The inconsistency, however, vanishes if we assume, with Max Duncker,* that temples not of the Persians or Medes are meant, but of the subject nations. We have seen that Kyros and, in imitation of him, his son Kambyses made it a point not only to tolerate, but personally to honor, the religions of conquered countries. It is very natural to suppose that the usurper wonld be uninfluenced by the dictates of sound statecraft, and, blindly following his priestly zeal, would neglect and even destroy these to him. abominable seats and landmarks of heathenism. Dareios, no less naturally, immediately resumed the liberal and conciliatory policy of his house, and mentions it in his annals as a claim on the regard of a large portion of his subjects. We must remember that all the Akhæmenian monumental documents are trilingual, because addressed to three distinct races, and that, numerically, the Mazdayasnians formed the minority. We are forcibly reminded of this fact by one apparently slight detail. In the Turanian version (that which has been called the Proto-Median, or Amardian, or, more lately, Scythic), the name of Ahura-Mazda is accompanied with the explanatory clause, "the god of the Aryas." The Babylonian version speaks of "houses of the gods,' an expression which excludes both Persians and Medes.

5. That Dareios himself was a Mazdayasnian, and an earnest one, of that the language used in his inscriptions leaves no shadow of a doubt. Near the Persian capital of which he was the founder, and

* Max Duncker, "Geschichte des Alterthums," vol. IV., p. 458.

which is known to us only by its Greek name, PERSEPOLIS, there is a perpendicular rock called NAKHSHI-RUSTEM, in which are hewn the tombs, or rather sepulchral chambers, of Dareios and three of his immediate successors, representing the front of palaces, after the manner of the Lycian rock-tombs. (See Chap. VIII.) They are richly adorned with sculptures, among which we especially note the frieze representing a procession of dogs-the sacred animal of the Avesta; the king, standing on a platform, leaning on his bow-unstrung, for the work of life is done,—in adoration before the blazing firealtar, the sun-disk, and the hovering emblem of Ahura-Mazda. (See ill. 56).

Of the three tombs in the row, that of Dareios alone has an inscription, which in some ways completes the record of Behistûn, having been indited several years later. It begins with the most solemn profession of faith, which affects one like the farswelling peal of some great organ:

'A great god is Ahura-Mazda; he has created this earth, he has created yonder heaven, he has created man, and all pleasant things for man, he has made Darayâvush king, the only king of many."

Then follows a brief review of his deeds and of his conquests, piously referred to "the grace of Ahura-Mazda." No Hebrew monotheist could be more absolute and emphatic:

"That which I have done, I have all done through the grace of Ahura-Mazda. Ahura-Mazda brought me help, till I had performed the work. May he protect me and my clan and this land.

The same statement is repeated several times in

the Behistûn annals, and though he twice qualifies it by the addition, "Ahura-Mazda and the other gods that are," these words have not in the original the decided polytheistic coloring that a modern rendering gives them. We know that Mazdeism admitted of divine beings subordinate to the One who is Supreme, and such, no doubt, is the meaning here. Another trait characteristic of the Mazdayasnian is the use he makes of the word "lie," which is throughout equivalent to "evil," "wickedness." After the departure of Kambyses, we are told that "the lie became abounding in the kingdom." And the word used is the Avestan "druj," in the more modern form " darauga." Towards the end of the record Dareios says: For this reason Ahura-Mazda brought help to me, and the other gods that are, that I was not wicked, nor was I a liar [“ daraujhana" Avestan "drujvan"], nor was I a tyrant."

6. From these passages, which breathe the spirit rather of the Gâthas than of the Yasna or Vendîdâd, we may conclude that King Dareios was a Mazdayasnian of the early uncorrupted school, and, with much probability, that the alterations introduced into the doctrine and ritual by the Median Magi (see p. 271) had not been adopted by the Persians. At least they do not appear to have followed the prescriptions of the Vendîdâd in their treatment of the dead,―certainly not strictly. Their kings we find entombed in elaborately wrought sepulchres, not exposed to the birds. But we saw that this custom is a borrowed one, a fact betrayed by the very word "Dakhma," which originally meant "the place

of burning," showing that the early Eranians, like their brethren of India, were familiar with cremaHerodotus has a curious passage, from which

tion.*

56. DETAIL OF AKHÆMENIAN TOMB.
(Compare Lycian rock-tombs, ch. viii.)

it would seem that the practice of exposing the dead was gaining ground in Persia in his time (middle of the fifth century B.C.), but in a sort of underhand "Geschichte des Alten Persiens," p. 88.

* Justi,