History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. I.] THE ARAB INVASION. 13

on being informed of this concentration of the enemy, despatched a force of ten thousand men under General Mihran to disperse them.

The two armies met, and a combat took place in which the Persians were overthrown. Mihran was slain, one-half of his army was annihilated, and the other put to flight. The Arabs pursued the fugitives, and, making plundering excursions, devastated the country along their route, and returned to their camp laden with an immense quantity of booty.

Rustam and Firuzan had made no efforts to stop these marauding expeditions, which soon extended to as far as Bagdad; and this maction naturally displeased the people as well as the magnates of Persia, who attributed all the misfortunes of the state to the rivalry of these two men. So loud did the popular outcry become that the people rose and threatened to put them to death. Seeimg that they had no other chance of retaining authority, Rustam and Firuzan determined to remove Purandukht, one of the daughters of Khosru Parvez, who occupied the throne, and to give Persia a king in the hope that he might enjoy greater support among the people. A young scion of the royal house having been found in a youth named Yazdezard, at that time about twenty years old, he was acknowledged sovereign by acclamation.

Yazdezard, having intelligent advisers, and profit-

ing by the enthusiasm of the people, immediately