lso
of improved domestic administration. Chosroes found the empire in a
disordered and ill-regulated condition, taxation arranged on a bad
system, the people oppressed by unjust and tyrannical governors,
the military service a prey to the most scandalous abuses, religious
fanaticism rampant, class at variance with class, extortion and wrong
winked at, crime unpunished, agriculture languishing, and the masses
throughout almost the whole of the country sullen and discontented.
It was his resolve from the first to carry out a series of reforms--to
secure the administration of even-handed justice, to put the finances on
a better footing, to encourage agriculture, to relieve the poor and the
distressed, to root out the abuses that destroyed the efficiency of the
army, and to excise the gangrene of fanaticism which was eating into
the heart of the nation. How he effected the last named object by
his wholesale destruction of the followers of Mazdak has been already
related; but it appeared unadvisable to interrupt, the military history
of the reign by combining with it any account of the numerous other
reforms which he accomplished. It remains therefore to consider them in
this place, since they are certainly not the least remarkable among the
many achievements of this great monarch.

Persia, until the time of Anushirwan, had been divided into a multitude
of provinces, the satraps or governors of which held their office
directly under the crown. It was difficult for the monarch to exercise
a sufficient superintendence over so large a number of rulers, many
of them remote from the court, and all united by a common interest.
Chosroes conceived the plan of forming four great governments, and
entrusting them to four persons in whom he had confidence, whose duty
it should be to watch the conduct of the provincial satraps to control
them, direct them, or report their misconduct to the crown. The four
great governments were those of the east, the north, the south, and
the west. The east comprised Khorassan, Seistan, and Kirman; the north,
Armenia, Azer-bijan, Ghilan, Koum, and Isfahan; the south, Fars and
Ahwaz; the west, Irak, or Babylonia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia.

It was not the intention of the monarch, however, to put a blind trust
in his instruments. He made personal progresses through his empire from,
time to time, visiting each province in turn and inquiring into the
condition of the inhabitants. He employed continually an