the all-powerful priesthood. Falling into their hands, he was deprived of his eyesight, a loss which under the Persian law incapacitated him from ruling. Balash was succeeded by his nephew, Kobād,1 son of Pīrūz. Tabari tells us that before he came to power, even probably on the accession of his brother, he had fled to the Khākān for help to meet his claim. On his way he halted at Nishāpūr, and took to wife the daughter of a nobleman, who bore him a son, the famous Anūshirawān.

kept waiting four years for the promised help, but finally, after much entreaty, the Khākān gave him the control of an army, with which he set out for Mada'in. On reaching Nishāpūr he learnt the news of his brother's death. The first act of his reign was to resign the entire administration to Sukhrā, on the score of his own youth and inexperience. Finding, when he came to man's estate, that the people regarded Sukhrā as their sovereign and ignored his own ancestral claims, he determined to rid himself of a too powerful minister, and had him put to death.

When Kobad had been for ten years on the throne a false prophet arose in the person of a certain Mazdak, who taught that all men were equal, and that it was unjust that one should have more possessions or wives than another. The inference was that there should be an equal division of all property. These tenets appear at first identical with the latest plans of social ethics. But

1 The more ancient form is Kavadh.

2 I.e. Ctesiphon.

3 We are told that this made him look upon Anūshirawān as a talisman, and the interesting detail is added that the mother and the boy were conducted back to Mada'in in a cart as became a princess. Wheeled traffic is unknown on these roads, but Professor Nöldeke refers us to Plutarch's Artax. 27, where we are told that the king's wife used that means of locomotion. In recent times Europeans have taken their carriages from Meshed to Teheran on Kobad's route.

Mazdakism had a side which is not shared by the Socialistic creed. Its founder preached a life of piety and abstinence, and himself practised an extreme asceticism, refraining from the use of animal food. Kobād saw in the new cult an opportunity of eluding the grip of the nobles and clergy, who stifled his aspirations to govern as well as reign. He espoused the reformer's side with ardour, and thereby hastened the anarchy which such doctrines were certain to promote. The followers of Mazdak adopted such of his principles as appealed to their unbridled lust, and ignored the religious teaching with which he sought to hold it in check. The disorders were stemmed by a combination between the nobles and the clergy, who seized and imprisoned Kobād, setting up his brother Jāmāsp in his stead. But Kobād contrived to escape from confinement, and sought shelter with old allies, the Ephthalites. With them he sojourned until 502, when he returned to Persia at the head of a large force, and overthrew his brother, thus regaining sovereignty. The remainder of Kobad's career was as stirring as the commencement had been. Hardly was he reinstated on the throne ere hostilities broke out with Rome, and then began a series of terrible conflicts which reduced the strength of both parties to the lowest ebb, and rendered them a prey to barbaric invasion.

Not until 506 was a truce concluded between the two powers; but it did not bring rest to Kobad's distracted empire. He was soon plunged into hostilities with the Huns, whether the Ephthalites, or another branch of the race, is uncertain. The result is not recorded, but

1 Persian historians assert that he was converted by a sham miracle, and that he continued to believe in Mazdak during the rest of his life. But his motives were probably purely political, and not based on con

it must be assumed to have been favourable to his army. In 528 he was confronted with a more pressing danger than had attended his struggles with Roman legions over barbaric hordes. Mazdak's now rampant army held the land, and a reign of terror set in which threatened the existence of its institutions. Kobād at length be

came alive to the potency of the force for evil which he had encouraged, and the measures which he adopted for the suppression were drastic and effectual. The effort, however, proved too severe for his declining strength, and three years later he closed a chequered but not unsuccessful career.

His successor, Chosrau I., surnamed Anushirawān "the Just," stands forth as the most illustrious figure in the annals of ancient Persia. Chroniclers agree in depicting him as a wise and benevolent ruler, and one who made his prowess reflected in distant regions. His first care was to restore order in a realm which still groaned under the curse of Mazdakism; his next to crush the Ephthalites, whose incursions into his eastern provinces had been as disastrous as those of the Roman legions into Armenia. In the meanwhile the Ephthalites were being threatened from another quarter by the Turks.

The Turks proper, that is the Tu-kiué of the Chinese, first appear in the history of the Sāsānides about A.D. 550. At that period the Turks were divided into two distinct khanates (1) the Eastern Turks,1 who possessed the vast territory between the Ural and Mongolia ; and (2) the Western Turks, or Tu-kiué, who ruled in Central Asia from the Altai to the Jaxartes. About 550 the Khākān of the Turks, whose name was Tumen,

1 The famous Orkhon inscriptions which have been deciphered by MM. Radloff of St. Petersburg, and V. Thomsen of Copenhagen, belong to this branch of the Turks.

being elated with successes he had gained over the Tartars,1 made so bold as to demand in marriage the daughter of the Khākān of the Juen-Juen, Tiu-ping. On receiving an insulting refusal, Tumen at once declared war against the Juen-Juen; at the same time he married the daughter of the Chinese emperor, with whose aid he defeated Tiu-ping. Tumen then took the title of Il-khān (or khān of the people), and established his court in the mountain of Tu-kin, near the sources of the Irtish. He only enjoyed his newly acquired empire for a short time, for in the following year (A.D. 553) he died. His son Ko-lo mounted the throne, but died very shortly afterwards, and was succeeded by his illustrious brother Mokan-khan, whom we find in 554 entering into relations with Anushirawan the Just. Though he had finally crushed the Juen-Juen, and became master of their vast country, he was fearful of the superiority of the Chinese, and therefore turned his arms in a westerly direction.2 The Turks now crossed the Jaxartes and entered Badakhshan, where they encountered the Ephthalites, with whom, according to Tabari, they at first dwelt in peace.

Great uncertainty prevails as to the dates and details of the campaigns undertaken by the Anūshirawān in association with the Turks against their inveterate foes. But their result is not open to question; for about the year 560 we find the territories of the White Huns divided between the allies. The Turks then became masters of Transoxiana, while the Persians took possession of Balkh and Tokhāristān. The Oxus served as the boundary between their respective spheres of influence. Then Bactria, which had been a perpetual

1 De Guignes, ii. p. 374.

2 Cf. De Guignes, vol. ii. p. 378.

3 Persian and Roman writers assert that Anushirawan conquered Trans

thorn in Persia's side, became one of its provinces, and the fate of Pīrūz was fully avenged. Anūshirawān set a seal to his friendship with the Turks by espousing their chief's daughter; but the alliance did not produce lasting results. The Romans regarded with unconcealed apprehension the alliance between foes which threatened the existence of their Western Empire, and they sent frequent embassies to the Turkish Khākān with a view to detaching him from Anushirawan. The recon

ciliation was partially successful, but the recurrence of disorders on his frontier led the Persian king to build the great city of Darband, to serve as a rallying point in repulsing Turkish attacks. After its completion we hear little of their troublesome neighbours, and Anushirawan's concluding years were exempt from the troubles which had overwhelmed so many of his predecessors.

On the death of Chosrau Anushirawan in A.D. 579, Hormuz IV., his son by the daughter of the Turkish Khākān, ascended the throne. The new reign was soon clouded by war with Rome, and his own kinsmen on the maternal side. At one period Hormuz endured simultaneous attacks from four different quarters. A Turkish prince, called by Tabari, Shāba, at the head of 300,000 warriors advanced as far as Bādghīs and Herāt. The Roman emperor, with an army of 80,000 strong, attacked Hormuz in the Syrian desert. The king of the Khazars led a large force against Darband, and finally two Arab chieftains raided the Euphrates Valley. Shāba sent Hormuz a haughty message "to see that

oxiana, but this seems most improbable. For, as Nöldeke points out (footnote to page 159 of his Sāsānides), Huen-Tsang, who visited the country soon after these events, speaks only of Turkish and other barbarian States. Morethe State of Transoxiana at the time of the Mohammedan invasion augurs strongly against the extension of Persian rule.

over,