A literary history of Persia

134 THE SASANIAN PERIODWho did advise poor me, to spare me pain,That after him I should not here remain.Should I remain, enslaved, in fashion base,I should be driven through each market-place.Now, Mother, dear, Imam and Sov'reign mine,Into thy hands my option I resign.Bid my fare forth, my bosom filled with pain,' "Or bid me tarry, and I will remain !A darker picture of the Sasanians ispresented by Christian,notably by Syrian, writers, a source of information " notViews of Chris- -~ , ..,,,_- . .sufficiently used," as Noldeke remarks, " by mosttian subjects and Orientalists. 1 WO Works of this claSS in parcontemporaries. ,of the ticular may be recommended to those students ofSasanians.Persian history who, like the writer, are unfortunatelyunable to consult this literature in the original.The first is the Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, 1 composed inA.D. 507, describing the Persian invasion of Asia Minor byof Edessa and AmidKawad, and especially the sufferings(now 'Urfa and Diyar Bekr) in the beginningcentury of our era. The other is the Acts ofT eimartof the sixththe PersianMartyrsf excerpted from various Syriac manuscriptsanc^ trans ' ate^ mto German with the mostrsanscholarlynotes, by George Hoffmann. In these books, bothon political and religious grounds,it is natural that the Persiansshould be depicted in rather lurid colours, but in the first, atany rate, it does not appear that they acted more cruelly ormore falsely than their Christian antagonists, thoughit isnatural enough that the author, writing within two or threeyears of the war which had desolated his home, should occasionallyspeak of them in such terms as these " Now the:pleasure of this wicked people is abundantly made evident bythis, that they have not shown mercy unto those who werethe late Dr.1Text and translation published at Cambridge (1882) byW. Wright."Auszuge aus Syrischen Akten Persischer Mitrtyrer . . , von GeorgHoffmann (Leipzig, 1880).