There was a city of the same name in Eubœa, expressed Carystus, where the stone [[706]]Asbestus was found. Of this they made a kind of cloth, which was supposed to be proof against fire, and to be cleansed by that element. The purport of the name is plain; and the natural history of the place affords us a reason why it was imposed. For this we are obliged to Solinus, who calls the city with the Grecian termination, Carystos; and says, that it was noted for its hot streams: [[707]]Carystos aquas calentes habet, quas Ελλοπιας vocant. We may therefore be assured, that it was called Car-ystus from the Deity of fire, to whom all hot fountains were sacred. Ellopia is a compound of El Ope, Sol Python, another name of the same Deity. Carystus, Cerastis, Cerasta, are all of the same purport: they betoken a place, or temple of Astus, or Asta, the God of fire. Cerasta in the feminine is expressly the same, only reversed, as Astachar in Chusistan. Some places had the same term in the composition of their names, which was joined with Kur; and they were named in honour of the Sun, styled Κυρος, Curos. He was worshipped all over Syria; and one large province was hence named Curesta, and Curestica, from Κυρ Ἑστος, Sol Hestius.
In Cappadocia were many Puratheia; and the people followed the same manner of worship, as was practised in Persis. The rites which prevailed, may be inferred from the names of places, as well as from the history of the country. One city seems to have been denominated from its tutelary Deity, and called Castabala. This is a plain compound of Ca-Asta-Bala, the place or temple of Asta Bala; the same Deity, as by the Syrians was called Baaltis. Asta Bala was the Goddess of fire: and the same customs prevailed here as at Feronia in Latium. The female attendants in the temple used to walk with their feet bare over burning [[708]]coals.
Such is the nature of the temple named Istachar; and of the caverns in the mountains of Chusistan. They were sacred to Mithras, and were made use of for his rites. Some make a distinction between Mithras, Mithres, and Mithra: but they were all the same Deity, the [[709]]Sun, esteemed the chief God of the Persians. In these gloomy recesses people who were to be initiated, were confined for a long season in the dark, and totally secluded from all company. During this appointed term they underwent, as some say, eighty kinds of trials, or tortures, by way of expiation. [[710]]Mithra apud Persas Sol esse existimatur: nemo vero ejus sacris initiari potest, nisi per aliquot suppliciarum gradus transierit. Sunt tormentorum ij lxxx gradus, partim intensiores.—Ita demum, exhaustis omnibus tormentis, sacris imbuuntur. Many [[711]]died in the trial: and those who survived were often so crazed and shaken in their intellects, that they never returned to their former state of mind.
Some traces of this kind of penance may be still perceived in the east, where the followers of Mahomet have been found to adopt it. In the history given by Hanway of the Persian monarch, Mir Maghmud, we have an account of a process similar to that above, which this prince thought proper to undergo. He was of a sour and cruel disposition, and had been greatly dejected in his spirits; on which account he wanted to obtain some light and assistance from heaven. [[712]]With this intent Maghmud undertook to perform the spiritual exercises which the Indian Mahommedans, who are more addicted to them than those of other countries, have introduced into Kandahar. This superstitious practice is observed by shutting themselves up fourteen or fifteen days in a place where no light enters. The only nourishment they take is a little bread and water at sun-set. During this retreat they employ their time in repeating incessantly, with a strong guttural voice, the word Hou, by which they denote one of the attributes of the Deity. These continual cries, and the agitations of the body with which they were attended, naturally unhinge the whole frame. When by fasting and darkness the brain is distempered, they fancy they see spectres and hear voices. Thus they take pains to confirm the distemper which puts them upon such trials.
Such was the painful exercise which Maghmud undertook in January this year; and for this purpose he chose a subterraneous vault. In the beginning of the next month, when he came forth, he was so pale, disfigured, and emaciated, that they hardly knew him. But this was not the worst effect of his devotion. Solitude, often dangerous to a melancholy turn of thought, had, under the circumstances of his inquietude, and the strangeness of his penance, impaired his reason. He became restless and suspicious, often starting.—In one of these fits he determined to put to death the whole family of his predecessor, Sha Hussein; among whom were several brothers, three uncles, and seven nephews, besides that prince's children. All these, in number above an hundred, the tyrant cut to pieces with his own hand in the palace yard, where they were assembled for that bloody purpose. Two small children only escaped by the intervention of their father, who was wounded in endeavouring to screen them.
Pl. III. Petra, Mithra or Temple of Mithras from Thevenot. Part 2.
The reverence paid to caves and grottos arose from a notion that they were a representation of the [[713]]world; and that the chief Deity whom the Persians worshipped proceeded from a cave. Such was the tradition which they had received, and which contained in it matter of importance. Porphyry attributes the original of the custom to Zoroaster, whoever Zoroaster may have been; and says, that he first consecrated a natural cavern in Persis to Mithras, the creator and father of all things. He was followed in this practice by others, who dedicated to the Deity places of this [[714]]nature; either such as were originally hollowed by nature, or made so by the art of man. Those, of which we have specimens exhibited by the writers above, were probably enriched and ornamented by the Achaimenidæ of Persis, who succeeded to the throne of Cyrus. They are modern, if compared with the first introduction of the worship; yet of high antiquity in respect to us. They are noble relics of Persic architecture, and afford us matter of great curiosity.