ht, and a day? Information is not at hand whereby one
might gauge the life of the people, and say. The last thirteen
decades, certainly, seem to have left their mark as an age of
glory on the Persian imagination, and to have been remembered as
such in the days of Omar Khayyam.--And here we must leave the
Sassanians, having other fish to fry.

We saw the Crest-Wave strike Rome (at Nerva's accession) in 96;
then, 131 years later, raise up Ardashir and Persia in 227;
--and so, I suppose, should incline to look east again, and
jump another thirteen decades, and land in India, in 357 or
thereabouts,--praying God to keep us from a bad fall. _India_
I allow; but look before you leap;--or, if you will, in mid-air
turn over in your minds the old Indian cycles, as far as you know
them, and see if they offer you any prospect of a landing-place.
As thus: there were the Mauryas, 320 to 190 B. C.; thence on
thirteen decades to 60 B.C.,--and near enough to the reputed 58
of the reputed Vikramaditya of Ujjain. On again (thirteen
decades as usual) to the seventies A.D.--and good enough in all
conscience for that slippery Kanishka who so dodges in and out
among the early centuries, and is fitted with a new date by
everyone who has to do with him. On again, from 70 to 200;
nothing doing there, I regret to say, (that we know about).
Never mind; on thence to 320,--the nearest point to our 357;
let us land in the three-twenties then, and see what happens.

On solid ground: for India, remarkably solid. There actually
was a Golden Age there at that time; and everybody seems to
agree that it lasted, say, one hundred and twenty-nine years;
from 326 to 455. This you will note, was the period of the last
phase of the Roman Empire: that of its rapid decline. In 323
Constantine came to the throne, and began making Chrisitianity
the state religion; in 330 he moved his capital. After 456, no
emperor ruled in the west but for puppets set up by the German
Ricimer, two set up by Constantinople, and Romulus Augustulus,
the last,--and all within twenty years. There is no bright spot
within the whole thirteen decades, except the two years of
Julian. The faucet was turned on in India; and the Roman garden
went waterless, and wilted.

What happened was this: in 320, one Chandragupta Gupta married
the Pincess of Magadha; and an era was dated from their
coronation on the 26th of February in that year. Their son
Samudragupta succeeded his f