cted into populous cities, and reduced under
extensive empires, the seat of the arts, of luxury, and of despotism.
The Assyrians reigned over the East, 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,
* 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.

Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of Artaban,
the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that he was driven into
exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the customary reward for
superior merit. His birth was obscure, and the obscurity equally
gave room to the aspersions of his enemies, and the flattery of his
adherents. If we credit the scandal of the former, Artaxerxes sprang
from the illegitimate commerce of a tanner's wife with a common soldier.
The latter represent him as descended from a branch of the ancient
kings of Persian, though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his
ancestors to the humble station of private citizens. As the lineal heir
of the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged the
noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression under which
they groaned above five centuries since the death of Darius. The
Parthians were defeated in three great battles. * In the last of these
their king Artaban