er they
were of the same race with the Dahse of the Caspian. As the settlement
of the Parthians in the country called after their name dated from a
time anterior to Darius Hystaspis, and the Greeks certainly did not
set on foot any inquiries into their origin till at least two centuries
later, it would be unlikely that the Parthians could give them a true
account. The real groundwork of the stories told seems to have been
twofold. First, there was a strong conviction on the part of those who
came in contact with the Parthians that they were Scyths; and secondly,
it was believed that their name meant "exile." Hence it was necessary to
suppose that they had migrated into their country from some portion of
the tract known as Scythia to the Greeks, and it was natural to invent
stories as to the particular circumstances of the migration.

The residuum of the truth, or at any rate the important conviction of
the ancient writers, which remains after their stories are sifted, is
the Scythic character of the Parthian people. On this point, Strabo,
Justin, and Arrian are agreed. The manners of the Parthians had, they
tell us, much that was Scythic in them. Their language was half Scythic,
half Median. They armed themselves in the Scythic fashion. They were, in
fact, Scyths in descent, in habits, in character.

But what are we to understand by this? May we assume at once that
they were a Turanian people, in race, habits, and language akin to the
various tribes of Turkomans who are at present dominant over the entire
region between the Oxus and the Parthian mountain-tract, and within
that tract have many settlements? May we assume that they stood in an
attitude of natural hostility to the Arian nations by which they were
surrounded, and that their revolt was the assertion of independence by
a down-trodden people after centuries of subjection to the yoke of a
stranger? Did Turan, in their persons, rise against Iean after perhaps a
thousand years of oppression, and renew the struggle for predominance
in regions where the war had been waged before, and where it still
continues to be waged at the present day?

Such conclusions cannot safely be drawn from the mere fact that the
Scythic character of the Parthians is asserted in the strongest terms
by the ancient writers. The term "Scythic" is not, strictly speaking,
ethnical. It designates a life rather a descent, habits rather than
blood. It is applied by the Greeks and Romans to Indo