More Books of the Week (Contsn . ued front page 573.)
Thanks to Herodotus and Xenophon and the Old Testainent, the early Persian kings are more familiarly known than any other Eastern - potentates in or before their time. Thus Professor R. W. Rogers, of Princeton, in his learned and interesting Hiitory of Ancient Persia (Scribners) is writing of monarchs' who can be identified as human beings and are not" mere names like the Babylonians and Assyrians before them:' He begins with the-rise of Cyrus from a minor kingdom in Persia to the' empire of the East, round about 550 B.C. He- relates the conquest of Egypt by Cumbyses, the Greek expeditions of- Darius I and-Xerxes I, and, a century later, the famous march of the Greek mercenaries with the rebel Cyrus against his brother Artaxerxes IL The book ends with Alexander's epoch-making campaign that ended with the ruin of Darius III and the'Hellenization of Western and Central Asia. The memorable story of Persia's rise- and fall--is admirably told, and we are reminded once again of the great work that Greece die in resisting" the barbarians against seemingly overwhelming odds.
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