[26] Cicero rightly appreciated the religious character of the Persian invasions: ‘delubra humanis consecrata simulacris Persae nefaria putaverunt; eamque unam ob causam Xerxes inflammari Atheniensium fana iussisse dicitur, quod deos, quorum domus esset omnis hic mundus, inclusos parietibus contineri nefas esse duceret’ Rep. iii 9, 14. So Themistocles as represented by Herodotus: ‘the gods and heroes grudged that one man should become king both of Asia and of Europe, and he a man unholy and presumptuous, one who made no difference between things sacred and things profane, burning and casting down the images of the gods’ History viii 109 (Macaulay’s translation).
[28] ‘Images and temples and altars they do not account it lawful to erect, nay, they even charge with folly those who do these things; and this, as it seems to me, because they do not account the gods to be in the likeness of men, as do the Hellenes. But it is their wont to perform sacrifices to Zeus, going up to the most lofty of the mountains, and the whole circle of the heavens they call Zeus: and they sacrifice to the Sun and the Moon and the Earth, to Fire and to Water and to the Winds; these are the only gods to whom they have sacrificed ever from the first’ History i 131 (Macaulay’s translation).
[29] Cic. Sen. 22, 79 to 81, after Xen. Cyr. viii 7.
[30] In the hymns of Zarathustra we can only trace the beginnings of this system, as in the following: ‘All-wise Lord, all-powerful one, and thou Piety, and Righteousness, Good Mind and the Kingdom, listen ye to me and prosper my every beginning’ Yasna 33, 11.
[31] Yasht xix 15, 16. The translation follows Geldner, Drei Yasht aus dem Zendavesta, p. 15.
[32] Ancient Greek hymn, φῶς ἱλαρὸν ἁγίας δόξης, translated by J. Keble.
[33] J. H. Newman.
[34] ‘Zoroaster taught the Persians neither to burn their dead, nor otherwise to defile fire.’ Xanthos (B.C. 465-425), as quoted by Nicolaus of Damascus (1st century B.C.).