Causes which produced the Insurrection of Artaxerxes._ "The Parthians had been barbarians; they had ruled over a nation far more civilized than themselves, and had oppressed them and their religion." Niebuhr, Lectures on Roman History, vol.iii.p.

270.
When the great Empire of the Persians, founded by Cyrus, collapsed under the attack of Alexander the Great, the dominant race of Western Asia did not feel itself at the first reduced to an intolerable condition.

It was the benevolent design of Alexander to fuse into one the two leading peoples of Europe and Asia, and to establish himself at the head of a Perso-Hellenic State, the capital of which was to have been Babylon.

Had this idea been carried out, the Persians would, it is evident, have lost but little by their subjugation.

Placed on a par with the Greeks, united with them in marriage bonds, and equally favored by their common ruler, they could scarcely have uttered a murmur, or have been seriously discontented with their position.