this training was to render the Persian an excellent
soldier and a most accomplished horseman. Accustomed from early boyhood
to pass the greater part of every day in the saddle, he never felt so
much at home as when mounted upon a prancing steed. On horseback he
pursued the stag, the boar, the antelope, even occasionally the bear
or the lion, and shot his arrows, or slung his stones, or hurled his
javelin at them with deadly aim, never pausing for a moment in his
career. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 2.] Only when the brute turned on his
pursuers, and stood at bay, or charged them in its furious despair, they
would sometimes descend from their coursers, and receive the attack,
or deal the _coup de grace_ on foot, using for the purpose a short
but strong hunting-spear. [PLATE XXXVII., Fig. 3.] The chase was the
principal delight of the upper class of Persians, so long as the ancient
manners were kept up, and continued an occupation in which the bolder
spirits loved to indulge long after decline had set in, and the advance
of luxury had changed, to a great extent, the character of the nation.

At fifteen years of age the Persian was considered to have attained to
manhood, and was enrolled in the ranks of the army, continuing liable to
military service from that time till he reached the age of fifty. Those
of the highest rank became the body-guard of the king, and these formed
the garrison of the capital. They were a force of not less than fourteen
or fifteen thousand men. Others, though liable to military service, did
not adopt arms as their profession, but attached themselves to the Court
and looked to civil employment, as satraps, secretaries, attendants,
ushers, judges, inspectors, messengers. A portion, no doubt, remained
in the country districts, and there followed those agricultural pursuits
which the Zoroastrian religion regarded as in the highest degree
honorable. But the bulk of the nation must, from the time of the great
conquests, have passed their lives mainly, like the Roman legionaries
under the Empire, in garrison duty in the provinces. The entire
population of Persia Proper can scarcely have exceeded two millions. Not
more than one fourth of this number would be males between the ages
of fifteen and fifty. This body of 500,000 men, besides supplying the
official class at the Court and throughout the provinces, and also
furnishing to Persia Proper those who did the work of its cultivation,
had to supply to the whole