The Persians (Iranians) Ancient Characters And Religion Rivised by Farhang A. Sadeghpour Boston, Massachussettes The Persians were an important branch of the Iranian family.* G. Rawlinson (the British translator of the book Herodotus) writes: "The Iranians were the dominant race throughout the entire tract lying between the Suliman mountains and Pamir steppes on the one hand, and the great Mesopotamian valley on the other." It was a region of great extremes of temperature--the summers being hot and the winters piercingly cold. A great part of this region is an arid and frightful desert; but the more favored portions are extremely fertile. In this vast land, the Iranians settled at a very early period, probably 2500 B.C., about the time the Hindus emigrated from Central Asia to the banks of the Indus River. Both Iranians and Hindus belonged to the great Aryan or Indo-Europian race whose original settlements were on the high table-lands northeast of Samarkand (an ancient city in Uzbekistan), watered by Oxus (or Amu Darya) River. It was from these rugged regions east of the Caspian Sea, where the means of subsistence are difficult to be obtained, that the Aryans emigrated to India in the southeast, to Iran on the southwest, and to Europe on the west--all speaking substantially the same language. Of those who settled in Iran, the Persians were the most prominent-a brave, hardy, and adventurous people, warlike in their habits, and moral in their conduct. They were a pastoral rather than a nomadic people, and gloried in their horses and cattle. They had great skill as archers and horsemen, and furnished fixed habitations, and their houses had windows and fireplaces; but they were doomed to a perpetual stuggle with a severe and uncertain climate, and a soil which required ceaseless diligence. "The whole plateau of Iran was suggestive of the war of elements--a country of great contrasts of fertility and desolation--snowy ranges of mountains, salt deserts, and fields of beauty lying in close proximity," said the British historian Samuel Johnson. The early Persians were represented as having oval faces, raised fearures, well-arched eyebrows, and large dark eyes, now soft as the gazelle's now flashing with quick insight. Such a people were extremely receptive of modes and fashions--the aptest learners as well as the boldest adventurers; not patient in study, nor skillful to invent, but swift to seize and appropriate, terrible breakers-up of old religious spells. They dissolves the old material civilazation of Cushite and Turanian origin. What passion for vast conquests! "The rugged tribes, devoted to their chiefs, led by Cyrus from their herds and hunting grounds to startle the pampered Lydians with spare diet and clothing of skins; living on what they could get, strangers to wine and wassail, schooled in manly exercises, cleanly even to superstition, loyal to age and filial duties; with a manly pride of personal independence that held a debt the next worst thing to a lie, their fondness for social graces, their feudal dignities, their chiefs giving counsel to the king even while submissive to his person, esteeming prowess before praying; their strong ambition, scorning those who scorned toil." Artaxerxes (465-425 B.C.) wore upon his person the worth of 12,000 talents, yet shared the hardships of his army in the march, carrying quiver and shield, leading the way to the steepest places, and stimulating the hearts of his soldiers by walking 25 miles (40 kilometers) a day. There are much that is interesting about the ancient Persians. All the old authorities, especially Herodotus, testify to the comparative purity of their lives, to their love of TRUTH, to their heroism in war, to the simplicity of their habits, to their industry and thrift in battling sterility of soil and the elements of nature., to their love of agricultural pursuits, to kindness toward women and slaves, and above all other things to a strong personality of character which implied a powerful will. The early Persians chose the bravest and most capable of their nobles for kings, and these kings were mild and merciful. Xenophone makes Cyrus the ideal of a king--the incarnation of sweetness and light, conducting war with a magnanimity unknown to the ancient nations, dismissing prisoners, forgiving foes, freeing slaves, and winning all the hearts by a true nobility of nature. He was a reformer of barbarous methods of war, and as pure in morals as he was powerful in war. In short, Cyrus had all those qualities which we admire in the chivalric heroes of the Middle Ages in Europe. *The name of Iran or Iranian, contrary to the assumptions of some, was known among scholars.