Arabian philosophy, at the outset of its career in the 9th century, was able without difficulty to take possession of those resources for speculative thought which the Latins had barely achieved at the close of the 12th century by the slow process of rediscovering the Aristotelian logic from the commentaries and verses of Boëtius. What the Latins painfully accomplished, owing to their fragmentary and unintelligent acquaintance with ancient philosophy, was already done for the Arabians by the scholars of Syria. In the early centuries of the Christian era, both within and without the ranks of the church, the Platonic tone and method were paramount throughout the East. Their influence was felt in the creeds which formulated the orthodox dogmas in regard to the Trinity and the Incarnation. But in its later days the Neo-Platonist school came more and more to find in Aristotle the best exponent and interpreter of the philosopher whom they thought divine. It was in this spirit that Porphyry, Themistius and Joannes Philoponus composed their commentaries on the treatises of the Peripatetic system which, modified often unconsciously by the dominant ideas of its expositors, became in the 6th and 7th centuries the philosophy of the Eastern Church. But the instrument which, in the hands of John of Damascus (Damascenus), was made subservient to theological interests, became in the hands of others a dissolvent of the doctrines which had been reduced to shape under the prevalence of the elder Platonism. Peripatetic studies became the source of heresies; and conversely, the heretical sects prosecuted the study of Aristotle with peculiar zeal. The church of the Nestorians, and that of the Monophysites, in their several schools and monasteries, carried on from the 5th to the 8th century the study of the earlier part of the Organon, with almost the same means, purposes and results as were found among the Latin schoolmen of the earlier centuries. Up to the time when the religious zeal of the emperor Zeno put a stop to the Nestorian school at Edessa, this "Athens of Syria" was active in translating and popularizing the Aristotelian logic. Their banishment from Edessa in 489 drove the Nestorian scholars to Persia, where the Sassanid rulers gave them a welcome; and there they continued their labours on the Organon. A new seminary of logic and theology sprang up at Nisibis, not far from the old locality; and at Gandisapora (or Nishapur), in the east of Persia, there arose a medical school, whence Greek medicine, and in its company Greek science and philosophy, ere long spread over the lands of Iran. Meanwhile the Monophysites had followed in the steps of the Nestorians, multiplying Syriac versions of the logical and medical science of the Greeks. Their school at Resaina is known from the name of Sergius, one of the first of these translators, in the days of Justinian; and from their monasteries at Kinnesrin (Chalcis) issued numerous versions of the introductory treatises of the Aristotelian logic. To the Isagoge of Porphyry, the Categories and the Hermeneutica of Aristotle, the labours of these Syrian schoolmen were confined. These they expounded, translated, epitomized and made the basis of their compilations, and the few who were bold enough to attempt the Analytics seem to have left their task unaccomplished. Entry: ARABIAN
Whilst the Antigonid kingdom remained practically whole till the Roman conquest ended it in 168 B.C., and the house of Ptolemy ruled in Egypt till the death of Cleopatra in 30 B.C., the Seleucid Empire perished by a slow process of disruption. The eastern provinces of Iran went in 240 or thereabouts, when the Greek Diodotus made himself an independent king in Bactria (q.v.) and Sogdiana, and Tiridates, brother of Arsaces, a "Scythian" chieftain, conquered Parthia (so Arrian, but see PARTHIA). Armenia was finally lost in 190, when Artaxias founded a new native dynasty there. Native princes probably ruled in Persis before 166, though the district was at least nominally subject to Antiochus IV. Epiphanes till his death in 164 (see PERSIS). In southern Syria, which had been won by the house of Seleucus from the house of Ptolemy in 198, the independent Jewish principality was set up in 143. About the same time Media was totally relinquished to the Parthians. Babylonia was Parthian from 129. Before 88 the Parthians had conquered Mesopotamia. Commagene was independent under a king, Mithradates Callinicus, in the earlier part of the last century B.C. Syria itself in the last days of the Seleucid dynasty is seen to be breaking up into petty principalities, Greek or native. From 83 to 69 is the transient episode of Armenian conquest, and in 64 the last shadow of Seleucid rule vanished, when Syria was made a Roman province by Pompey. From this time Rome formally entered upon the heritage of Alexander as far as the Euphrates, but many of the dynasties which had arisen in the days of Macedonian supremacy were allowed to go on for a time as client states. One of them, the royal house of Commagene, not deposed by the Romans till A.D. 72, had Seleucid blood in its veins through the marriage of a Seleucid princess with Mithradates Callinicus, and regarded itself as being a continuation of the Seleucid dynasty. Its kings bore the name of Antiochus, and were as proud of their Macedonian, as of their Persian, descent (see the Inscription of Nimrud Dagh, Michel, No. 735). Entry: II
BACTRIA (_Bactriana_), the ancient name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush (Paropamisus) and the Oxus (Amu Darya), with the capital Bactra (now Balkh); in the Persian inscriptions B[=a]khtri. It is a mountainous country with a moderate climate. Water is abundant and the land is very fertile. Bactria was the home of one of the Iranian tribes (see PERSIA: _Ancient History_). Modern authors have often used the name in a wider sense, as the designation of the whole eastern part of Iran. As there can be scarcely any doubt that it was in these regions, where the fertile soil of the mountainous country is everywhere surrounded and limited by the Turanian desert, that the prophet Zoroaster preached and gained his first adherents, and that his religion spread from here over the western parts of Iran, the sacred language in which the Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrianism, is written, has often been called "old Bactrian." But there is no reason for this extensive use of the name, and the term "old Bactrian" is, therefore, at present completely abandoned by scholars. Still less foundation exists for the belief, once widely spread, that Bactria was the cradle of the Indo-European race; it was based on the supposition that the nations of Europe had immigrated from Asia, and that the Aryan languages (Indian and Iranian) stood nearest to the original language of the Indo-Europeans. It is now acknowledged by all linguists that this supposition is quite wrong, and that the Aryans probably came from Europe. The eastern part of Iran seems to have been the region where the Aryans lived as long as they formed one people, and whence they separated into Indians and Iranians. Entry: BACTRIA
Like the history of the founder of the Achaemenian empire, that of Ardashir has from the beginning been overgrown with legends; like Cyrus he is the son of a shepherd, his future greatness is predicted by dreams and visions, and by the calculations of astronomers he becomes a servant at the court of King Artabanus and then flies to Persia and begins the rebellion; he fights with the great dragon, the enemy of god, &c. A Pahlavi text, which contains this legend, has been translated by Nöldeke (_Geschichte des Artachshir i Pãpakan_, 1879). On the same tradition the account of Firdousi in the Shahnama is based; it occurs also, with some variations, in Agathias ii. 26 f. Another work, which contained religious and moral admonitions which were put into the mouth of the king, has not come down to us. On the other hand the genealogy of Ardashir has of course been connected with the Achaemenids, on whose behalf he exacts vengeance from the Parthians, and with the legendary kings of old Iran. Entry: ARDASHIR
There are remains of two other palaces at Imamzade and Tag Iran, and in Moab a small example, the Hall of Rabboth Ammon, supposed to have been erected for Chosroes II. during the subjugation of Palestine, which is richly decorated with carving, probably by Syrio-Greek artists, with a mixture of Greek, Jewish and Sassanian details. At Takibostan and Behistun (Bisutun), some 200 m. north-east of Ctesiphon, are some remarkable Sassanian capitals and panels (published in Flandin and Coste's _Voyage en Perse_, 1851, Paris). (R. P. S.) Entry: FIG
EUCRATIDES, king of Bactria (c. 175-129 B.C.), came to the throne by a rebellion against the dynasty of Euthydemus, whose son Demetrius had conquered western India. His authority was challenged by a great many other pretenders and Greek dynasts in Sogdiana, Aria (Herat), Drangiana (Sijistan), &c., whose names--Pantaleon, Agathocles, Antimachus, Antalcidas "the victorious" ([Greek: nikêphoros]), Plato, whose unique coin is dated from the year 147 of the Seleucid era (= 166 B.C.), and others--are known only from coins with Greek and Indian legends. In the west the Parthian king Mithradates I. began to enlarge his kingdom and attacked Eucratides; he succeeded in conquering two provinces between Bactria and Parthia, called by Strabo "the country of Aspiones and Turiua," two Iranian names. But the principal opponent of Eucratides was Demetrius (q.v.) of India, who attacked him with a large army "of 300,000 men"; Eucratides fled with 300 men into a fortress and was besieged. But at last he beat Demetrius, and conquered a great part of western India. According to Apollodorus of Artemita, the historian of the Parthians, he ruled over 1000 towns (Strabo xv. 686; transferred to Diodotus of Bactria in Justin 41, 4. 6); and the extent of his kingdom over Bactria, Sogdiana (Bokhara), Drangiana (Sijistan), Kabul and the western Punjab is confirmed by numerous coins. On these coins, which bear Greek and Indian legends (in Kharoshti writing, cf. BACTRIA), he is called "the great King Eucratides." On one his portrait and name are associated on the reverse with those of Heliocles and Laodice; Heliocles was probably his son, and the coin may have been struck to celebrate his marriage with Laodice, who seems to have been a Seleucid princess. In Bactria Eucratides founded a Greek city, Eucratideia (Strabo xi. 516, Ptolem. vi. 11. 8). On his return from India Eucratides was (about 150 B.C.) murdered by his son, whom he had made co-regent (Justin 41, 6). This son is probably the Heliocles just mentioned, who on his coins calls himself "the Just" ([Greek: basileôs Hêliokleous dikaiou]). In his time the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom lost the countries north of the Hindu Kush. Mongolian tribes, the Yue-chi of the Chinese, called by the Greeks Scythians, by the Indians Saka, among which the Tochari are the most conspicuous, invaded Sogdiana in 159 B.C. and conquered Bactria in 139. Meanwhile the Parthian kings Mithradates I. and Phraates II. conquered the provinces in the west of the Hindu Kush (Justin 41, 6. 8); for a short time Mithradates I. extended his dominion to the borders of India (Diod. 33. 18, Orosius v. 4. 16). When Antiochus VII. Sidetes tried once more to restore the Seleucid dominion in 130, Phraates allied himself with the Scythians (Justin 42, 1. 1); but after his decisive victory in 129 he was attacked by them and fell in the battle. The changed state of affairs is shown by the numerous coins of Heliocles; while his predecessors maintained the Attic standard, which had been dominant throughout the Greek east, he on his later coins passes over to a native silver standard, and his bronze coins became quite barbarous. Besides his coins we possess coins of many other Greek kings of these times, most of whom take the epithet of "invincible" ([Greek: anikêtos]) and "saviour" ([Greek: sôtêr]). They are records of a desperate struggle of the Greeks to maintain their nationality and independence in the Far East; one usurper after the other rose to fight for the rescue of the kingdom. But these internal wars only accelerated the destruction; about 120 B.C. almost the whole of eastern Iran was in the hands either of a Parthian dynasty or of the Mongol invaders, who are now called Indo-Scythians. Only in the Kabul valley and western India the Greeks maintained themselves about two generations longer (see MENANDER). (Ed. M.) Entry: EUCRATIDES
In the Vedic hymns two classes of society, the royal (or military) and the priestly classes, were evidently recognized as being raised above the level of the _Vis_, or bulk of the Aryan community. These social grades seem to have been in existence even before the separation of the two Asiatic branches of the Indo-Germanic race, the Aryans of Iran and India. It is true that, although the _Athrava, Rathaestao_, and _Vastrya_ of the _Zend Avesta_ correspond in position and occupation to the _Brahman, Rajan_ and _Vis_ of the Veda, there is no similarity of names between them; but this fact only shows that the common vocabulary had not yet definitely fixed on any specific names for these classes. Even in the Veda their nomenclature is by no means limited to a single designation for each of them. Moreover, _Atharvan_ occurs not infrequently in the hymns as the personification of the priestly profession, as the proto-priest who is supposed to have obtained fire from heaven and to have instituted the rite of sacrifice; and although _ratheshtha_ ("standing on a car") is not actually found in connexion with the _Rajan_ or _Kshatriya_, its synonym _rathin_ is in later literature a not unusual epithet of men of the military caste. At the time of the hymns, and even during the common Indo-Persian period, the sacrificial ceremonial had already become sufficiently complicated to call for the creation of a certain number of distinct priestly offices with special duties attached to them. While this shows clearly that the position and occupation of the priest were those of a profession, the fact that the terms _brahmana_ and _brahmaputra_, both denoting "the son of a brahman," are used in certain hymns as synonyms of _brahman_, seems to justify the assumption that the profession had already, to a certain degree, become hereditary at the time when these hymns were composed. There is, however, with the exception of a solitary passage in a hymn of the last book, no trace to be found in the _Rigveda_ of that rigid division into four castes separated from one another by insurmountable barriers, which in later times constitutes the distinctive feature of Hindu society. The idea of caste is expressed by the Sanskrit term _varna_, originally denoting "colour," thereby implying differences of complexion between the several classes. The word occurs in the Veda in the latter sense, but it is used there to mark the distinction, not between the three classes of the Aryan community, but between them on the one hand and a dark-coloured hostile people on the other. The latter, called Dasas or Dasyus, consisted, no doubt, of the indigenous tribes, with whom the Aryans had to carry on a continual struggle for the possession of the land. The partial subjection of these comparatively uncivilized tribes as the rule of the superior race was gradually spreading eastward, and their submission to a state of serfdom under the name of _Sudras_, added to the Aryan community an element, totally separated from it by colour, by habits, by language, and by occupation. Moreover, the religious belief of these tribes being entirely different from that of the conquering people, the pious Aryas, and especially the class habitually engaged in acts of worship, could hardly fail to apprehend considerable danger to the purity of their own faith from too close and intimate a contact between the two races. What more natural, therefore, than that measures should have been early devised to limit the intercourse between them within as narrow bounds as possible? In course of time the difference of vocation, and the greater or less exposure to the scorching influence of the tropical sky, added, no doubt, to a certain admixture of Sudra blood, especially in the case of the common people, seem to have produced also in the Aryan population different shades of complexion, which greatly favoured a tendency to rigid class-restrictions originally awakened and continually fed by the lot of the servile race. Meanwhile the power of the sacerdotal order having been gradually enlarged in proportion to the development of the minutiae of sacrificial ceremonial and the increase of sacred lore, they began to lay claim to supreme authority in regulating and controlling the religious and social life of the people. The author of the so-called _Purusha-sukta_, or hymn of Purusha, above referred to, represents the four castes--the _Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya_ and _Sudra_--as having severally sprung respectively from the mouth, the arms, the thighs and the feet of Purusha, a primary being, here assumed to be the source of the universe. It is very doubtful, however, whether at the time when this hymn was composed the relative position of the two upper castes could already have been settled in so decided a way as this theory might lead one to suppose. There is, on the contrary, reason to believe that some time had yet to elapse, marked by fierce and bloody struggles for supremacy, of which only imperfect ideas can be formed from the legendary and frequently biased accounts of later generations, before the Kshatriyas finally submitted to the full measure of priestly authority. Entry: BRAHMANISM
HYSTASPES (the Greek form of the Persian _Vishtaspa_). (1) A semi-legendary king (_kava_), praised by Zoroaster as his protector and a true believer, son of Aurvataspa (Lohrasp). The later tradition and the Shahname of Firdousi makes him (in the modern form Kai Gushtasp) king of Iran. As Zoroaster probably preached his religion in eastern Iran, Vishtaspa must have been a dynast in Bactria or Sogdiana. The Zoroastrian religion was already dominant in Media in the time of the Assyrian king Sargon (c. 715 B.C.), and had been propagated here probably in much earlier times (cf. PERSIA); the time of Zoroaster and Vishtaspa may therefore be put at c. 1000 B.C. (2) A Persian, father of Darius I., under whose reign he was governor of Parthia, as Darius himself mentions in the Behistun inscription (2. 65). By Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6. 32, and by many modern authors he has been identified with the protector of Zoroaster, which is equally impossible for chronological and historical reasons, and from the evidence of the development of Zoroastrianism itself (see PERSIA: _Ancient History_). (Ed. M.) Entry: HYSTASPES
Such was the Chahar Bagh in the plenitude of its fame. But now what a tragical contrast! The channels are empty, their stone borders crumbled and shattered, the terraces are broken down, the parterres are unsightly bare patches, the trees, all lopped and pollarded, have been chipped and hollowed out or cut down for fuel by the soldiery of the Zil, the side pavilions are abandoned and tumbling to pieces and the gardens are wildernesses. Two centuries of decay could never make the Champs Élysées in Paris, the Unter den Linden in Berlin, or Rotten Row in London, look one half as miserable as does the ruined avenue of Shah Abbas. It is in itself an epitome of modern Iran." Entry: ISFAHAN
Deserts are conveniently divided into two classes according to the causes which give rise to the desert conditions. In "cold deserts" the want of vegetation is wholly due to the prevailing low temperature, while in "hot deserts" the surface is unproductive because, on account of high temperature and deficient rainfall, evaporation is largely in excess of precipitation. Cold deserts accordingly occur in high latitudes (see TUNDRA and POLAR REGIONS). Hot desert conditions are primarily found along the tropical belts of high atmospheric pressure in which the conditions of warmth and dryness are most fully realized, and on their equatorial sides, but the zonal arrangement is considerably modified in some regions by the monsoonal influence of elevated land. Thus we have in the northern hemisphere the Sahara desert, the deserts of Arabia, Iran, Turan, Takla Makan and Gobi, and the desert regions of the Great Basin in North America; and in the southern hemisphere the Kalahari desert in Africa, the desert of Australia, and the desert of Atacama in South America. Where the line of elevated land runs east and west, as in Asia, the desert belt tends to be displaced into higher latitudes, and where the line runs north and south, as in Africa, America and Australia, the desert zone is cut through on the windward side of the elevation and the arid conditions intensified on the lee side. Desert conditions also arise from local causes, as in the case of the Indian desert situated in a region inaccessible to either of the two main branches of the south-west monsoon. Entry: DESERT
The armies of Alexander's successors were still in the main principles of their organization similar to the army with which Alexander had conquered Asia. During the years immediately after Alexander the very Macedonians who had fought under Alexander were ranged against each other under the banners of the several chiefs. The most noted corps of veterans, Argyraspides (i.e. the royal Hypaspistae) played a great part in the first wars of the successors, and covered themselves with infamy by their betrayal of Eumenes. As the soldiers of Alexander died off, fresh levies of home-born Macedonians could be raised only by the chief who held the motherland. The other chiefs had to supply themselves with Macedonians from the numerous colonies planted before the break-up of the empire in Asia or Egypt, and from such Macedonians they continued for the next two centuries to form their phalanx. The breed--at least if the statement which Livy puts into the mouth of a Roman general can be relied on--degenerated greatly under Asiatic and Egyptian skies (Liv. xxxviii. 17, 10); but still old names like that of _pezetaeri_ attached to the phalangites (Plut. _Tib._ 17), and they still wielded the national _sarissa_. The latter weapon in the interval between Alexander and the time of Polybius had been increased to a length of 21 ft. (Polyb. xviii. 12), a proportion inconsistent with any degree of mobility; once more indeed the phalanx of the 2nd century seems to have become a body effective by sheer weight only and disordered by unevenness of ground. The Antigonid kings were never able from Macedonian levies to put in the field a phalanx of more than 20,000 at the utmost (Liv. xlii. 51); Antigonus Doson takes with him to Greece (in 222) one of 10,000 only. The phalanx of Antiochus III. at Raphia numbered 20,000, and Ptolemy Philopator was able at the same time to form one of 25,000 men (Polyb. v. 4). As these phalangites are distinguished both from the Greek mercenaries and the native Egyptian levies, it looks (although such a fact would be staggering) as if more Macedonians could be raised for military service in Egypt than in Macedonia itself (but see Beloch, p. 353). The royal foot-guards are still described in Macedonia in 171 as the _agema_ (Polyb. v. 25, 1; 27, 3; Liv. xlii. 51), when they number 2000; at the Ptolemaïc court in 217 the _agema_ had numbered 3000 (Polyb. v. 65, 2); and a similar corps of _hypaspistae_ is indicated in the Seleucid army (Polyb. vii. 16, 2; xvi. 18, 7). So too the old name of "Companions" was kept up in the Seleucid kingdom for the Macedonian cavalry (see Polyb. v. 53, 4, &c.), and divisions of rank in it are still indicated by the terms _agema_ and royal squadron ([Greek: basilike hile], see Bevan, _House of Seleucus_, ii. 288). The Antigonid and Seleucid courts had much valuable material at hand for their armies in the barbarian races under their sway. The Balkan hill-peoples of Illyrian or Thracian stock, the hill-peoples of Asia Minor and Iran, the chivalry of Media and Bactria, the mounted bowmen of the Caspian steppes, the camel-riders of the Arabian desert, could all be turned to account. Iranian troops seem to have been employed on a large scale by the earlier Seleucids. At Raphia, Antiochus III. had 10,000 men drawn from the provinces, armed and drilled as Macedonians, and another corps of Iranians numbering 5000 under a native commander (Polyb. v. 79). The experiment of arming the native Egyptians on a large scale does not seem to have been made before the campaign of 217, when Ptolemy IV. formed corps of the Macedonian pattern from Egyptians and Libyans (cf. Polyb. v. 107, 2; Ptolemy I. had employed Egyptians in the army, though chiefly as carriers, Diod. xix. 80, 4). From this time native rebellions in Egypt are recurrent. To the troops drawn from their own dominions the mercenaries which the kings procured from abroad were an important supplement. These were mainly the bands of Greek _condottieri_, and even for their home-born troops Greek officers of renown were often engaged. The other class of mercenaries were Gauls, and from the time of the Gallic invasion of Asia Minor in 279 Gauls or Galatians were a regular constituent in all armies. They were a weapon apt to be dangerous to the employer, but the terror they inspired was such that every potentate sought to get hold of them. The elephants which Alexander brought back from India were used in the armies of his successors, and in 302 Seleucus procured a new supply. Thenceforward elephants, either brought fresh from India or bred in the royal stables at Apamea, regularly figured in the Seleucid armies. The Ptolemies supplied themselves with this arm from the southern coasts of the Red Sea, where they established stations for the capture and shipping of elephants, but the African variety was held inferior to the Indian. Scythed chariots such as had figured in the old Persian armies were still used by the Greek masters of Asia (Seleucus I., Diod. xx. 113, 4; Molon, Polyb. v. 53, 10; Antiochus III., Liv. xxxvii. 41), at any rate till the battle of Magnesia. The Hellenistic armies were distinguished by their external magnificence. They made a greater display of brilliant metal and gorgeous colour than the Roman armies, for instance. The description given by Justin of the army which Antiochus Sidetes took to the East in 130 B.C., boot-nails and bridles of gold, gives an idea of their standard of splendour (Just. xxxviii. 10, 1; cf. Polyb. xxxi. 3; Plut. _Eum._ 14; id. _Aemil._ 18; id. _Sulla_, 16). Entry: 10