. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . a headlongcourse. The landscape wears a certain air of savagegrandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points per-pendicularly to the sky; mountain paths wind upward,cut into the sides of thesteep precipices; thechasms are spanned bysingle-arched bridges,so frail and narrow thatthey seem likely to beswept away in the firstgale that blows. Nocountry could presentgreater difficulties to themovements of a regulararmy or lend itself morereadily to a system ofguerrilla warfare. It was unequally divided between someten or twelve tribes: ^ c
. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria . a headlongcourse. The landscape wears a certain air of savagegrandeur; giant peaks rise in needle-like points per-pendicularly to the sky; mountain paths wind upward,cut into the sides of thesteep precipices; thechasms are spanned bysingle-arched bridges,so frail and narrow thatthey seem likely to beswept away in the firstgale that blows. Nocountry could presentgreater difficulties to themovements of a regulararmy or lend itself morereadily to a system ofguerrilla warfare. It was unequally divided between someten or twelve tribes: ^ chief among these were thePasargadse, from which the royal family took its origin;after them came the Maraphii and Maspii. The chiefsof these two tribes were elected from among the membersof seven families, who, at first taking equal rank withthat of the Pasargadse, had afterwards been reduced to 1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph of the Naksh-i-Rustem bas-relieftaken by Dieulafoy. 2 Herodotus only mentions ten Persian tribes; Xenophon speaks of HEAD OF A PERSIAK AKCHEK.^ 280 THE MEDES AND THE SECOND CHALDEAN EMPIRE subjection by the Achsemenides, forming a privilegedclass at the court of the latter, the members of whichshared the royal prerogatives and took a part in the workof government. Of the remaining tribes, the Panthialaei,Derusiaei, and Carmenians lived a sedentary life, whilethe Dai, Mardians, Dropici, and Sagartians were nomadicin their habits. Each one of these tribes occupiedits own allotted territory, the limits of which were notalways accurately defined; we know that Sagartia, Parseta-kene, and Mardia lay towards the north, on the confinesof Media and the salt desert,^ Taoken^ extended along theseaboard, and Carmania lay to the east. The tribes hadconstructed large villages, such as Armuza, Sisid6na,Apostana, Gogana, and Taoke, on the sea-coast (the lastnamed possessing a palace which was one of the threechief residences of the Achtemenian kings),^ and
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