Gobineau used medieval Persian epic poetry, which he treated as completely historically accurate accounts, together with the beauty of Persian women (whom he saw as the most beautiful in the world) to argue that Persians were once great Aryans, but unfortunately the Persians had interbred too often with the Semitic Arabs for their own good.[66] At the same time, Gobineau argued that in Southeast Asia the blacks and Asians had intermixed to create the sub-race of the Malays.[62] He classified Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa as racially mixed.[63]