This work completes the Ancient History of the East, to which the author has devoted his main attention during the last eighteen years.

It is a sequel to his "Parthians," published in 1873; and carries down the History of Western Asia from the third century of our era to the middle of the seventh.

So far as the present writer is aware, no European author has previously treated this period from the Oriental stand-point, in any work aspiring to be more than a mere sketch or outline.

Very many such sketches have been published; but they have been scanty in the extreme, and the greater number of them have been based on the authority of a single class of writers.

It has been the present author's aim to combine the various classes of authorities which are now accessible to the historical student, and to give their due weight to each of them.
The labors of M.C.Muller, of the Abbe Gregoire Kabaragy Garabed, and of M.J.St.Martin have opened to us the stores of ancient Armenian literature, which were previously a sealed volume to all but a small class of students.