will be unnecessary to prolong the present chapter by a
consideration of them.

CHAPTER III. CHARACTER, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, ARTS, ETC., OF THE PEOPLE.

"Pugnatrix natio et formidanda."--Amm. Marc, xxiii. 6.

The ethnic character of the Median people is at the present day scarcely
a matter of doubt. The close connection which all history, sacred and
profane, establishes between them and the Persians, the evidence of
their proper names and of their language, so far as it is known to us,
together with the express statements of Herodotus and Strabo, combine to
prove that they belonged to that branch of the human family known to us
as the Arian or Iranic, a leading subdivision of the great Indo-European
race. The tie of a common language, common manners and customs, and to
a great extent a common belief, united in ancient times all the dominant
tribes of the great plateau, extending even beyond the plateau in
one direction to the Jaxartes (Syhun) and in another to the Hyphasis
(Sutlej). Persians, Medes, Sagartians, Chorasmians, Bactrians, Sogdians,
Hyrcanians, Sarangians, Gandarians, and Sanskritic Indians belonged all
to a single stock, differing from one another probably not much more
than now differ the various subdivisions of the Teutonic or the Slavonic
race. Between the tribes at the two extremities of the Arian territory
the divergence was no doubt considerable; but between any two
neighboring tribes the difference was probably in most cases exceedingly
slight. At any rate this was the case towards the west, where the Medes
and Persians, the two principal sections of the Arian body in that
quarter, are scarcely distinguishable from one another in any of the
features which constitute ethnic type.

The general physical character of the ancient Arian race is best
gathered from the sculptures of the Achsemenian kings, which exhibit to
us a very noble variety of the human species--a form tall, graceful, and
stately; a physiognomy handsome and pleasing, often somewhat resembling
the Greek; the forehead high and straight, the nose nearly in the same
line, long and well formed, sometimes markedly aquiline, the upper lip
short, commonly shaded by a moustache, the chin rounded and generally
covered with a curly beard. The hair evidently grew in great plenty, and
the race was proud of it. On the top of the head it was worn smooth,
but it was drawn back from the forehead and twisted into a row or two of
crisp curls,