hs, horses, and camels;
and in the midst of a successful campaign, the Persian host was often
separated or destroyed by an unexpected famine.

But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,
preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national honor. From
the age of seven years they were taught to speak truth, to shoot with
the bow, and to ride; and it was universally confessed, that in the two
last of these arts, they had made a more than common proficiency.
The most distinguished youth were educated under the monarch's eye,
practised their exercises in the gate of his palace, and were severely
trained up to the habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and
laborious parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained
a like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is
the idea of feudal tenures) received from the king's bounty lands and
houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were ready on the
first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial and splendid train
of followers, and to join the numerous bodies of guards, who were
carefully selected from among the most robust slaves, and the bravest
adventures of Asia. These armies, both of light and of heavy cavalry,
equally formidable by the impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity
of their motions, threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern
provinces of the declining empire of Rome.

Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.--Part I.

The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In
The Time Of The Emperor Decius.

The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice, from
their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman empire. We shall
occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian tribes, * which, with
their arms and horses, their flocks and herds, their wives and families,
wandered over the immense plains which spread themselves from the
Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from the confines of Persia to those of
Germany. But the warlike Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and
at length overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much
more important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if
we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our attention and
regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the
woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we
may still dist