The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5: Persia: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations. — John Shaqi
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5: Persia: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5: Persia: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
Besides Persepolis and Pasargadse, Persia Proper contained but few
cities of any note or name. If we include Carmania in Persia, Carmana,
the capital of that country, may indeed be mentioned as a third Persian
town of some consequence; but otherwise the names which occur in ancient
authors are insignificant, and designate villages rather than towns of
any size. Carmana, however, which is mentioned by Ptolemy and
Ammianus as the capital of those parts, seems to have been a place of
considerable importance. It may be identified with the modern Kerman,
which lies in lat. 39° 55’, long. 56° 13’, and is still one of the
chief cities of Persia. Situated, like Pasargadae and Persepolis, in a
capacious plain surrounded by mountains, which furnish sufficient water
for cultivation to be carried on by means of kanats in most parts of the
tract enclosed by them, and occupying a site through which the trade of
the country almost of necessity passes, Kerman must always be a town of
no little consequence. Its inland and remote position, however,
caused it to be little known to the Greeks; and, apparently, the great
Alexandrian geographer was the first who made them acquainted with its
existence and locality.
The Persian towns or villages upon the coast of the Gulf were chiefly
Armuza (which gave name to the district of Ar-muzia), opposite the
modern island of Ormuz; Sisidona, which must have been near Cape Jerd;
Apostana, probably about Shewar; Gogana, no doubt the modern Kongoon;
and Taoce on the Granis, famous as having in its neighborhood a royal
palace, which we may perhaps place near Dalaki, Taoce itself occupying
the position of Rohilla, at the mouth of the Khisht river. Of the inland
towns the most remarkable, after Persepolis, Pasargadse, and Carmana,
were Gabae, near Pasar-gadae, also the site of a palace; Uxia, or the
Uxian city, which may have occupied the position of Mai-Amir, Obroatis,
Tragonice, Ardea, Portospana, Hyrba, etc., which it is impossible to
locate unless by the merest conjecture.
The chief districts into which the territory was divided were
Paraetacene, a portion of the Bakhtiyari mountain-chain, which some,
however, reckoned to Media; Mardyene, or the country of the Mardi, also
one of the hill tracts; Taocene, the district about Taoce, part of the
low sandy coast region; Ciribo, the more northern portion of the same
region; and Carmania, the entire eastern territory. These districts were
not divided from one another by any marked natural features, the only
division of the country to which such a character attached being the
triple one into the high sandy plains north of the mountains, the
mountain region, and the Deshtistan, or low hot tract along the coast.
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