In every age the foundation and ruin of the Assyrian cities has been easy and rapid; the country is destitute of stone and timber, and the most solid structures are composed of bricks baked in the sun, and joined by a cement of the native bitumen. After the loss of the battle of Jalula, Yezdegerd fled from Holwan, and concealed his shame and despair in the mountains of Farsistan, from whence Cyrus had descended with his equal and valiant companions. The courage of the nation survived that of the monarch; among the hills to the south of Ecbatana or Hamadan, 150,000 Persians made a third and final stand for their religion and country; and the decisive battle of Nehavend was styled by the Arabs the “victory of victories” (641).
The geography of Persia is darkly delineated by the Greeks and Latins; but the most illustrious of her cities appear to be more ancient than the invasion of the Arabs. By the reduction of Hamadan and Ispahan, of Caswin, Tabriz, and Rei, they gradually approached the shores of the Caspian Sea; and the orators of Mecca might applaud the success and spirit of the faithful, who had already lost sight of the Northern Bear, and had almost transcended the bounds of the habitable world. Again turning towards the west and the Roman Empire, they repassed the Tigris over the bridge of Mosul, and, in the captive provinces of Armenia and Mesopotamia, embraced their victorious brethren of the Syrian army. From the palace of Madain their eastern progress was not less rapid or extensive. They advanced along the Tigris and the gulf; penetrated through the passes of the mountains into the valley of Estachar or Persepolis; and profaned the last sanctuary of the Magian empire. The grandson of Chosroes was nearly surprised among the falling columns and mutilated figures; a sad emblem of the past and present fortune of Persia; he fled with accelerated haste over the desert of Kirman, implored the aid of the warlike Segestans, and sought an humble refuge on the verge of the Turkish and Chinese power. But a victorious army is insensible of fatigue; the Arabs divided their forces in the pursuit of a timorous enemy; and the caliph Othman promised the government of Khorasan to the first general who should enter that large and populous country, the kingdom of the ancient Bactrians. The condition was accepted; the prize was deserved; the standard of Mohammed was planted on the walls of Herat, Merou, and Balkh; and the successful leader neither halted nor reposed till his foaming cavalry had tasted the waters of the Oxus. In the public anarchy, the independent governors of the cities and castles obtained their separate capitulations; the terms were granted or imposed by the esteem, the prudence, or the compassion of the victors; and a simple profession of faith established the distinction between a brother and a slave. The administration of Persia was regulated by an actual survey of the people, the cattle, and the fruits of the earth; and this monument, which attests the vigilance of the caliphs, might have instructed the philosophers of every age.
The flight of Yezdegerd had carried him beyond the Oxus, and as far as the Jaxartes, two rivers of ancient and modern renown, which descend from the mountains of India towards the Caspian Sea. He was hospitably entertained by Tarkhan, prince of Fergana, a fertile province on the Jaxartes; the king of Samarcand, with the Turkish tribes of Sogdiana and Scythia, were moved by the lamentations and promises of the fallen monarch; and he solicited by a suppliant embassy, the more solid and powerful friendship of the emperor of China. The virtuous Taitsong, the first of the dynasty of the Tang, may be justly compared with the Antonines of Rome. His people enjoyed the blessings of prosperity and peace, and his dominion was acknowledged by forty-four hordes of the barbarians of Tartary. His last garrisons of Cashgar and Khoten maintained a frequent intercourse with their neighbours of the Jaxartes and Oxus; a recent colony of Persians had introduced into China the astronomy of the magi; and Taitsong might be alarmed by the rapid progress and dangerous vicinity of the Arabs. The influence and perhaps the supplies of China revived the hopes of Yezdegerd and the zeal of the worshippers of the fire; and he returned with an army of Turks to conquer the inheritance of his fathers. The fortunate Moslems, without unsheathing their swords, were the spectators of his ruin and death. The grandson of Chosroes was betrayed by his servant, insulted by the seditious inhabitants of Merou, and oppressed, defeated, and pursued by his barbarian allies. He reached the banks of a river, and offered his rings and bracelets for an instant passage in a miller’s boat. Ignorant or insensible of royal distress, the rustic replied, that four drachms of silver were the daily profit of his mill, and that he would not suspend his work unless the loss were repaid. In this moment of hesitation and delay, the last of the Sassanian kings was overtaken and slaughtered by the Turkish cavalry in the nineteenth year of his unhappy reign. His son Firuz, an humble client of the Chinese emperor, accepted the station of captain of his guards; and the magian worship was long preserved by a colony of loyal exiles in the province of Bokhara. His grandson inherited the regal name; but after a faint and fruitless enterprise, he returned to China and ended his days in the palace of Sigan. The male line of the Sassanids was extinct; but the female captives, the daughters of Persia, were given to the conquerors in servitude, or marriage; and the race of the caliphs and imams was ennobled by the blood of their royal mothers.
After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the river Oxus divided the territories of the Saracens and of the Turks. This narrow boundary was soon overleaped by the spirit of the Arabs; the governors of Khorasan extended their successive inroads; and one of their triumphs was adorned with the buskin of a Turkish queen, which she dropped in her precipitate flight beyond the hills of Bokhara. But the final conquest of Transoxiana, as well as of Spain, was reserved for the glorious reign of the inactive Walid; and the name of Katiba, the camel driver, declares the origin and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of his colleagues displayed the first Mohammedan banner on the banks of the Indus, the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes, and the Caspian Sea, were reduced by the arms of Katiba to the obedience of the prophet, and of the caliph. A tribute of two millions of pieces of gold was imposed on the infidels; their idols were burned or broken; the Mussulman chief pronounced a sermon in the new mosque of Khwarizm; after several battles, the Turkish hordes were driven back to the desert; and the emperors of China solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs.