A literary history of Persia

36 INTRODUCTORYenumeration, that order being in any case almost indefensible(even excluding all doubtful identifications) on geographicalgrounds. And it seems at least possible that itmay representthe conquests of the Zoroastrian faith rather than of theIranian people, which hypothesis would be much strengthenedif the identification of the Airyana Vaejo with Atropatene(Azarbayjan) could be established more :surely we shouldthen have a fairlyclear confirmation of that theory which weregarded as most probable to : wit, a religionitshaving sourceand home in the extreme north-west, but makingits first conquestsin the extreme north-east. Did we need any proofthat a prophet is often without honour in his own country,the history of Islam would supply it,and Balkh may well havebeen the Medina of the Zoroastrian faith.Another period, subsequent alike to the Indo-Iranian and theprimitive Iranian epochs, has been distinguished and discussedPeriod of ....with care and acumen by Spiegel,1who placesAssyrian in- its beginning about B.C. 1000, namely, the periodof Assyrian influence an influence salient to alleyes in the sculptures and inscriptions of the Achaemenians,and discernible also,as Spiegel has shown, in many Persianmyths, legends, and doctrines reflecting a Semitic rather thanan Aryan tradition. It is a remarkable thing how greatat all periods of history has been Semitic influence onPersia ;Arabian in the late Sasanian and Muhammadan time ;Aramaic in earlier Sasanian and later Parthian days ; Assyrianat a yet more ancient epoch. And indeed this fact can scarcelybe insisted upon too strongly; for the study of Persian hassuffered from nothing so much as from the purely philologicalview which regards mere linguistic and racial affinities asinfinitely more important and significant than the much deeperand more potent influences of literary and religious contact.1 " Beginn derErdnische Alterlhumskunde, vol. i, pp. 446-485,eranischen Selbstandigkeit. Die altesten Beruhrungen mit denSemiten."