Beacon Lights of History, Volume 04 | Page 5

of the Zoroastrian faith became unduly
powerful, and enslaved the people by many superstitions, such as the
multiplication of rites and ceremonies and the interpretation of dreams
and omens. They united spiritual with temporal authority, as a powerful
priesthood is apt to do,--a fact which the Christian priesthood of the
Middle Ages made evident in the Occidental world.
In the time of Cyrus the Magi had become a sort of sacerdotal caste.
They were the trusted ministers of kings, and exercised a controlling
influence over the people. They assumed a stately air, wore white and
flowing robes, and were adept in the arts of sorcery and magic. They
were even consulted by kings and chieftains, as if they possessed
prophetic power. They were a picturesque body of men, with their
mystic wands, their impressive robes, their tall caps, appealing by their
long incantations and frequent ceremonies and prayers to the eye and to
the ear. "Pure Zoroastrianism was too spiritual to coalesce readily with
Oriental luxury and magnificence when the Persians were rulers of a
vast empire, but Magism furnished a hierarchy to support the throne

and add splendor and dignity to the court, while it blended easily with
previous creeds."
In material civilization the Medes and Persians were inferior to the
Babylonians and Egyptians, and immeasurably behind the Greeks and
Romans. Their architecture was not so imposing as that of the
Egyptians and Babylonians; it had no striking originality, and it was
only in the palaces of great monarchs that anything approached
magnificence. Still, there were famous palaces at Ecbatana, Susa, and
Persepolis, raised on lofty platforms, reached by grand staircases, and
ornamented with elaborate pillars. The most splendid of these were
erected after the time of Cyrus, by Darius and Xerxes, decorated with
carpets, hangings, and golden ornaments. The halls of their palaces
were of great size and imposing effect. Next to palaces, the most
remarkable buildings were the tombs of kings; but we have no remains
of marble statues or metal castings or ivory carvings, not even of
potteries, which at that time in other countries were common and
beautiful. The gems and signet rings which the Persians engraved
possessed much merit, and on them were wrought with great skill the
figures of men and animals; but the nearest approach to sculpture were
the figures of colossal bulls set to guard the portals of palaces, and
these were probably borrowed from the Assyrians.
Nor were the Persians celebrated for their textile fabrics and dyes. "So
long as the carpets of Babylon, the shawls of India, the fine linen of
Egypt, and the coverlets of Damascus poured continually into Persia in
the way of tribute and gifts, there was no stimulus to manufacture." The
same may be said of the ornamental metal-work of the Greeks, and the
glass manufacture of the Phoenicians. The Persians were soldiers, and
gloried in being so, to the disdain of much that civilization has ever
valued.
It may as well be here said that the Iranians, both Medes and Persians,
were acquainted with the art of writing. Harpagus sent a letter to Cyrus
concealed in the belly of a hare, and Darius signed a decree which his
nobles presented to him in writing. In common with the Babylonians
they used the same alphabetic system, though their languages were

unlike,--namely, the cuneiform or arrow-head or wedge-shaped
characters, as seen in the celebrated inscriptions of Darius on the side
of a high rock thirty feet from the ground. We cannot determine
whether the Medes and Persians brought their alphabet from their
original settlements in Central Asia, or derived it from the Turanian and
Semitic nations with which they came in contact. In spite of their
knowledge of writing, however, they produced no literature of any
account, and of science they were completely ignorant. They made few
improvements even in military weapons, the chief of which, as among
all the nations of antiquity, were the bow, the spear, and the sword.
They were skilful horsemen, and made use of chariots of war. Their
great occupation, aside from agriculture, was hunting, in which they
were trained by exposure for war. They were born to conquer and rule,
like the Romans, and cared for little except the warlike virtues.
Such were the Persians and the rugged country in which they lived,
with their courage and fortitude, their love of freedom, their patriotism,
their abhorrence of lies, their self-respect allied with pride, their
temperance and frugality, forming a noble material for empire and
dominion when the time came for the old monarchies to fall into their
hands,--the last and greatest of all the races that had ruled the Oriental
world, and kindred in their remote ancestry with those European
conquerors who laid the foundation of modern civilization.
Of these Persians Cyrus