any that could
deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became
great."--Daniel, viii. 4.

The history of the Persian Empire dates from the conquest of Astyages by
Cyrus, and therefore commences with the year B.C. 558. But the present
inquiry must be carried considerably further back, since in this, as
in most other cases, the Empire grew up out of a previously existing
monarchy. Darius Hystaspis reckons that there had been eight Persians
kings of his race previously to himself; and though it is no doubt
possible that some of the earlier names may be fictitious, yet we can
scarcely suppose that he was deceived, or that he wished to deceive, as
to the fact that long anterior to his own reign, or that of his elder
contemporary, Cyrus, Persia had been a monarchy, governed by a line of
princes of the same clan, or family, with himself. It is our business in
this place, before entering upon the brilliant period of the Empire, to
cast a retrospective glance over the earlier ages of obscurity, and
to collect therefrom such scattered notices as are to be found of the
Persians and their princes or kings before they suddenly attracted
the general attention of the civilized world by their astonishing
achievements under the great Cyrus.

The more ancient of-the sacred books of the Jews, while distinctly
noticing the nation of the Medes, contain no mention at all of Persia
or the Persians. The Zendavesta, the sacred volume of the people
themselves, is equally silent on the subject. The earliest appearance
of the Persians in history is in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings,
which begin to notice them about the middle of the ninth century B.C.
At this time Shalmaneser II. found them in south-western Armenia, where
they were in close contact with the Medes, of whom, however, they seem
to have been wholly independent. Like the modern Kurds in this same
region, they owned no subjection to a single head, but were under the
government of numerous petty chieftains, each the lord of a single town
or of a small mountain district. Shalmaneser informs us that he took
tribute from twenty-five such chiefs. Similar tokens of submission were
paid also to his son and grandson. After this the Assyrian records are
silent as to the Persians for nearly a century, and it is not until the
reign of Sennacherib that we once more find them brought into contact
with the power which aspired to be mistress of Asia. At the time of
th