not full or complete.  The Persians of the Sassanian kingdom are not equal to those of the time between Cyrus the Great and Darius Codomannus; they have ruder manners, a grosser taste, less capacity for government and organization; they have, in fact, been coarsened by centuries of Tartar rule; they are vigorous, active, energetic, proud, brave; but in civilization and refinement they do not rank much above their Parthian predecessors.  Western Asia gained, perhaps, something, but it did not gain much, from the substitution of the Persians for the Parthians as the dominant power.  The change is the least marked among the revolutions which the East underwent between the accession of Cyrus and the conquests of Timour.  But it is a change, on the whole, for the better.  It is accompanied by a revival of art, by improvements in architecture; it inaugurates a religious revolution which has advantages.  Above all, it saves the East from stagnation.  It is one among many of those salutary shocks which, in the political as in the natural world, are needed from time to time to stimulate action and prevent torpor and apathy.

CHAPTER III.

Reign of Artaxerxes I. Stories told of him.  Most probable account of his Descent, Rank, and Parentage.  His Contest with Artabanus.  First War with Chosroes of Armenia.  Contest with Alexander Severus.  Second War with Chosroes and conquest of Armenia.  Religious Reforms.  Internal Administration and Government.  Art.  Coinage.  Inscriptions.

Around the cradle of an Oriental sovereign who founds a dynasty there cluster commonly a number of traditions, which have, more or less, a mythical character.  The tales told of the Great, which even Herodotus set aside as incredible, have their parallels in narratives that were current within one or two centuries with respect to the founder of the Second Persian Empire, which would not have disgraced the mythologers of Achaemenian times.  Artaxerxes, according to some, was the son of a common soldier who had an illicit