asserted the community of women[1] and the equality of mankind, whilst he appropriated the richest lands and most beautiful females to the use of his sectaries. The view of these disorders, which had been fomented by his laws and example,[2] embittered the declining age of the Persian monarch; and his fears were increased by the consciousness of his design to reverse the natural and customary order of succession, in favour of his third and most favoured son, so famous under the names of Chosroes and Nushirvan. To render the youth more illustrious in the eyes of the nations, Kobad was desirous that he should be adopted by the emperor Justin; the hope of peace inclined the Byzantine court to accept this singular proposal; and Chosroes might have acquired a specious claim to the inheritance of his Roman parent. But the future mischief was diverted by the advice of the quæstor Proclus: a difficulty was started, whether the adoption should be performed as a civil or military rite;[3] the treaty was abruptly dissolved; and the sense of this indignity sunk deep into the mind of Chosroes, who had already advanced to the Tigris on his road to Constantinople. [Death of Cobad. Sept. 13, AD. 531] His father did not long survive the disappointment of his wishes; the testament of their deceased sovereign was read in the assembly of the nobles; and a powerful faction, prepared for the event and regardless of the priority of age, exalted Chosroes to the throne of Persia. He filled that throne during a prosperous period of forty-eight years;[4] and the justice of [Anōsharvān] Nushirvan is celebrated as the theme of immortal praise by the nations of the East.
- ↑ The fame of the new law for the community of women was soon propagated in Syria (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, tom. iii. p. 402) and Greece (Procop. Persic. 1. i. c. 5).
- ↑ He offered his own wife and sister to the prophet; but the prayers of Nushirvan saved his mother, and the indignant monarch never forgave the humiliation to which his filial piety had stooped: pedes tuos deosculatus (said he to Mazdak), cujus fætor adhuc nares occupat (Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 71).
- ↑ Procopius, Persic. l. i. c. 11. Was not Proclus overwise? Was not the danger imaginary? — The excuse, at least, was injurious to a nation not ignorant of letters: οὐ γράμμασι οὶ βάρβαροι τοὺς παɩ̂δας ποιον̂νται ἀλλ’ ὅπλων σκευῃ̑. Whether any mode of adoption was practised in Persia, I much doubt.
- ↑ From Procopius and Agathias, Pagi (tom. ii. p. 543, 626) has proved that Chosroes Nushirvan ascended the throne in the vth year of Justinian (A.D. 531,
sarum, c. 21, p. 290, 291); Pocock (Specimen Hist. Arab. p. 70, 71); Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 176); Texeira (in Stevens, Hist. of Persia, l. i. c. 34). [See further Tabari, ed. Näldeke, p. 141 sqq., and Nöldeke's fourth excursus, p. 455 sqq. The doctrine preached by Mazdak was not invented by him but was due to an unknown namesake of the great Zarathushtra (Zoroaster). Its religious character distinguishes Mazdakism from all modern socialistic theories. Cobad's object in adopting this doctrine was to damage the nobility by undermining the institution of the family and the laws of inheritance.]
