[53] _Gūr_ means “wild ass.” The king, who is one of the favourites of Persian tradition, received this _sobriquet_ on account of his passion for hunting wild asses. He usurped the crown. [54] The Sāsānides were fire-worshippers, disciples of Zoroaster. [55] This pass is traversed by the famous Georgian Military Road connecting Vladikavkaz with Tiflis. [56] Transoxiana was never included in the kingdom of the Sāsānides; the possessions of Achemenides stretched far farther east than those of the Sāsānians. [57] Cf. p. 21, note 2, _supra_. [58] Here we follow Malcolm (_History of Persia_), who bases his account on those of various well-known Persian historians, such as Mīrkhwānd and Khwāndamīr. [59] We are told that when Bahrām Gūr returned from this expedition to his capital, Ctesiphon, he appointed his brother Governor of Khorāsān, designating Balkh as his residence. [60] According to the Persian historians, the Khākān was named Khush-Nawāz. Nöldeke, however, disapproved of this reading, the invention he thinks of Firdawsi, and employs that of Akh-Shunwar. [61] Tabari tells us that Pīrūz had previously ceded to the Khākān the important frontier town of Tālikān. [62] Some of the means would hardly commend themselves to modern economists. Pīrūz remitted taxes and large sums from the treasury; but he also compelled the rich to feed their poorer neighbours from these taxes. [63] The more ancient form is _Kavadh_. [64] _I.e._ Ctesiphon. [65] 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 Madā´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 Kobād’s route. [66] 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 conversion. [67] 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. [68] De Guignes, ii. p. 374. [69] Cf. De Guignes, vol. ii. p. 378. [70] Persian and Roman writers assert that Anūshirawān conquered Transoxiana, 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. Moreover, the State of Transoxiana at the time of the Mohammedan invasion augurs strongly against the extension of Persian rule. [71] For a full account of his life--historical and fictitious--we refer the reader to the Appendix of Nöldeke’s _Sāsāniden_, p. 474.