large the general outline which Herodotus has given us of the Persian
religion.
They did not, he says, consider as the Greeks did that the gods were
(ἀνθρωποφυέας) anthropophuistic[933]. They called the entire circle
of heaven by the name of Jupiter. They originally worshipped no gods
except the sun, the moon, the earth, fire, water, and the winds.
Afterwards they learned from the Assyrians and Arabians to worship
Οὐρανίη under the name of Mitra.
I shall not attempt in this place to discuss the difficult subject of
the Persian or Magian religions as they are in themselves; farther than
to observe, that they appear to have been different. Here we have only
to consider the relation, if any, between that system which the sketch
by Herodotus describes, and the religion of heroic Greece.
It appears that the religion of the Persians[934], either as anterior
to, or as independent of that of Zoroaster and the Magi, embraced, (1)
the belief in one Supreme and incorporeal God, and (2) the worship of
the host of heaven.
The sketch of Herodotus appears to be a representation of this
religion: it contains no evidence of dualism, and fire-worship appears
in it only as a subordinate characteristic. Only it would appear as
if the historian had reflected upon Persia the leading idea of the
Greek mythology, namely, that which invested Jupiter, as the supreme
deity, especially with the charge of the sky and atmosphere: and that
when he says the Persians call the heavens Jupiter, he probably means
that they consider the Supreme Being not to be circumscribed, but
to pervade all space. The powers of outward Nature were doubtless
worshipped by them, in the first instance, as organs of the Supreme
Being.
In this sketch there is something to remind us of a primitive religion,
or at least to suggest the traditional forms in which that religion was
conveyed: it teaches the unity of God, and then steps only into the
most natural and proximate form of deviation. It is well called by Dr.
Döllinger ‘a monotheism with polytheistic elements[935].’
It is unlike the Homeric religion, inasmuch as it does not contain any
evidences of traditive derivation nearly so abundant or so specific as,
I think, we shall find manifest in the Homeric system[936]. But then we
must remember that it is junior, by many centuries, to the system of
Homer: and that these evidences had become far less palpable, at the
epoch when Herodotus lived, in the contemporary religion of Greece.
On the other hand, with respect to its human, inventive, and
polytheistic element, it is evidently akin to the Homeric religion;
under which Nature is everywhere animated and uplifted, and teems
at every pore with some expression of divinity. The Greek scheme is
indeed still more human, (for it takes everywhere the human dress,)
more poetical and imaginative, than the Persian one; but the generative
principle is one and the same, namely, the impersonation, though not
necessarily in both cases alike under human conditions, of all powers
observed and felt in outward nature. The whole group may well remind
us, both in letter and in spirit, of the invocation of Agamemnon,
which after Jupiter enumerates the sun, the rivers, and the earth:
though it also adds the infernal gods[937]. We find from another place
in Herodotus, that he knew the Persians to believe in an infernal
deity, to whom they offered human sacrifices[938].
If we conceive the Persians moving westward, and gathering mental
and imaginative, as well as warlike and political energy, on their
way, we shall see that they are only enlarging the scheme reported in
Herodotus by a consistent application of its principles, and following
them out in an imaginative and dramatic spirit to their results, when
they people every meadow, wood, and fountain with deity, and when
they construct the great Olympian court for heaven, with its several
reflections; in the sea, around the throne of Nereus, and, in the
nether world, under the gloomy sway of Aidoneus and Persephone.
_As to ritual and other resemblances._
Herodotus[939] also gives us a sketch of the Persian system as to
ritual. Each person sacrificed for himself: without libation, music,
garlands, or cakes: only in a becoming spot, and having the tiara
wreathed usually with myrtle. When he had performed the essential part
of the function, a _Magus_ recited a religious chant; and no one could
perform sacrifice except in presence of a _Magus_. It is plain that we
see here, if not, as Mr. Blakesley thinks[940], the confusion, at any
rate the combination, of the genuine Persian with the Median ritual.
The presence of the Magian was required, or let us suppose that it was
simply usual: yet he did not offer the sacrifice. This was perhaps
the compromise between the sacerdotal system of the Pelasgians, and
the independent or patriarchal principle of the Hellenes, who exhibit
to us first ὑποφῆται, then μάντιες and θυοσκόοι, but who seem to know
nothing, as among themselves, of priests.
Like the Hellic races, the Persians of old were remarkable for personal
modesty. They did not practice any unnatural vice, until they learned
it from Greece[941]. They placed an extremely high value on their own
race, which they esteemed far before all others[942]. Different social
relations among those who were intimate were marked by differences in
the kiss[943]. Equals kissed with the mouths, unequals by the mouth
of one on the cheek of the other: while persons greatly inferior fell
prostrate. In the Odyssey, Ulysses kisses his son Telemachus (doubtless
on the face) (Od. xvi. 190), and Penelope kisses Telemachus on the head
and eyes (xvii. 39); but Ulysses kisses the king of Egypt, when he is
a suppliant (xiv. 279) on the knees, and the slave Dolius on the hands
(xxiv. 398): he kisses Eumæus and Philœtius on the head and hands,
while they embrace, but do not kiss him (xxi. 224, 5). Dolius held the
hand, and no more, of Ulysses. But the chief is kissed on the head and
eyes by his grandmother (Od. xix. 417.)
Like the Greeks, the Persians shore the hair in mourning. They held
lying to be the most disgraceful of all things. It was also disgraceful
to be called a woman[944]. Again, the Persians in the time of Crœsus
were highlanders[945], destitute of all the comforts of life, just
as Achilles describes the Helli round Dodona. Like the καρηκομόωντες
Ἀχαιοὶ, they wore their hair long[946].
All these are points of similarity. Upon the other hand, there are
two points of discrepancy, which may be noticed. The Persians had many
wives and concubines: and they did not burn their dead. Upon the first
of these points of discrepancy with the Greeks, the Persians were in
harmony with, at least, the ruling race of Troas; and polygamy must
always be an affair of ruling races, or of a select few.
A fragment of the old historian Xanthus[947] would lead us to suppose
that they derived this habit from the Medes, who, according to that
author, had no law of incest, and freely exchanged their wives.
On the second point, they differed from Troy: for the Trojans, like the
Greeks, burned their dead.
It was also the Persian custom to introduce women to their
banquets[948]. There is, however, a trace of this last-named practice
at least in the Olympian banquets of Homer. And it is plain that Arete,
the queen of Alcinous, was at the Phæacian banquet (Od. vii. 49, 50,
147, 8): but this may have been due to the unusual honour in which she
was held (Od. vii. 67). More ordinarily the Greek women do not appear
at meals with men.
Thus far we seem to be carried by the text of Herodotus standing alone.
And it should be borne in mind, that Ctesias, as he is reported in
Photius[949], though he condemns Herodotus as a teller of untruth, and
contradicts him in his narrative, does not question his account of
religion and manners.
_Evidence of the Behistun Inscription._
But the discovery and deciphering by Rawlinson of the Behistun
Inscription throws an additional light upon this question, and one
highly confirmatory of the general conclusions towards which we have
tended. The Magian, called Smerdis[950] by Herodotus, appears in this
Inscription under the name of Gomates: and it is now demonstrated,
that the revolution which he wrought, or of which he took advantage,
and which was reversed by Darius, was religious as well as political.
For, says the Inscription, ‘when Cambyses had proceeded to Egypt, the
state became irreligious.’ It is then related that Gomates obtained
the empire. But, says Darius, ‘I adored Ormuzd. Ormuzd brought me
aid.’ ‘Then did I, with faithful men, slay Gomates the Magian.... By
the grace of Ormuzd I became king. Ormuzd gave me the empire.... The
rites which Gomates the Magian had introduced I prohibited. I restored
the chants, and the worship, to the State, and to those families,
which Gomates the Magian had deprived of them.’ Thus Darius represents
in this great transaction the Persian party and its religion, as
against the Medians and the Magi. Hence arises a direct presumption
that the Magi were properly a Median class, and were adopted into the
Persian system, only in consequence of the connection and political
amalgamation of the Persians with the Medes.
Again, in a political point of view, we have the Persians clearly
exhibited as standing in the same relation to the Medes, which the
Helli held to the Pelasgi. The needy highlanders[951] come down upon
and overpower the richer and more advanced inhabitants of the central
valleys: under the Magian upstart, the latter take advantage of
the absence of the sovereign to rebel, but they are, after a short
interval, finally put down.
_The political system of Darius._
Darius, having obtained the throne, and established the Persian
supremacy, proceeded to organize the empire; and he appears to have
displayed in this great sphere the same thoroughly political mind
as the Hellenic races exhibited in their diminutive, but still
extraordinary polities. He divided the empire by a cadastral system,
under provincial governors; and he established everywhere fixed rates
of tribute. These were great departures from the old Greek form of
sovereignty: but we are now five centuries later than the heroic age:
and, besides, we must remember that the paternal and everywhere fixed
forms of government, which will suffice for very small states, are
not always applicable to large ones. Yet, as we learn from Herodotus,
the innovations of Darius were much resented by the Persians, who
under Cyrus, and even under Cambyses, knew nothing of fixed rates of
taxation, but offered benevolences (δῶρα) to the throne[952]; and a
saying came into vogue, that Cyrus was a father, Cambyses an autocrat
(δεσπότης), and Darius a tradesman (κάπηλος).
‘Landlord of England art thou now, not King[953].’
We seem to have here an emphatic testimony to the original identity of
the Persian and Hellic, or Hellenic ideas of government.
It is also worthy of remark, that in the case of Minos, who seems
to have held a large and disjointed empire, we have traditional,
and even Homeric indications of some proceeding not wholly unlike
this of Darius. For this prince, according to Thucydides, governed
the islands through his sons, that is, by a provincial organization
under local officers[954]; in Homer we find Rhadamanthus acting at a
distance, probably on his behalf; and we may perhaps hence conceive,
that there was truth in the tradition, afterwards so odious, that he
imposed tribute upon the then Pelasgian Attica. Minos indeed was a
reputed Phœnician: but in Homer the Phœnician and Persian traditions
are closely combined, and the poet appears to have treated Phœnicia as
the medium, perhaps even the symbol, of much that was Persian. Even
geographically I believe that he placed the two countries in very close
proximity.
It seems probable also, that we may consider the long continued
application of the term Βασιλεὺς by the Greeks to the Persian kings, as
having reference to an original identity of race and manners. It had
been their own original name for a monarch. When the ancient monarchies
passed away, so did the name from their usage; and the possessor of
singlehanded power among the Greeks, having in all cases obtained it by
the suppression of liberty, came to be called τύραννος; but the word
Βασιλεὺς continued to be used with reference to Persia, where the chain
of traditions had not been broken, and where monarchy had never ceased
to prevail; so that there had been no reason for a change of usage,
or for a deviation from the ancient respect and reverence towards the
possessor of a throne. Again, the traditional throne of Lacedæmon
continued to be held by Βασιλεῖς[955].
For the word Βασιλεὺς was one of no ordinary force; and down to a very
late date it must have been surrounded with venerable recollections.
It was borne by the emperors of Constantinople, and even at times
stickled for by them, as a title distinguishing them from the emperors
of the West. Though essentially Greek, it was also written in the
Latin character. Unlike the word _Rex_, it appears never to have been
applied to any ruler who exercised a merely derivative power. It
travelled so far westward as to our own island: and King Edgar, in a
charter, calls himself _Anglorum Basileus, omniumque Regum, Insularum,
Oceanique Britanniam circumjacentis, cunctarumque nationum, quæ infra
eam includuntur, Imperator et Dominus_[956].
_Hellenic traits in modern Persia._
Even now, after so many centuries of vicissitude, the Persian presents
numerous points of resemblance, perhaps more than we can find in
Modern Greece itself, to the primitive and heroic Greek of Homer.
Upon the whole, without doubt, he stands upon a lower level. Lying,
drunkenness, unnatural vice[957], the degradation of women, are all
now rife in Persia. But such things were to be expected after so many
ages of estrangement from the revealed knowledge of God, of moral
contamination, and of political depression and misgovernment. But
with allowance on these accounts, and on the score of the changes to
Magianism and Mahometanism, the old features are still retained, and
they present to our view abundant presumptions of identity.
The Persians[958] are still noted for hospitality and love of display:
for highly refined manners and great personal beauty. They have still
an intense love of poetry, of song, and also of music, while their
practice of this art is rude and simple: they still associate poetry
(sometimes licentious, as in the Eighth Odyssey) with recitation and
the banquet; and, when Malcolm wrote, printing was still unknown among
the useful arts of the country. They are passionately fond of horses,
much given to the chase and to the practice of horse-racing[959]. Men
of letters are esteemed, and their society valued, even as in the
Odyssey the Bard is among those whom men are accustomed to invite to
dinner[960]. On the occasion of a marriage they celebrate prolonged
feasts of three days for the poor, and from that up to thirty or forty
days for the highest classes. Amidst great depravity, much of filial
piety and of maternal influence remains[961]. It is observed that they
do not usually allude to women by name[962]. There is an approach to
this abstinence in the Homeric poems; where names of men, and likewise
of goddesses, in the vocative are frequent, but I am not sure that we
have any instances of a woman addressed by her proper name throughout
the Iliad or Odyssey. But certainly one of the most curious notes of
similarity is that, together with their high and refined politeness,
they retain a liability, when under great excitement, to a sort of
cannibal ferocity. A recent writer states[963] the following anecdotes.
A few years ago, the chieftain of a tribe slew in a feud the chieftain
of another. Shortly afterwards he was attacked while on a journey,
taken after vigorous resistance, and put to death. His heart, if we may
believe the recital, was then roasted, and was eaten by the mother of
his former victim. And again; the husband of a beautiful young woman
had been slain by a rival chief. The widow, who had been much attached
to the dead warrior, would minutely describe the incidents of the
catastrophe, and then, lifting up her hands to heaven, would pray to
Ali to deliver the murderer into her hands, ‘that having cut out his
heart, I may make it into kibabs, and eat it before I die.’ These are
certainly most pointed proofs that Homer has proceeded with his usual
veracity, as an observer and chronicler of man, when he shocks us by
making Achilles wish he could eat Hector, and Hecuba wish she could
eat Achilles; nay, even when he yet further proves that this idea was
familiar to his race and age, by making Jupiter tell Juno, she would,
he believes, be well content to eat Priam and all his sons.
_The Eelliats: Media and the Pelasgi._
To appreciate fully, however, the resemblances of Greek and Persian,
we must take the latter as he is found in the military tribes of the
province of Pars or Fars. The members of these tribes are chiefly
horsemen, all soldiers, and all brigands. But they abhor the name and
character of thief; plunder is redeemed by violence in their eyes,
and it is evidently accompanied with the practice of a generous and
delicate hospitality. Elsewhere in Persia many degrading customs
prevail, and women are regarded chiefly with a view to sensual use;
but among these military tribes they are more highly valued, and are
of remarkable modesty and chastity; yet they have an innocent freedom
in their good offices to strangers[964], which at once recalls the
Greek maidens of the Odyssey. Adultery is capitally punishable.
Alexander the Great endeavoured to bring these tribes to settle, and
to adopt agricultural habits; but they have defied his efforts, and
still remain like the old Helli of the hills, when they hung over
the Pelasgians of the valleys. It is to be observed, that they are
particularly mentioned in the Eteo-Persian province of Fars: and
further, that they bear the name Eelleat[965], which at least presents
a striking resemblance to that of the Helli. The aspirate would pass
into the doubled ε, like ἡλιος into ἠελιος, or ἕδνα into ἔεδνα. So
Helli is the equivalent of Eelli.
In sum, the ancient Persians, like the Helli, were of Arian race,
of highland character and habits, inhabitants of a rude country:
apparently children of Japhet, akin closely to the Hellenes, and less
palpably to the Osci and Umbri.
The Medians were _civilly_ in a more advanced stage of social life, and
were possessed of greater wealth, but endowed with inferior energies.
They are presumed by many to have been of the race of Ham: to have
peopled Egypt, and to be akin to the ancient Sicani, to the Basques,
the Esthonians, the Lapps, and the Finns of modern Europe. For the
purposes of this inquiry, they are to be regarded as in all likelihood
the immediate fountain-head of the wide-spread Pelasgian races.
We began under the warning of Mr. Grote: and I fear that we end
under the implied ban of another very able and recent writer, Dr.
Latham[966]. He considers that we have been put in possession of no
facts with respect to the Pelasgi more than those three, so slight and
so incapable of effective combination, which are recognised by Mr.
Grote[967]. But the principle he lays down is that, by which I wish
to be tried. He says, the scholar finds a ποῦ στῶ in the _dictum_ of
this or that author, but the sound ethnologist ‘on the last testified
fact:’ he demands for his basis ‘the existing state of things as either
known to ourselves, or known to contemporaries capable of learning them
at the period nearest the time under consideration.’ It appears to me
that the text of Homer, so far as it goes, answers this demand: that
his accounts of Pelasgian, Hellene, and Achæan, when we can get at
them, and when we take into view his epoch and means of information,
come clearly within the meaning of ‘testified facts’ in regard to that
particular subject matter. I admit that, from their incidental and
often unconscious nature, there is a great liability to error in the
attempt to elicit them: but my assertion is, that the ground under foot
is sound; and that, though we may go astray while travelling it, yet we
are not attempting to tread upon a quicksand. As to the success with
which this principle has here been applied, I am not too sanguine; but
I contend earnestly for the principle itself, because I believe that it
will, when admitted, legitimately work out its own results, and that
they will make no unimportant addition to the primary facts of that
great branch of philosophy, the history, and most of all the early
history, of man.
FOOTNOTES:
[894] New Cratylus, ch. iv. p. 77.
[895] Hist. of Persia, ii. 507.
[896] Quart. Rev. vol. 101. p. 503.
[897] Malcolm’s Hist. chap. i. p. 1. n.
[898] Herod. i. 125.
[899] Ibid. 96.
[900] New Cratylus, p. 86.
[901] Blakesley on Herod, i. 104.
[902] New Cratylus, chap. iv. as above.
[903] New Cratylus, p. 92.
[904] Tac. Germ. c. 2. and Brotier’s note.
[905] Strabo vii. 2. p. 290.
[906] Il. iii. 166. cf. 226.
[907] Od. xi. 469.
[908] Il. xvii. 51.
[909] Il. v. 500.
[910] Propertius.
[911] Tac. Germ. i. 4.
[912] New Cratylus, p. 91.
[913] Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 299 C, and 308 A (Ed. Coloniæ 1688).
[914] Blakesley on Herod. i. 125.
[915] Il. xiv. 319.
[916] Od. iii. 414, 444.
[917] Od. ix. 139.
[918] Herod. vii. 61.
[919] Herod. vi. 53, 4.
[920] Strabo xi. 10. p. 516.
[921] Rev. G. Rawlinson’s Herodotus, vol. i. p. 264. note 5.
[922] Inf. p. 571.
[923] vi. 54.
[924] Herod. i. 113.
[925] Tac. Germ. c. 9.
[926] Blakesley’s Herodotus, vol. i. 428. Exc. on iii. 74.
[927] Müller’s Comparative Mythology, p. 45, in Oxford Essays for 1856.
[928] Inf. Religion and Morals, sect. 3.
[929] iii. 16.
[930] Il. xviii. 394, et seqq.
[931] i. 138.
[932] This subject will be resumed in treating of the Trojans.
[933] Herod. i. 131.
[934] Malcolm’s Persia, vol. i. p. 185.
[935] Döllinger’s Heidenthum und Judenthum, vi. 2.
[936] See ‘The Religion of the Homeric Age,’ sect. ii.
[937] Il. iii. 276.
[938] Herod. vii. 114.
[939] i. 132.
[940] In loc.
[941] Herod i. 133, 135.
[942] Ibid. 134.
[943] Ibid.
[944] Il. ii. 235.
[945] Herod. i. 71, and ix. 122.
[946] Herod. vii. 19.
[947] Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Life, p. cxlviii. n.
[948] Herod. i. 135. iii. 16. v. 18.
[949] Photii Biblioth. Cod. lxxii.
[950] See Blakesley’s Excursus on Herod. iii. 74.
[951] Herod, ix. 122.
[952] Herod. iii. 89.
[953] Shakspeare’s Richard II.
[954] Thuc. i. 4.
[955] Ar. Pol. III. xiv. 3.
[956] Selden’s Titles of Honour, chap. ii.
[957] Malcolm’s Persia, ii. 585. 631, 6. Quarterly Review, vol. 101. p.
510.
[958] The traits mentioned in the text, where there is no special
reference, are drawn from the three last chapters of Malcolm’s Persia.
[959] Malcolm’s Persia, ii. 550, 558, 566, 611.
[960] Ibid. 576. Grote’s History of Greece, P. I. c. xxi. vol. ii. p.
196 n.
[961] Ibid. 616, and Quart. Rev. p. 509.
[962] Quart. Rev. vol. 101. p. 509 n.
[963] Quart. Rev. vol. 101. p. 50.
[964] Malcolm, ii. 613.
[965] Malcolm, i. 369. ii. 597, 634, 638.
[966] Latham’s Man and his Migrations, pp. 33-6.
[967] History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 352.
ADDENDA.
Page 106. On the possible migration of the Dodonæan oracle, see below,
p. 238.
P. 126. On the theory of Curtius respecting the Ionians, see p. 480.
P. 153. The wealth of Egyptian Thebes was known to Achilles; see Il.
ix. 381.
P. 167. The Birth of Minos will be more fully discussed in connection
with the Outer Geography of the Odyssey. On the ancient and extensive
influence of Phœnicia upon Crete, see Höck’s Creta, vol. i. pp. 68 and
seqq.
P. 186. On the word _lupus_, see Müller’s Dorians, II. vi. 8, 9, for
its relation to λευκὸς, λυκὴ, λυκηγενὴς, or light-born, and _lux_.
P. 306. In general confirmation of what has been said above on the
subject of language, I may refer to the _Römische Geschichte_[968] of
Mommsen, which had not come under my eye when the Seventh Section went
to press.
His conclusions are;