Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

^22 HISTOKY OF PERSIA.
Oriental writers claim Askh, though on no reliable
grounds, as a descendant of the ancient kings of Persia ;
but it is more probable that his revolt was mainly due to
the success of a similar uprising against the Seleucidae
a few years earlier, on the part of the Bactrian Diodotus,
shewing, as this did, the then weakened hold of the ruling
family over their more distant provinces. The two
revolts, however, differed essentially in their character ;
the one being of Greek against Greek, and under a
Greek leader, the other " of an Asiatic race of a
savage and rude type," against a more civilized and
effeminate population. Besides this, there had been
for years a tendency on the part of the Parthian
tribes to separate themselves from the Persians, a
tendency fostered, doubtless, in no small degree by
the ancient enmity between the Magians and Zoro-
astrians. It was, in fact, the old story over again.
As the Achaemenidae, when they were strong, had
tried to stamp out Magism, so the Magians retorted
whenever they had the chance. The spring had,
indeed, been pressed flat, yet had not lost its elasticity ;
and the fall of Darius Codomannus probably aroused
new hopes for the down-trodden Magians, the more
so that the Seleucid Greeks, " cared for none of these
things." We must not, however, lay too much stress on
no reformation such
the religious side of the question ;
as that by the Achaemenian Darius or the Sassanian
Ardashir, was dreamt of ;
indeed, the actual faith of the
Parthians was lax and all-embracing, a mixture of
Scythic dogmas, Greek practices, and Semitic ideas,
while the hostility of the ruling families was rather
anti-Persian than anything else. Thus we find the