of any one of the four which had preceded it. While Persia Proper is a
comparatively narrow and poor tract, extending in its greatest length
only some seven or eight degrees (less than 500 miles), the dominions of
the Persian kings covered a space fifty-six degrees long, and in places
more than twenty degrees wide. The boundaries of their empire were the
desert of Thibet, the Sutlej, and the Indus, on the east; the Indian
Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian and Nubian deserts, on the south;
on the west, the Greater Syrtis, the Mediterranean, the Egean, and the
Strymon river; on the north, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Caucasus,
the Caspian, and the Jaxartes. Within these limits lay a territory, the
extent of which from east to west was little less than 3000 miles,
while its width varied between 500 and 1500 miles. Its entire area was
probably not less than, two millions of square miles--or more than half
that of modern Europe. It was thus at least eight times as large as the
Babylonian Empire at its greatest extent, and was probably more than
four times as large as the Assyrian.

The provinces included within the Empire may be conveniently divided
into the Central, the Western, and the Eastern. The Central are Persia
Proper, Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the coast tract of the
Caspian, and Sagartia, or the Great Desert. The Western are Paeonia,
Thrace, Asia Minor, Armenia, Iberia, Syria and Phoenicia, Palestine,
Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. The Eastern are Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria,
Chorasmia, Sogdiana, Bactria, Scythia, Gandaria, Sattagydia, India,
Paricania, the Eastern AEthiopia, and Mycia.

Of these countries a considerable number have been already described in
these volumes. Susiana, Babylonia, Assyria, Media, the Caspian coast,
Armenia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, belong to this class; and it
may be assumed that the reader is sufficiently acquainted with their