ns reigned over the East, [1] till the sceptre of Ninus and
Semiramis dropped from the hands of their enervated successors. The
Medes and the Babylonians divided their power, and were themselves
swallowed up in the monarchy of the Persians, whose arms could not be
confined within the narrow limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by
two millions of men, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece.

Thirty thousand soldiers, under the command of Alexander, the son of
Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory and revenge,
were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the house of Seleucus
usurped and lost the Macedonian command over the East. About the same
time, that, by an ignominious treaty, they resigned to the Romans the
country on this side Mount Tarus, they were driven by the Parthians,
[1001] an obscure horde of Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper
Asia. The formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India
to the frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or
Artaxerxes; the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name of
Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs. This great
revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced by the Romans,
happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus, two hundred and
twenty-six years after the Christian era. [2] [201]

[Footnote 1: An ancient chronologist, quoted by Valleius Paterculus, (l.
i. c. 6,) observes, that the Assyrians, the Medes, the Persians, and the
Macedonians, reigned over Asia one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five
years, from the accession of Ninus to the defeat of Antiochus by the
Romans. As the latter of these great events happened 289 years before
Christ, the former may be placed 2184 years before the same aera. The
Astronomical Observations, found at Babylon, by Alexander, went fifty
years higher.]

[Footnote 1001: The Parthians were a tribe of the Indo-Germanic branch
which dwelt on the south-east of the Caspian, and belonged to the same
race as the Getae, the Massagetae, and other nations, confounded by the
ancients under the vague denomination of Scythians. Klaproth, Tableaux
Hist. d l'Asie, p. 40. Strabo (p. 747) calls the Parthians Carduchi,
i.e., the inhabitants of Curdistan.--M.]

[Footnote 2: In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the aera
of Seleucus. See Agathias, l. ii. p. 63. This great event (such is the
carelessness of the Orientals) is placed by E