and the spirit of the nation was
forever broken. [5] The authority of Artaxerxes was solemnly acknowledged
in a great assembly held at Balch in Khorasan. [501] Two younger branches
of the royal house of Arsaces were confounded among the prostrate
satraps. A third, more mindful of ancient grandeur than of present
necessity, attempted to retire, with a numerous train of vessels,
towards their kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army
of deserters was intercepted, and cut off, by the vigilance of the
conqueror, [6] who boldly assumed the double diadem, and the title of
King of Kings, which had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these
pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian, served
only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his soul and should
the ambition of restoring in their full splendor, the religion and
empire of Cyrus.

[Footnote 3: The tanner's name was Babec; the soldier's, Sassan: from
the former Artaxerxes obtained the surname of Babegan, from the latter
all his descendants have been styled Sassanides.]

[Footnote 4: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Ardshir.]

[Footnote 401: In the plain of Hoormuz, the son of Babek was hailed in
the field with the proud title of Shahan Shah, king of kings--a name
ever since assumed by the sovereigns of Persia. Malcolm, i. 71.--M.]

[Footnote 5: Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. Herodian, l. vi. p. 207.
Abulpharagins Dynast. p. 80.]

[Footnote 501: See the Persian account of the rise of Ardeschir Babegan
in Malcolm l 69.--M.]

[Footnote 6: See Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 65--71.]

I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and the
Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually adopted and
corrupted each other's superstitions. The Arsacides, indeed, practised
the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and polluted it with a
various mixture of foreign idolatry. [601] The memory of Zoroaster, the
ancient prophet and philosopher of the Persians, [7] was still revered
in the East; but the obsolete and mysterious language, in which the
Zendavesta was composed, [8] opened a field of dispute to seventy sects,
who variously explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and
were all indifferently devided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected the
divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the idolaters,
reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers, by the infallible
decision of a gener