A literary history of Persia

ACHAEMENIAN INSCRIPTIONS 91produce what I should regard as an essentiallydefective andmisleading book, false to my conception of what is meant bythe Literary History of a people, and faulty not only inexecution but in conception, I have decided to set forth brieflyin this chapter the main facts about the Achaemenian Inscriptions,the Avesta, the Pahlawi monuments and literature, andthe Zoroastrian religion,to know which isimportant evenfor those whose main interest lies in Modern Persian. Of theSasdnian period, and therefore incidentally of Pahlawi, theofficial language of that time in Persia, I shall speak in greaterdetail in the next chapter, since in it lie the roots of so muchthat attracts- our attention in the earlyMuhammadan days,and the gulf which severs it from what precedesis so muchharder to bridge satisfactorily than that which divides it fromwhat follows. And since, for literary purposes, the legendaryis nearly as important as the actual history of a people, I shallalso discuss in this chapter the Persian Eposor NationalLegend, which, as will be seen, only approaches the realNational History at the beginning of the Sasanian period.This chapter will therefore be divided into four sections, whichmay be briefly characterised as follows : (i) Achaemenian j(2) Avestic j (3) Pahlawi ;and (4) National Legend.I. LITERARY REMNANTS OF THE ACH^MENIANS.Our fullest knowledge of that first great Persian dynastywhich began with Cyrus in B.C. 559, and ended with thedefeat of the last Darius by Alexander, and his tragic death atthe hands of his two treacherous satraps, Bessus and Barzaentes,in B.C. 330, is derived from Greek historians, notably Herodotus,Ctesias, and Xenophon {Anabasis, Cyropeedia^ Agesilaus], whilesome sidelights maybe derived from such works as the Tersa:of ./Eschylus. Of these external sources, however, which havebeen fully used by those who have written the history of theAchaemenians (such as Rawlinson, Spiegel, and Justi), I do