are founded on one body of truth.  He drew his own doctrine from Zoroistrianism, Christianity (chiefly Gnostic), and Buddhism; taking from each what he found to be true.  Manichaeism spread quickly, through the Roman world as well as through Persia; in the former it replaced Mithraism, another Persian growth, that had come to be preeminently the religion of the Roman soldier.  Sapor looked on him favorably; Hormizd, the heir apparent, was more or less a disciple; but the Magi agitated.  They arranged a great debate before the king, and therein convinced him; persuaded him, at least, to withdraw from the Teacher the light of his countenance;—­and Mani found it expedient, or perhaps was compelled, to go into exile.  In China; where the fimily of the Ts’ao Ts’ao who expelled the Eastern Hans, was reigning as the House of Wei in the north.  There Mani busied himself, less in teaching his religion than in studying Chinese civilization,—­ especially its arts and crafts, and most of all, carpet-weaving.  Presently he ventured back to Persia, with a large knowledge of Chinese methods and a large collection of specimens;—­with which he gave a new impetus to Persian art and manufactures.  Hormizd came to the throne in 271, and befriended him and his doctrine; but reigned only a single year.  His successor Bahram I in the name of Zoroastrianism had him flayed and crucified.

So Sassanian history is, on the whole, uninteresting.  Their culture stood for no great ideas; only for a narrow persecuting church.  West Asia was not ready yet for great and world-important doings; it must wait for these till Mohammed, who struck into the very least promising quarter of it, and kindled in the barbarous wilderness a light to redeem the civilization of the western world.  I shall hardly have to turn to the Sassanians again; so will say here what is to be said.  We have seen that their empire was quite unlike the Parthian; it was a reversion to, and copy in small of, the Achaemenian of Cyrus and Darius.  It never attained the size of that; and only late in its existence, and to a small degree, overflowed the Parthian limits.  But it was a well-organized state, with a culture of its own; and enough military power to stand throughout its existence the serious rival of Rome.  Its arts and crafts became famous, —­thanks largely to Mani; in architecture it revived the Achaemenian tradition, with modifications of its own; and passed the result on to the Arabs when they rose, to be the basis of the Saracenic Style.  There was a fairly extensive literature:  largely religious, but with much also in belles lettres, re-tellings of the old Iranian sagas, and the like.  Its history is mainly the record of gigantic wars with Rome; these were diversified later by tussles with the Turks, Ephthalites or White Huns, et hoc genus omne. Its whole period of existence lasted from 227 to 637; 410 years;—­which we may compare with the 426 of the Hans, and the Roman 424 from the accession