Anquetil Du Perron, Zend-avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre, traduit en François sur l'original Zend. Paris, 1771. 4to. This work has been much improved by the critical discussions added to the German translation by J. L. Kleuker. Compare the dissertations on Zoroaster by Meiners and Tychsen, in Comment. Soc. Gotting. and Heeren, Ideas, etc. vol. i.
Hyde, De Religione veterum Persarum; Oxon. 1700, 4to. Replete with learned research, and the first work that excited enquiry on the subject.
† J. S. Rhode, Sacred Traditions of the East; Breslau, 1821. An excellent work for the study of the Zend-avesta, the magian religion, and the antiquities of the Medes and Persians.
Expedients adopted to keep possession of the conquered territories.
Tribute.
Standing armies.
Transfer of whole nations.
5. First political constitution of the Persian empire under Cyrus. No general new organization; but for the most part the original institutions are preserved among the conquered, who are compelled to pay tribute. Royal officers, appointed to collect the tribute, are associated with the generals, who with numerous armies keep in subjection the inhabitants of the conquered countries. For the support of the empire large standing armies are kept in pay, besides which, recourse is frequently had to the transplanting of whole nations; while, as was the case with the Jews, some who had been formerly transplanted are restored to their country. With the same view injunctions are issued, as in the case of the Lydians, to effect the enervation of warlike races by a luxurious and effeminate system of education.
6. Cyrus leaves two sons, the elder of whom, Cambyses, succeeds as king; the younger, Smerdis, (the Tanyoxarces of Ctesias,) becomes independent lord of Bactria and the eastern territories; but is soon after murdered by the command of his elder brother.
Cambyses 529—522.
conquers Egypt, etc.
7. Under Cambyses the conquering arms of the Persians are directed against Africa. Egypt becomes a Persian province, and the neighbouring Libya, together with Cyrene, assume the yoke of their own accord. But the twofold expedition against the opulent commercial establishments, Ammonium in the west, and Meroe in the south, is wholly unsuccessful; that against Carthage is arrested in its commencement by the refusal of the Tyrians to join the naval armament. A colony of six thousand Egyptians is transplanted into Susiana.
His policy in persecuting the Egyptian priesthood:
his vices probably much exaggerated.
8. The cruelty with which Cambyses is accused of treating the Egyptians was directed rather against the powerful caste of the priests, than against the whole nation; and originated more in political than in religious motives. It must be observed, however, that we ought to be particularly on our guard against all the evil that is related of Cambyses, inasmuch as our information respecting that prince is derived entirely from his enemies, the Egyptian priests.