Amer possessed few of the great qualities of his bro ther. While the abstemiousness of Yacoob led him to be contented with the coarsest fare, it required 300 camels to carry the kitchen furniture of Amer. He was deficient, however, neither in courage nor ambition, and he main tained with a struggle,the government of Persia, for more than twenty years. He was at last defeated by Ismail Sa manee, a Tartar lord, who had been instigated by the ca liph to invade the dominions of Amer, and carried cap tive to Bagdad.
With Amer fell the fortunes of his family, and, for nearly a century, the houses of Samanee and Dilemee held the kingdom of Persia between them. The domi nions of the former included Khorassan, Seistan, Bulkh, Samarcund, Bokharah, and Khaurizm, while those of Dilemee extended over the greatest part of Irak, Fars, Kerman, Khuzistan, and Laristan. During the period that these dynasties ruled over Persia, many chiefs main tained themselves in small principalities, which they were enabled to preserve only by balancing between these two powerful families. Among these principalities, that of Ghizni was perhaps the smallest; but from small begin nings, it rose so rapidly to distinction and dominion, that its chief might be compared, in point of power, with the greatest monarch that ever wielded the sceptre of Persia. The families of Saman and Dilem were stript of their richest possessions, and Mahmood, the greatest of its princes, limited his territories by the provinces of Georgia and Bagdad, the kingdoms of Bokharah and Kashgur, and Bengal and the Deccan, as far as the Indian Ocean.
Mahmood was renowned, not only for his victories, but he was a munificent patron of genius; and it is to his love of literature, and the encouragement which he gave to learned men, that we owe the noble work of Ferdosi, the Shah .Vantah, or " Book of Kings," which contains al most all that remains of the ancient history of his coun try. A splendid reward had been promised to the poet, upon the completion of his task, but Mahmood had been persuaded by envious rivals to lessen the amount. Fer dosi spurned the diminished present, and after adding to his poem a severe satire upon the king's want of genero sity, left the court, and retired to his native city of Toos in Khorassan. Sometime afterwards, the monarch saw his error, but it was too late. The rich present destined for the poet, entered the gates of Toos, as the body of Ferdosi was carrying to its sepulchre; and we are told that his virtuous daughter rejected the wealth which had been denied to the unrivalled merit of her father.
The conquests of Mahmood in the east, were uniformly marked by religious persecution, and his bigot zeal led him not only to destroy the idols, and pillage the temples of the Hindoo idolaters, but also to cover their cities with desolation. In a popular eastern tale, the vizier of this prince is represented as pretending to be acquainted with the language of birds, and as explaining the liberality of an old owl, who, after wishing " Mahmood a long life," offered a hundred ruined villages as a dowry to her daugh ter. But while he was carrying the horrors of war and of
persecution into every country which he visited, his own dominions enjoyed perfect tranquillity, which was greatly owing to his severe, but equitable rule. The following instance of his determined justice is recorded by all his historians. " A poor man had complained that a young noble of the court came constantly to his house at night, turned him out of doors, and slept with his wife. The monarch bade him give notice the next time this occur red. He did as he was directed, and Mahmood went with him to his house. When he reached it, he put out a lamp that was burning, and having found the paramour, struck off his head with one blow of his scimitar. He then called for a light, and, after viewing the corpse, fell upon his knees, and returned thanks to heaven, after which he bade the astonished husband bring him water, of which he drank an immoderate quantity. You are surprised at my actions,' said Mahmood, but know, that since you in formed me of the outrage you suffered, I have neither slept, eat, nor drank. I conceived that no person, except one of my sons, would dare openly to commit so great a crime; resolved to do justice, I extinguished the light, that my feelings as a father might not prevent me from doing my duty as a sovereign ; my prayers were a thanks giving to the Almighty, when I saw that I had not been compelled to slay one of my own offspring, and I drank, as you observed, like a man that was expiring from thirst.''' The successors of Mahmood were unable to maintain the glory which he had acquired, and were soon swept from the list of monarchs by the leader of a Tartar tribe, who at first had been permitted to lead their flocks over the rich pastures of Khorassan, but who soon became masters of that province, and at last drove the monarchs of Ghizni be yond the limits of Persia. The territory of this Tartar tribe of Seljookee stretched from the Oxus to the Iaxartes. But as soon as their chief, Toghrul Beg, had got posses sion of Khorassan, he assumed the title and state of a sove reign, and, extending his conquests to the west, overran Irak, and, by the reduction of Bagdad, became master of the person of the caliph Ul-Kaim. Having completely subdued the whole of Persia, he sought to strengthen his authority by a close alliance with the family of the succes sors of the prophet. U1-Kaim had married his sister, and he himself demanded the daughter of the commander of the faithful. The dependent condition of the caliph for bade him to refuse compliance, but the aged bridegroom enjoyed his union only for a few months.