On the order of the Magi devolved the important trust of the monarch's education--a trust which must necessarily have given them great weight and influence in the state. They were in high credit at the _Persiangates_--for that was the oriental name given to the capital of the empire, and the abode of the prince; and they took the most active part in all the factions that encompassed the throne, or that were formed in the vicinity of the court. In Greece, and even in Egypt, the sacerdotal fraternities and associations of initiated, formed by the Mysteries, had in general but an indirect, though not unimportant, influence on affairs of state; but in the Persian monarchy they acquired a complete political ascendency. The next main pillar of the Persian monarchy was its nobility, or the principal race of the Pasargads, who immediately surrounded the throne, enjoyed the highest prerogatives, and formed indeed the flower of the Persian army. The strict moral and military education which this nobility received, and of which Xenophon has drawn such a beautiful ideal sketch, constituted the chief strength of the state. And certainly the neglect of this old Persian system of education was one of the primary causes of the decline of the empire--a decline which the progressive relaxation and corruption of public morals accelerated with a fearful rapidity. After the first mighty impulse, and that severe moral character which Cyrus had imparted to Persia, had disappeared, the same fate befel this empire, as has befallen all the great oriental monarchies. The same evils, which the domination of provincial Satraps--a government of the Seraglio--invariably bring along with it--the factions, the conspiracies, the changes of dynasty, and the other disorders incident to despotism, appear in exactly similar colours in the Persian annals; and even in the modern kingdom of Persia, we find many of those characteristic traits or usages of Asiatic government, as they existed in the ancient empire. Even the army for the most part consisted of troops levied out of the conquered nations, and the greater were its numbers, the less internal union did it possess. Hence we can well conceive that a small army of Greeks, animated by patriotic valour, and commanded by generals possessed of a true tactical eye and genius, were able to oppose to the immense hosts of Persia a resistance which in a numerical point of view, appears almost incredible, and were even enabled to gain unexpected victories over their enemies. We can conceive too, how in the time of Alexander the Great, three battles should have decided the fate of this great empire; for its moral life and energy were gone, and the pillars of the state were completely decayed.