custom-house officer.  In the great cities where the Court passed a portion of the year, account was kept of the arrival of strangers, whose names and descriptions were placed upon record by the keepers of the gates.  The orders of the Crown were signified in writing to the satraps; and they doubtless corresponded with the Court in the same way.  In the earlier times the writing material commonly used was linen; but shortly before the time of Pliny, the Parthians began to make paper from the papyrus, which grew in the neighborhood of Babylon, though they still employed in preference the old material.

There was a considerable trade between Parthia and Rome, carried on by means of a class of merchants.  Parthia imported from Rome various metals, and numerous manufactured articles of a high class.  Her principal exports were textile fabrics and spices.  The textile fabrics seem to have been produced chiefly in Babylonia, and to have consisted of silks, carpets, and coverlets.  The silks were largely used by the Roman ladies.  The coverlets, which were patterned with various colors, fetched enormous prices, and were regarded as fit adornments of the Imperial palace.  Among the spices exported, the most celebrated wore bdellium, and the juncus odoratus or odoriferous bulrush.

The Parthians had many liberal usages which imply a fairly advanced civilization.  Their tolerance of varieties in religion has been already mentioned.  Even in political matters they seem to have been free from the narrowness which generally characterizes barbarous nations.  They behaved well to prisoners, admitted foreigners freely to offices of high trust, gave an asylum to refugees, and treated them with respect and kindness, were scrupulous observers of their pledged word, and eminently faithful to their treaty obligations.  On the other hand, it must be admitted that they had some customs which indicate a tinge of barbarism.  They used torture for the extraction of answers from reluctant persons, employed the scourge to punish trifling offences, and, in certain cases, condescended to mutilate the bodies of their dead enemies.  Their addiction to intemperance is also a barbaric trait.  They were, no doubt, on the whole, less civilized than either the Greeks or Romans; but the difference does not seem to have been so great as represented by the classical writers.

Speaking broadly, the position that they occupied was somewhat similar to that which the Turks hold in the system of modern Europe.  They had a military strength which caused them to be feared and respected, a vigor of administration which was felt to imply many sterling qualities.  A certain coarseness and rudeness attached to them which they found it impossible to shake off; and this drawback was exaggerated by their rivals into an indication of irreclaimable barbarity.  Except in respect of their military prowess, it may be doubtful if justice is done them by any classical writer.  They were not merely