Note 455 — Chapter VI

‘From the death of Alexander (323 b.c.) to the reign of Ardeshir Babegan (Artaxerxes), the founder of the Sassanian dynasty (200 a.d.), a period of more than five centuries, is almost a blank in the Persian history.’ Troyer's Preliminary Discourse to the Dabistan, 8vo. 1843, vol. i. pp. lv. lvi. See to the same effect Erskine on the Zend-Avesta, in Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. ii. pp. 303–305; and Malcolm's Hist. of Persia, vol. i. p. 68. The ancient Persian traditions are said to have been Pehlvi; Malcolm, vol. i. pp. 501–505; but if so, they have all perished, p. 555: compare Rawlinson's note in Journal of Geog. Soc. vol. x. p. 82.