DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22900#0045
CHAP. I.]
THE HEROIC AGE.
3
activity, their generosity and humanity, as for their
chivalry and spirit of enterprise; of women as brave
as they were fair, and celebrated for the freedom
allowed them and for their modesty. Nor had they
less reason to be proud of the territorial extent of an
empire which was at least eight times the size of the
Babylonian at its zenith and more than four times
as large as the Assyrian, or equal to half of modern
Europe—an empire which touched the waters of the
Mediterranean, the iEgean, the Black, the Caspian, the
Indian, the Persian, and the Red Seas, and through
which there flowed six of the grandest rivers in the
world—-the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Indus, the
Jaxartes, the Oxus, and the Nile, each more than a
thousand miles in length—and the surface of which
reached from thirteen hundred feet below the sea-
level to twenty thousand feet above, thus yielding
an immense variety of temperatures and productions.
The history of the Persian people from the earliest
times has been full of interest. Lcaviner out of con-
sideration the kings of the race of Mahabad, we come
to those of the dynasty of Gaiomard. Their chief
occupation appears to have been to fight demons and
giants; but Gaiomard's grandson, Hoshang, taught
his subjects agriculture, irrigation, and the making
of iron tools for peace and war, and was called
" Peshdad " (the legislator). The dynasty to which
he belonged came consequently to be known as the
THE HEROIC AGE.
3
activity, their generosity and humanity, as for their
chivalry and spirit of enterprise; of women as brave
as they were fair, and celebrated for the freedom
allowed them and for their modesty. Nor had they
less reason to be proud of the territorial extent of an
empire which was at least eight times the size of the
Babylonian at its zenith and more than four times
as large as the Assyrian, or equal to half of modern
Europe—an empire which touched the waters of the
Mediterranean, the iEgean, the Black, the Caspian, the
Indian, the Persian, and the Red Seas, and through
which there flowed six of the grandest rivers in the
world—-the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Indus, the
Jaxartes, the Oxus, and the Nile, each more than a
thousand miles in length—and the surface of which
reached from thirteen hundred feet below the sea-
level to twenty thousand feet above, thus yielding
an immense variety of temperatures and productions.
The history of the Persian people from the earliest
times has been full of interest. Lcaviner out of con-
sideration the kings of the race of Mahabad, we come
to those of the dynasty of Gaiomard. Their chief
occupation appears to have been to fight demons and
giants; but Gaiomard's grandson, Hoshang, taught
his subjects agriculture, irrigation, and the making
of iron tools for peace and war, and was called
" Peshdad " (the legislator). The dynasty to which
he belonged came consequently to be known as the