A Child's History of the World

by V. M. Hillyer

I didn’t know then who the Medes and Persians were, but I know now that they were two Aryan families living next to Babylon—you remember Nebuchadnezzar had married a Median girl—and that they were governed by laws which were fixed so hard and fast and were so unchangeable that we still speak of any such thing that does not change as like “the laws of the Medes and Persians.”

The Medes and the Persians had a religion which was neither like that of the Jews nor like the idol worship of the Babylonians. It had been started by a Persian named Zoroaster, who was a wise man like Solomon. He may even have lived about the same time as Solomon, but probably a good deal later.

Zoroaster went about among the people, teaching them wise sayings and hymns. These wise sayings have been gathered into a book, which is now the Persian Bible.

Zoroaster taught that there were two great spirits in the world, the Good Spirit and the Bad Spirit.

The Good Spirit, he said, was Light, and the Bad Spirit, Darkness. The Good or Light he called Mazda; where have you heard that word, I wonder. So the Persians kept a fire, in which they thought was the Good Spirit, constantly burning on their altars, and they had men watch over this flame to see that it never went out. These men who watched the flame were called Magi, and they were supposed to be able to do all sorts of wonderful things, so that we call such wonderful things “magic,” and the people who are able to do them we call “magicians.”

At the time of this story which I’m telling you, the ruler of the Medes and the Persians was a great king named Cyrus.

But before I go on with this story I must tell you about a little country not far from Troy. This little country was called Lydia. Perhaps you may know a girl named Lydia. I do. Lydia was ruled over by a king named Crœsus who was the richest man in the world. When we want to describe a man as very wealthy, we still say he is “as rich as Crœsus.”

Crœsus owned nearly all the gold-mines, of which there were a great many in that country, and besides this he collected money in the form of taxes from all the cities near him.

Before the time of Crœsus people did not have money such as we have now. When they wished to buy anything, they simply traded something they had for something they wanted—so many eggs for a pound of meat or so much wine for a pair of sandals. To buy anything expensive, such as a horse, they paid with a lump of gold or silver, which was weighed in the scales to see just how heavy it was. It is hard for us to think how people could get along without cents and nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars—with no money at all—and yet they did.

Crœsus, in order to make things simpler, cut up his gold into small bits. Now, it was not easy for every one to weigh each piece each time it was traded, for he might not have any scales handy. So Crœsus had each piece weighed and stamped with its weight and with his name or initials to show that he guaranteed the weight. These pieces of gold and silver were only lumps with Crœsus’ seal pressed into them, but they were the first real money even though they were not round and beautifully engraved like our coins.