Persarum Princeps illi devinctus amore
               Praecipuo fuerat, nomen habens Aaron. 
          Gratia cui Caroli prae cunctis Regibus atque
               Illis Principibus tempora cara funit.

[FN#262] Many have remarked that the actual date of the decease is unknown.

[FN#263] See Al-Siyuti (p. 305) and Dr. Jonathan Scott’s “Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters,” (p. 296).

[FN#264] I have given (vol. i. 188) the vulgar derivation of the name; and D’Herbelot (s. v.  Barmakian) quotes some Persian lines alluding to the “supping up.”  Al-Mas’udi’s account of the family’s early history is unfortunately lost.  This Khalid succeeded Abu Salamah, first entitled Wazir under Al-Saffah (Ibn Khallikan i. 468).

[FN#265] For his poetry see Ibn Khallikan iv. 103.

[FN#266] Their flatterers compared them with the four elements.

[FN#267] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii.

[FN#268] Ibn Khallikan (i. 310) says the eunuch Abu Hashim Masrur, the Sworder of Vengeance, who is so pleasantly associated with Ja’afar in many nightly disguises; but the Eunuch survived the Caliph.  Fakhr al-Din (p. 27) adds that Masrur was an enemy of Ja’afar; and gives further details concerning the execution.

[FN#269] Bresl.  Edit., Night dlxvii. vol. vii. pp. 258-260; translated in the Mr. Payne’s “Tales from the Arabic,” vol. i. 189 and headed “Al-Rashid and the Barmecides.”  It is far less lively and dramatic than the account of the same event given by Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii., by Ibn Khallikan and by Fakhr al-Din.

[FN#270] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxi.

[FN#271] See Dr. Jonathan Scott’s extracts from Major Ouseley’s “Tarikh-i-Barmaki.”

[FN#272] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii.  For the liberties Ja’afar took see Ibn Khallikan, i. 303.

[FN#273] Ibid. chapt. xxiv.  In vol. ii. 29 of The Nights, I find signs of Ja’afar’s suspected heresy.  For Al-Rashid’s hatred of the Zindiks see Al-Siyuti, pp. 292, 301; and as regards the religious troubles ibid. p. 362 and passim.

[FN#274] Biogr.  Dict. i. 309.

[FN#275] This accomplished princess had a practice that suggests the Dame aux Camelias.

[FN#276] i. e.  Perdition to your fathers, Allah’s curse on your ancestors.

[FN#277] See vol. iv. 159, “Ja’afar and the Bean-seller;” where the great Wazir is said to have been “crucified;” and vol. iv. pp. 179, 181.  Also Roebuck’s Persian Proverbs, i. 2, 346, “This also is through the munificence of the Barmecides.”

[FN#278] I especially allude to my friend Mr. Payne’s admirably written account of it in his concluding Essay (vol. ix.).  From his views of the Great Caliph and the Lady Zubaydah I must differ in every point except the destruction of the Barmecides.

[FN#279] Bresl.  Edit., vol. vii. 261-62.

[FN#280] Mr. Grattan Geary, in a work previously noticed, informs us (i. 212) “The Sitt al-Zobeide, or the Lady Zobeide, was so named from the great Zobeide tribe of Arabs occupying the country East and West of the Euphrates near the Hindi’ah Canal; she was the daughter of a powerful Sheik of that Tribe.”  Can this explain the “Kasim”?