SALZWEDEL, an ancient town of Prussian Saxony, lies on the Jeetze, a tributary of the Elbe, 32 miles to the north-west of Stendal. It is an industrial place of some importance, with linen, cotton, and woollen manufactures, carries on a brisk river trade in grain, and possesses a fine Gothic church of the 13th century. But its chief claim to notice lies in the fact that it was for about a century (c. 1070-1170) the capital of the Old or North Mark (also for a time called the "Mark of Soltwedel "), the kernel of the Prussian state. The old castle, perhaps founded by Charlemagne, was purchased in 1864 by the king of Prussia, anxious to preserve this interesting relic. Salzwedel was also a member of the Hanseatic League, and at the beginning of the 16th century seems to have engrossed great part of the inland commerce of North Germany; The population in 1880 was 8780.

S.AMANID DYNASTY, the name of the third among those native dynasties which sprang up in the 9th and 10th centuries in the eastern portions of Persia, and, although nominally provincial governors under the suzerainty of the caliphs of Baghdad, succeeded in a very short time in establishing an almost independent rule over the vast territories round the Oxus and Jaxartes. The Ma'imin, Hat-Om-alrashid's son, to whose patronage the Tahirid family owed their supremacy in Khorasan and Transoxiana (820-872, 205-259 A.H.) appointed three sons of Saman, originally a Tartar chief who claimed descent from the old &Malian kings, governors of Herat and some districts beyond the Oxus ; and these soon gained such an ascendency over all rival clanships that in 872, when the Tahirids were overthrown by the Saffarids under the leadership of Yalstlb b. Laith (868-878), they were strong enough to retain in their family the governorship of Transoxiana, with the official sanction of the caliph Mo`tamid (870-892), and to establish a semi-royal court in Bokhara, the seat of the new Samanid government. During the reign of Yalpila's brother `Amr b. Laith (878-900) Isma`il b. Ahmad, Saman's great-grandson (892-907, 279-295 A.u.), crossed the Oxus with a powerful army, invaded the territory of the Saffarids, sent `Amr as prisoner to Baghdad, and gradually extended his rule over Khorasan, Khwarizm, Jurjan, and the neighbouring countries. His successors, all renowned by the high impulse they gave both to the patriotic feelings and the national poetry of modern Persia (see PERSIA, vol. xviii. p. 655 sq.), were Ahmad b. Isma`11 (907-913, 295-301 Am.) ; Nasr II. b. Ahmad, the patron and friend of the great poet Rddagf (913-942, 301-331 A.H.); Nilh I. b. Nasr (942-954, 331-343 Am.) ; `Abd al-Malik I. b. Nrih (954-961, 343-350 A.H.); Mansur I. b. Niih, whose vizier Baramf translated Tabarf's universal history into Persian (961-976, 350-366 A.u.); nil' II. b. Mansur, whose court-poet Dakfki commenced the Shandma (976-997, 366-387 A.H.); Mansur IL b. Niih (997-998, 387-389 A.R.) ; and 'Abd al-Malik II. b. Nilh (999), with whom the Samanid dynasty came to a rather abrupt end. The rulers of this powerful house, whose silver dirhems had an extensive currency during the 10th century all over the northern part of Asia, and were brought, through Russian caravans, even so far as to Pomerania, Sweden, and Norway, where Samanid coins have lately been found in great number, suffered in their turn the fate they had prepared for their predecessors ; they were overthrown by a more youthful and vigorous race, that of Sabuktagfn, which founded the illustrious Ghaznawid dynasty and the Mussulman empire of India. Under `Abd al-Malik I. a Turkish slave, Alptagfn, had been entrusted with the government of Bokhara, but, showing himself hostile to 'Abd al-malik's successor Mansur I., he was compelled to fly and to take refuge in the mountainous regions of Ghazna, where he soon established a semi-independent rule, to which, after his death in 977 (367 A.u.), his son-in-law Sabuktagfn, likewise a former Turkish slave, succeeded. Nah. IL, in order to retain at least a nominal sway over those Afghan territories, confirmed him in his high position and even invested Sabuktagfn's son Mahmild with the governorship of Khorasan, in reward for 'the powerful help they had given him in his desperate struggles with a confederation of disaffected nobles of Bokhara under the leadership of Falk and the troops of the Dailamites, a dynasty that had arisen on the shores of the Caspian Sea and wrested already from the hands of the Samanids all their western provinces. Unfortunately, Sabuktagfn died in the same year as Nutt II. (997, 387 Am.), and Mahmud, confronted with an internal contest against his own brother Isma'fl, had to withdraw his attention for a short time from the affairs in Khorasan and Transoxiana. This interval sufficed for the old rebel leader supported by a strong Tartar army under Ilekklian, to turn Niih's successor Mansur IL into a mere puppet, to concentrate all the XXI. - 3/ power in his own hand, and to induce even his nominal master to reject Mahmtid's application for a continuance of his governorship in Khorasan. Mahratid refrained for the moment from vindicating his right ; but, as soon as, through court intrigue; Mans& II. had been dethroned, he took possession of Khorasan, deposed Mansnr's successor `Abd al-Malik IL, and assumed as an independent monarch for the first time in Asiatic history the title of "sultan." The last descendant of the house of &man, Prince Muntasir, a bold warrior and a poet of no mean talent, carried on for some years a kind of guerilla warfare against both 3Iahmad and Ilekkhan, who had occupied Transoxiana, till he was assassinated in 1005 (395 Ads.). Tmnsoxiana itself was annexed to the Ghaznawid realm eleven years later, 1016 (407 A.H.).