Diogenes Laertius relates that the Magians lived on lentils, bread and cheese, which agrees with the Avesta to the extent that the priests are there commanded to be content with a little food.[337] What Herodotus tells us of the duties and occupation of the Magians agrees entirely with the rules given in the Avesta for the Athravas. No one could sacrifice without a Magian; the sacrifices were offered on high places (in this Xenophon agrees[338]) or in "pure places;" the most delicate grass was spread—we remember the importance of the Kuça-grass in the Veda and the Brahmanas—on this grass the flesh of the sacrifice was laid; the Magians sang the theogony, i. e. long sacrificial prayers, and the sacred rite is fulfilled. Herodotus also asserts that the Magians took great pride in killing serpents, ants, and other winged and creeping things with their own hands; that human life was greatly respected by them; that the dog was held in high honour (p. 86); and the corpses of the Magians were exposed to dogs or birds of prey. This he declares that he knows to be the truth; Xenophon represents the Magians as beginning their songs of praise with the break of day, and as offering their sacrifices at certain places, which were selected for the gods. Curtius relates that they sang native songs.[339] Strabo told us above that the Magians sought after a holy life; he observes also that whatever was the god to which they sacrificed they first prayed to fire. At every sacrifice the Magians conducted the sacred rite; the victims were not slain with the knife but struck down with a club. No part of the flesh of the victim was set apart for the deity, for they declared that the god required only the soul of the animal; yet according to some they placed a small portion of the fat in the fire. "In Cappadocia there were enclosed places," Strabo continues, "in the midst of which was an altar, heaped up with ashes. On this the Magians kept up the unquenchable fire. Each day they went and sang for an hour before the fire, holding in their hands a bundle of twigs. On their heads they wore tiaras of felt, which fell down on both sides so far that the side-pieces covered the lips."[340] Pausanias, who observed the worship of the Magians in the cities of Lydia, says: "At both places there was a shrine with a cell, and in the cell is an altar; on this are ashes the colour of which is not the ordinary colour of ashes. When the Magian comes into the cell, he lays the dry wood on the altar, puts the tiara on his head, and sings the invocation to some god or another, in a barbarian manner, quite unintelligible to the Hellenes; but he sings from a book. Then the pieces of wood, without being kindled, ought to become lighted, and a flame from them should flash all round the cell."[341]
FOOTNOTES:
[312] "Vend." 2, 87-89; "Yaçna," 14, 4-6. If in "Yaçna," 19, 46 four occupations are mentioned instead of the four orders, and artisans are added to the husbandmen, this is only another theory, which does not, however, alter the series and system; in India the order of Vaiçyas comprises husbandmen, merchants, and artisans.
[313] "Vond." 8, 254.
[314] Under the Sassanids we find a chief of the husbandmen (vaçtriosan), and a chief of the warriors (arthestaran); Nöldeke, "Tabari," s. 110.
[315] "Vend." 9, 172-180, 187-196.
[316] "Vend." 13, 126-129.
[317] "Vend." 18, 1-17.
[318] "Vispered," 3, 13, 14. Above, p. 165.
[319] The Mobedh of Middle Persian is magupat, i. e. lord of the Magians (p. 60). The derivation of the name Magus from the Turanian imga (apparently = honourable) can only be adopted by those who regard the Magians as descendants of the Turanians, or at any rate as containing a strong admixture of Turanians; a view which rests on the theory that the second series in the inscriptions of the Achæmenids is the Median translation of the Persian inscriptions. With this view I cannot agree; all that we learn from the Greeks of the customs, manners, and names of the Medes bears the mark of an Arian origin, and is in harmony with what is attributed to the Persians. In the inscription of the second class at Behistun, Gaumata is not called imga but magush.