CHAPTER XX.

Manners and Customs Among the Persians.

There were wide differences between the civilization of the Persians and of the dwellers in the Tigris-Euphrates valleys. The Persian despised trade. His religion taught him to speak the truth, and he regarded commercial dealings as incompatible with this requirement. No shops made the principal streets in his country the scenes of hot disputes concerning prices and wares. The few shops which existed at all were tucked into obscure places on unfrequented by-ways. It naturally followed that there was an absence of those industrial centers which in Babylonia produced rare stuffs, delicate fabrics and ornaments. Swarms of slaves provided whatever was required by the wealthy, and it was the Persian's boast that his sword brought him the luxury of the world in tribute.

It has been estimated that the total population of Persia did not exceed 2,000,000. A small proportion of these were peasants who tilled the arable soil. Agriculture was held honorable and was encouraged by the national religion. The great majority of men were soldiers.

Since the soldier's life was thought to be worthy of a Persian, we may do well to consider whatever features characterized the service in this empire. Probably because of the mountainous country in which they dwelt, chariots were never popular with these people. Ordinarily they were impractical, being suited to plains and accessible places. Nevertheless a few were used and these were furnished with scythes attached to the axle. Chariots formed the front line of defense. Behind them the foot soldiers were arranged in squares, with cavalry on the wings. One commander—the king, if he were present,—gave commands to all from his position in the center. This was an evident fault, for, were he killed or in any way disabled, the entire army sometimes took fright and fled. When the charge was made, the chariots dashed ahead, hewing right and left. They seldom failed to break the solid line drawn up before them, whereupon the infantry and horse followed, taking advantage of the confusion thus wrought. If the regular line of Persian soldiery was broken or in any way disturbed, since they had no reinforcements in a second division, the battle was almost always lost. To prevent such an occurrence was their aim. It has been said that the Orientals of this time could not be trusted to fight unless they were well supported at the rear—hence the custom of forming one deep line. The native Persians were brave soldiers, but their ranks were generally composed largely of subjects levied throughout the empire. Scantily clothed Nubians fought with clubs and stones in the same army with well-equipped natives. Drawn up by nation, in native custom, it is not surprising that they presented a sight marvellous indeed to the foreigner.

The contrast between Greek and Persian military tactics was marked. The Greeks trusted to their solid, heavily-armed phalanx; the Persians tried to equip themselves as lightly as possible, and trusted to their agility and swiftness of motion. Their leniency toward captives has been mentioned before. They found no delight in mere slaughter.

Literature and learning had little part in the life of the average citizen. The boy was left with his mother until five years of age. Then his education began. He rose before dawn and was trained in running, throwing stones, and shooting with an arrow. At seven he was taught to ride, and in Persia this implied much. He must be able to spring on a horse running at full speed, to shoot accurately when under rapid motion. In course of a few years' practice it was not strange that a Persian was never so at ease as on his horse. Furthermore, he was compelled to endure severe hardships—sleeping under the open sky, eating only one meal in two days, making long marches, and swimming streams burdened with his weapons. At fifteen years of age he was considered a man and was enlisted in the army, where he ordinarily served until fifty.

During the period of the Persian empire, a numerous body of officials made up the king's retinue. Besides the farmers, soldiers and officials, there were many slaves, who completed the social body. They performed all kinds of labor, built the palaces and made fine roads throughout the realm.

The Persian court has probably never been excelled in ceremony and pomp. Ceremony surrounded the monarch during hours of retirement and seclusion as well as when before the public eye.

"The officers in most close attendance on the monarch's person were, in war, his charioteer, his stool-bearer, his bow-bearer, and his quiver-bearer; in peace, his parasol-bearer, and his fan-bearer, who was also privileged to carry what has been termed the 'royal-handkerchief.' Among the officers of the Court, less closely attached to the person of the monarch than these, may be mentioned the steward of the household; the groom or master of the horse; the keeper of the women's department, the king's 'eyes' and 'ears'—persons whose business it was to keep him informed on all matters of importance; his scribes, who wrote his letters, his messengers who went his errands, his ushers, his tasters, who tried the various dishes set before him lest they should be poisoned; his cup-bearers, who handed him wine and tasted of it; his chamberlains who assisted him to bed; and his musicians, who amused him with song and harp. Besides these, the Court comprised various classes of guards, doorkeepers, huntsmen, grooms, cooks, and other domestic servants in abundance, together with a vast multitude of visitors, guests, princes, captives of rank, foreign refugees, ambassadors, and travellers. We are assured that the king fed daily within the precincts of his palace as many as 15,000 persons, and that the cost of each day's food was 400 talents. A thousand beasts were slaughtered for each repast, besides abundance of feathered game and poultry.... On all occasions the guests, if they liked, carried away any portion of the food set before them, conveying it to their homes where it served to support their families."[1]

Prescribed etiquette governed everyone, from the king to his meanest subject. The august king must dine alone, or at best have with him the queen and her son. He could be approached only with certain ceremony. Ceremony and form were by no means confined to royalty and the court. Men of different rank met each other with established form and salutation; certain tasks could be performed only by persons who could perform no other tasks. This led to a large body of idlers around the court, ready to take part in any intrigue or conspiracy. They gathered around the homes of the wealthy as well as the palace of the king—water-bearers, adorners, awakers, and each rigidly confined himself to his single duty.

In early times the Persians indulged in a single meal each day. The custom continued later, but now the feast began with the morning and ceased only with night. The amount of wine a man could drink became his boast. In place of the regular habits, frugal fare and constant exercise of early times, were substituted the prolonged feast, all kinds of indulgencies, and idleness.

The royal harem provided apartments for the king's several wives in early years. Towards the close of the empire, provision had to be made for some three hundred and sixty—if we may trust one writer. The jealousies, differences and intrigues which arose from this quarter can scarcely be imagined. Each wished her son to be given preference, and this ambition, together with the restlessness accompanying enforced seclusion, stimulated crime and fostered conspiracies. The favorite of the king might toy with the lives of his subjects—even with the lives of those dear to him, at will. No subject in the land had reason to think his life secure—least of all, he who was today powerful.

For diversions—other than Court intrigues—the king turned to the hunt. Dice throwing was the national game, and the carving of wood was a frequent pastime. Since little was known of books, men were forced to find some means of passing hours unoccupied with national affairs or private concerns.

Dress had been simple in early years. As time went on, it became more complex; even matters of cosmetics and perfumes were later deemed of weighty importance.

There is more to attract us in the Persian state during years of its earlier simplicity, while yet the soldier found his deepest satisfaction in military skill, bodily exercise and great endurance, than in the period of imperial greatness, when the court of Persia exceeded in splendor anything since known.

The Religion of Persia.

Some time between 1000-650 B.C., it is supposed there lived a religious reformer by the name of Zarathushtra, or Zoroaster. Both his birth-place and birth-date are alike unknown, but it is supposed that he lived in Bactria, a country which reached indefinitely along the Caspian Sea.

Little has come down to us concerning the great teacher himself. He early felt called to his religious mission. Retiring from the world, tradition says he lived for some years upon a remote mountain, and here a divine vision came to him. He communed with Ormuzd, the spirit of Good, and knew that his work was to reclaim man, who in blindness had wandered away from truth and light, and to bring him into new relationship with the divine spirit which was ever ready to win mankind to himself.

At the age of thirty, Zoroaster was prepared to preach the new law. For ten years he wandered about, but found few to listen to him. His family and friends were gradually won to the faith he taught, and returning to the Caspian Sea region, he found more willing hearers.

The conceptions from which he had evolved his faith were already accepted to some extent by those among whom he came. He taught that there were two spirits—Ormuzd or Good, embodying all truth, life, beauty, order, light; and Ahriman, or Evil, including all darkness, death, falsity and disorder. Life was a struggle between these two contending forces. "He laid before his people their own thoughts in all the pure transparency of crystal waters cleared from muddiness and unwholesome admixtures in the filter of his own transcendent and searching mind. He guided their groping hands, and made them grasp the truth for which they were blindly reaching. Such is the mission of every true prophet. Had the people not been ripe for his teaching, he could not have secured a hearing, or made himself understood; the people, on the other hand, could never have worked out unaided the ideal to which they were vaguely and only half-consciously drawn. They listened and understood, and were won, because, to use the expression of a great writer, they had in themselves the seed of the thoughts which the prophet expounded to them."[2]

Seven times divine beings brought messages to Zoroaster. "They inculcate the doctrine of purity of body as well as of soul; they enjoin the care of useful animals, especially the cow and the dog; they emphasize the necessity of keeping the earth, the fire and the water undefiled; and from several of their ordinances we can see that Zoroaster was a civil reformer as well as a spiritual guide. Foremost among the commandments is the abhorrence of falsehood, the universal obligation to speak the truth. This is one of the most fundamental of the ethical tenets which form the basis of the entire ancient Persian religious system."[3]

The writings which contained the teachings of Zoroaster are commonly known as the Zenda-Vesta. The name is misleading however, and should read Avesta-u-Zend, which translated means: "Law and Commentary." Among students the compilation is generally called the Avesta. Even a casual reading of the Old Testament reveals the fact that the various books composing it were written by different writers, writing under radically different circumstances, and at widely distant periods. The same is true of the Avesta. One of its books was probably written either by Zoroaster himself or under his supervision. This is the Gathas, or book of songs, and is the most ancient portion of the entire collection. Sermons, prayers, and sayings are therein contained, some of which possess poetic beauty and rare purity. Other books were added from time to time, until the Avesta is said to have been made up of twenty-one books, and to have covered 1,200 cowhides.

When Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 332 B.C., elated by his victory, and having drunk heavily of wine, he allowed his soldiers to burn the capital, and with it perished much of greatest value. Most of the Persian literature was then destroyed, together with the noblest specimens of Persian architecture and decoration. While cities were few, it seems remarkable that the only copies of the Avesta were burned. For several centuries following, the teachings of this sacred book lived only in the memories of priests. Finally in 325 A.D., a council was called to take measures to have these ancient doctrines committed to writing. Naturally the result was fragmentary and incomplete. Only those portions of the original text which had been in daily use proved to be well remembered. These were mainly prayers and invocations. The priests in all probability, seized the opportunity to insert whatever forms of worship and modified beliefs they desired to emphasize. Their final effort, while far from satisfactory, embraces all which now remains of the religion of Zoroaster and his followers.

In 636 A.D. the Mohammedan Arabs made a religious crusade and undertook to blot out the old Persian religion. Most of the descendants of the early nation yielded to the fire and sword. A small portion of them took refuge in India, where they were allowed to worship as they chose. Only with them was the Avesta preserved. These Parsis have been called "the ruins of a people, as their sacred books are the ruins of a religion." Of them Justi writes: "There is no religious body in the world whose practice is so completely in harmony with their moral code."

The collection of Zend Fragments, commonly known as the Zend-Avesta, falls into two parts: The Avesta, properly so-called, which contains (1) compilations of religious laws and mythical tales; (2) collections of litanies for the sacrifice; (3) litanies and hymns written in a language older than the rest of the Avesta. Secondly, these writings contain the Small Avesta, made up of short prayers, recited by all the faithful. It was fitting that these collections of fragments be preserved, so far as possible, in their original dialect, but since these were no longer intelligible even to the educated, the Zend, or explanation—commentary—was attached in the prevailing tongue. Otherwise the greater portion of the work could not have been understood. Some of the creation stories were not included in the Avesta, but were gathered together with other myths in the Bundehesh.

All worshippers are classified by the Avesta as followers of Ormuzd—Good,—or Ahriman—Evil. One could either stand for good or against it. "Now shall I proclaim unto you, O ye all that here approach me, what the wise should lay to their hearts; the songs of praise and the sacrificial rites which pious men pay the Lord, and the sacred truths and ordinances, that what was secret until now may appear in the light 'Hear with your ears that which is best, and test it with a clear understanding, before each man decides for himself between the two teachings.'

"The two Spirits, the Twins, skilfully created, in the beginning, Good and Evil, in thought, in speech, in deed. And, between these two, the wise have made the right choice; not so the senseless. If, O men, you lay to your hearts these ordinances which Ormuzd instituted, and the good and evil, and the long torments which await the followers of falsehood, and the bliss that must come to the holders of the true faith, it will go well with you."

Followers of Zoroaster abhorred idolatry. No image of their God corrupted their conceptions. In early times they built no temples, having only altars whereupon sacrifices were made. Darius often mentions Ahuramazda (Hormuzd) in his inscriptions as the highest god of the Persians, and it is highly probable that Cyrus was also a worshipper, a fact which made him sympathetic toward the religion of the Jews and accounts for his willingness that they rebuild a temple in Jerusalem for the worship of Yahweh.

In later years, forms and symbols crept into the service, for abstract teachings did not hold the masses of the people. Fire was conceived to be a symbol of the God of Light, and even today there seems to be a certain charm in the conception that "a pure and undefiled flame is certainly the most sublime natural representation of Him who is in Himself Eternal Light." There must have been a sublimity in the sight of the pure flames, rising to heaven from the mountain-tops, while prayers and hymns of praise were poured out to the one great Spirit, by whatever name known.

As days of degeneracy overtook Persia, the religion was affected by the general lassitude and decay. A modernized form of the early faith is found today among some 100,000 worshippers in Arabia and India.

[1] Rawlinson: Persia.

[2] Ragozin: Media and Persia.

[3] Jackson: Persia, the Land and Its History.

A Hymn.

"We worship Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd), the pure, the master of purity.

"We praise all good thoughts, all good words, all good deeds which are or shall be; and we likewise keep clean, and pure all that is good.

"O Ormuzd, thou true, happy being! We strive to think, to speak, and to do only such actions as may be best fitted to promote the two lives (the life of the body and of the soul).

"We beseech the spirit of earth for the sake of these our best works to grant us beautiful and fertile fields, to the believer as well as to the unbeliever, to him who has riches as well as to him who has no possessions."

From the Avesta. Part I.

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the first place where the Earth feels most happy?"

Ahura Mazda, the Good Principle, answered: "It is the place whereon one of the faithful steps forward, O Zoroaster, with the holy wood in his hand,[1] the baresma in his hand,[2] the holy meat in his hand,[3] the holy mortar in his hand,[4] fulfilling the law with love, and beseeching aloud Mithra.[5]"

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the second place where the Earth feels most happy?"

Ahura Mazda answered: "It is the place whereon one of the faithful erects a house with a priest therein, with cattle, with a wife, with children, and good herds within; and wherein afterwards the cattle go on thriving, holiness is thriving, fodder is thriving, the dog is thriving, the wife is thriving, the child is thriving, the fire is thriving, and every blessing of life is thriving."

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the third place where the Earth feels most happy?"

Ahura Mazda answered: "It is the place where one of the faithful cultivates most corn, grass and fruit, O Zoroaster! where he waters ground that is too dry, and dries ground that is too wet."

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the fourth place where the Earth feels most happy?"

Ahura Mazda answered: "It is the place where there is most increase of flocks and herds."

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the first place where the Earth feels sorest grief?"

Ahura Mazda answered: "It is the neck of Arezura,[6] whereon the hosts of fiends rush forth to the burrow of the Drug.[7]"

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the second place where the Earth feels sorest grief?"

Ahura Mazda answered: "It is the place where most corpses of dogs and of men lie buried."

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the fifth place where the Earth feels sorest grief?"

Ahura Mazda answered: "It is the place whereon the wife and children of the faithful, O Zoroaster, are driven along the way of captivity, the dry, the dusty way, and lift up a voice of wailing."

"O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who is the first that rejoices the Earth with greatest joy?"

Ahura Mazda answered: "It is he who digs out of it most corpses of dogs and men."

[1] Food for the altar fire.

[2] Sacred twigs held by the priest while reciting prayers.

[3] Meat for sacrifice.

[4] Used for crushing the Haoma, an intoxicating plant, whose juice is used by the faithful.

[5] God of good fields and pastures.

[6] Mount at the gate of hell whence demons rush forth.

[7] Hell.

Ancient Hymn from the Avesta.

"I am the Keeper; I am the Creator and the Maintainer; I am the Discerner; I am the most beneficent Spirit.

My name is the bestower of health; my name is the best bestower of health.

My name is the Holy; my name is the most Holy.

My name is the Glorious; my name is the most Glorious.

My name is the far-seeing; my name is the Farthest-seeing.

My name is Holiness; my name is the Great one; my name is the good Sovereign; my name is the best of Sovereigns.

My name is the Wise One; my name is the Wisest of the Wise; my name is He who does good for a long time.

These are my names.

And he who in this material world, O Zoroaster! shall recite and pronounce these names of mine either by day or by night;

He who shall pronounce them when he rises up or when he lays him down; when he lays him down or when he rises up; when he binds on the sacred girdle, or when he unbinds the sacred girdle; when he goes out of his dwelling-place, or when he goes out of his town, or when he goes out of his country and comes into another country;

That man, neither in that day nor in that night shall be wounded by the weapons of the foe...; not the knife, not the cross-bow, not the arrow, not the sword, not the club, not the sling-stone shall reach him and wound him.

But these names shall come in to keep him from behind and to keep him in front ... from the evil ones, bent on mischief, and from that fiend which is all death—Angra Mainyu.

It will be as if there were a thousand men watching over one man."

—Trans. Zend-Avesta: Sacred Books of the East.
Max Muller, ed. V. 4, 23, 31.

PART OF ARCHER'S FRIEZE IN AN ANCIENT PERSIAN PALACE.