of
Darius Hystapis and Xerxes. There is the same straight forehead, the
same aquiline nose, the same well-shaped mouth, the same abundant hair.
The form is, however, coarser and clumsier; the expression is less
refined; and the general effect produced is that the people have, even
physically, deteriorated. The mental and aesthetic standard seems still
more to have sunk. There is no evidence that the Persians of Sassanian
times possessed the governmental and administrative ability of Darius
Hystapis or Artaxerxes Ochus. Their art, though remarkable, considering
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