II. Inhabitants. — 1. Classification of the Population. — Herodotus tells us that the Persians were divided into ten tribes, of which three were noble, three agricultu- ral, and four nomadic. The noble tribes were the Pasargadas, who dwelt, probably, in the capital and its immediate neighborhood ; the Maraphians, who arc perhaps represented by the modern Mofi, a Persian tribe which prides itself on its antiquity ; and the IMaspians, of whom nothing more is known. The three tribes engaged in agriculture were called the Panthialajans, the Deriisiicans, and the Gcrnianians, or (according to the true orthography) the Carma- nians. These last were either the actual inhabitants of Kerman, or settlers of the same race, who remained in Persia while their fellow-tribesmen occupied the adjoining region. The nomadic tribes are said to have been the Dahi, who appear in Scripture as the " Dehavites" (Ezra iv, 9), the Mardi, mountaineers
PERSIA
PERSIA
ramous for their thievish habits (Staph. Byz.), to- gether with the Sagartians and the Derbices or Dro- pici, colonists from the regions east of the Caspian. The royal race of the Acha!nienid;« was a phratry or clan of the Pasargada; (Herod, i, 126); to which it is probable that most of the noble houses likewise be- longed. Little is heard of the Maraphians, and noth- ing of the Maspians, in historj'; it is therefore evident that their nobility was very inferior to that of the lead- ing tribe.
The modern population of Persia is natural!}' divisi- ble into two classes, the settled and the nomad. The settled population are chiefly Tajiks, the descendants of the ancient I'ersian race, with an intermixture of foreign blood — Turkisli, Tartar, Arab, Armenian, or Georgian. To this class belong the agriculturists, merchants, artisans, etc. From having long been a subject race, the}' have to a large extent lost their natural independence and manliness of character, and acquired, instead, habits of dishonesty, servility, and cunning. The Tajiks are Mohammedans of the Shiite sect, with the exception of the few remaining Parsees (q. v.) or Guebres wlio are found in Kerman and Fare, and still retain their purity of race and religious faith. The nomad or pastoral tribes, or e}Lits (jyl, a clan), are of four distinct races — Turkomans, Kurds, Luurs, and Arabs. Their organization is ver}' similar to that which formerly subsisted among the Highland clans of Scotland, with the exception that the former are nomad, while the latter inhal)ited a fixed locality. Each tribe is ruled by its hereditary chief (ujak), and under him by the heads of the cadet branches (tirehs) of his family. Of the four races, the Turkoman is by far the most numerous, and forms at the present day the ruling race in Persia. The Kurds are few in num- ber, the greater part of their country and race being under the sway of Turkey. The Arabs are also few in number, and at the present day can hardly-be dis- tinguished from the Persians, having adopted both thair manners and language. The Luurs are of near- ly pure Persian blood. The nomad races, especially the Turkomans, profess the Sunni creed ; they are dis- tinguished from the Tajiks by their courage, manli- ness, and independence of character ; but they are in- veterate robbers, and since their entrance into the country in the 10th century it has continually been distracted by civil wars and revolutions. The whole population of Persia is estimated in round numbers at 10,000,000, of whom 3,000,000 are nomads (200,000 of these being Arabs). Classed according to their re- ligious belief, they stand thus: 7,500,000 arc Shiites; 500,000 are unorthodox Shiites; 1,500,000 are Sun- nites ; while the remaining 500,000 are made up of Christians of all denominations (including 200,000 Armenians, 100,000 Nestorians), along with Jews, Guebres, etc.
2. Character and Customs. — The government of Per- sia was despotic, though there seems to have been a council of state, composed perhaps of the seven princes who "see the king's ftice" (Ezra vii, 14; Esth. i, 14). These, after the time of Cyrus, may have been the six magnates or their representatives ("his well-wishers," as he names them) who conspired with Darius against the pseudo-Smerdis, along with a prince of the royal house. The sovereign often administered judgment promptly and personally, though he was approached with tedious and stately formalities, as if in some sense he was an impersonation of Ormuzd. The council might speak faithfully, as did Artabanus to Xerxes ; or they might be as compli mt as when they told the same monarch that, though there was no law permit- ting him to marry his sister, there was a law allowing him to do as he pleased. The Spartan embassy re- fused to do the required homage to Xerxes, as in their opinion it amounted to religious worship. In Plutarch {Themist. 27) reference is made to the king, who was to be worshipped wg t'lKova ^tov, "as the image of VH.-Q Q Q
God," and Curtius tells us how much Alexander cov- eted this deification (viii, 5, 11). The seven princes of the empire seem to have been regarded also as rep- resenting the seven amshtshpands who stand before the throne of Ormuzd. The sculptures at Persepolis tell the same story, and the Visparad directs prayer to to be offered "to tlie ruler of the country" (Spiegel, Erdn, p. 74). The satraps appointed by Darius are called in Hebrew ClS'l'l'rnx. in Greek aaTpcnri]g, in old Persian, as on the inscriptions, khshatrapd — the X in the Hebrew form being usually inserted before the Persian Msk. A district or smaller portion of country was put under a nns, or prefect (Esth. iii, 12 ; Ezra viii, 30), the word being allied to the familiar term jntclia. This name is applied to the Persian gov- ernor west of the Euphrates (Nell. ii. 7, 9 ; iii, 7) ; also to the governor of Judasa, as Zerubliabel (Hag. i, 1 ; il, 2; andNoh. v, 14; xii, 26). Another term given to a Jewish prefect is "the Tirshatha," applied to Nehemi- ah (Neh. viii,9; comp. Ezra ii, 03; Neh. vii, 65). The title probably means, as Gesenius says, "your sereni- t}'," or, as we have it, " most dread sovereign." The royal scribes kept a regular journal of judicial pro- cedure, and these " chronicles" were deposited in the chief cities. Thus in Ezra we read of the "house of the rolls," in which search was made, by command of Darius, for a copy of the decree of Cyrus concerning the Jews and Jerusalem, and the "record" was found in the palace at Achmetha (Ezra vi, 1). In Esther oc- curs also this incident (vi, 1, 2): "On that night could not the king sleep ; and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles ; and they were read before the king. And it was found written that Mor- decai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus" (see also Esth. X, 2). AVhen the enemies of Daniel v.ere afraid