Some have suggested that the Sumero-Accadians of Babylonia were Turks, but this question hardly bears on the present subject. The relations of Turks and Persians on the Central Asian frontier is much more apropos. The legends of the long wars of Iran and Turan, however little detailed historical value they may have, illustrate the circumstances of continual contact both in war and in peace.[9] Princes and nobles whose lives were forfeit in their own country fled over the border; princesses were exchanged in marriage; and unnumbered thousands of less exalted folk passed the frontier as captives or slaves. The frontier itself was not fixed, but left great regions now to the rule of the Persian and now to the rule of the Turk. The Parthians may have been Turks.[10] After their downfall the lines of Persian and Turk were drawn sharply by the nationalist Sassanians. From the middle of the fifth century, indeed, the Persians had their fill of wars with the Ephthalites, whose appellation of White Huns may indicate their mixed Mongolian and Caucasian origin; the Chinese annals specify the kinship of the _Tie-le_ with the _Tu-kiu_. No sooner had the Arabs engulfed Persia than they began to welcome the Turks whom they found to the north, and whose semi-nomadic culture was singularly like their own. The Saracen Empire was administered for about a century chiefly by Arabs, for another century chiefly by Persians, and after that chiefly by Turks, who rose rapidly through slavery and military service to the rule of provinces and even of kingdoms. Thus great numbers of Turks came or were brought into many parts of Western Asia. When Toghrul, grandson of Seljuk, led the first great Turkish invasion into the heart of the Saracen Empire, he found his kindred everywhere. Under the Seljuk Sultans large numbers of Turks streamed in and were settled in Persia, Azerbaijan, Syria, and Asia Minor. The Turkish occupation of Asia Minor has been called the most thorough piece of work done by the race.[11] Few details of it have been recorded, but one great fact stands out: under the Byzantine Empire, Asia Minor was Greek, Christian, and the home of the empire’s most vigorous and loyal citizens; under the Ottoman Empire, Asia Minor is Turkish, Mohammedan, and the home of the empire’s most vigorous and faithful subjects. The process of this transformation, so far as it is known, deserves examination. SELJUK AND OTTOMAN TURKS IN ASIA MINOR The Seljuk Turks were orthodox, and often fanatical, Moslems; accordingly they put great pressure upon the inhabitants of the peninsula to make them exchange Christ for Mohammed. “Great numbers apostatized, ‘many thousand children were marked by the knife of circumcision; and many thousand captives were devoted to the service or the pleasures of their masters.[12]’”