in his foundation of several harbours, described by Nearchus, on the Persian coast. But this design is still more patent in his completion of a great canal, already begun by Necho, from the Nile to Suez, along which several monuments of Darius have been preserved. Thus it was possible, as says the remnant of an hieroglyphic inscription there discovered, “for ships to sail direct from the Nile to Persia, over Saba.” In the time of Herodotus the canal was in constant use (ii. 158, iv. 39): afterwards, when Egypt regained her independence, it decayed, till restored by the second Ptolemy. Even the circumnavigation of Africa was attempted under Xerxes (Herod. iv. 43).
It has already been mentioned, that, in his efforts to conciliate the Egyptians, Darius placed his chief reliance on the priesthood: and the same tendency runs throughout the imperial policy toward the conquered races. Thus Cyrus himself gave the exiled Jews in Babylon permission to return and rebuild Jerusalem. Darius allowed the restoration of the Temple; and Artaxerxes I, by the protection accorded to Ezra and Nehemiah, made the foundation of Judaism possible (see Jews: §§ 19 sqq.). Analogously in an edict, of which a later copy is preserved in an inscription (see above), Darius commands Gadatas, the governor of a domain (παράδεισοι) in Magnesia on the Maeander, to observe scrupulously the privileges of the Apollo-sanctuary. With all the Greek oracles—even those in the mother-country—the Persians were on the best of terms. And since these might reasonably expect an enormous extension of their influence from the establishment of a Persian dominion, we ind them all zealously medizing during the expedition of Xerxes.
For the development of the Asiatic religions, the Persian Empire was of prime importance. The definite erection of a single, vast, world-empire cost them their original connexion with the state, and compelled them in future to address themselves, not to the community at large, but to individuals, to promise, not political success nor the independence of the people, Religion. but the welfare of the man. Thus they became at once universal and capable of extension by propaganda; and, with this, of entering into keen competition one with the other. These traits are most clearly marked in Judaism; but, after the Achaemenid period, they are common to all Oriental creeds, though our information as to most is scanty in the extreme.
In this competition of religions that of Iran played a most spirited part. The Persian kings—none more so than Darius, whose religious convictions are enshrined in his inscriptions—and, with the kings, their people, were ardent professors of the pure doctrine of Zoroaster; and the Persians settled in the provinces diffused his creed throughout the whole empire. Thus a strong Persian propagandism arose especially in Armenia and Cappadocia, where the religion took deep root among the people, but also in Lydia and Lycia. In the process, however, important modifications were introduced. In contrast with Judaism, Zoroastrianism did not enter the lists against all gods save its own, but found no difficulty in recognizing them as subordinate powers—helpers and servants of Ahuramazda. Consequently, the foreign creeds often reacted upon the Persian. In Cappadocia, Aramaic inscriptions have been discovered (1900), in which the indigenous god, there termed Bel the king, recognizes the “Mazdayasnian Religion” (Dīn Mazdayasnish)—i.e. the religion of Ahuramazda personified as a woman—as his sister and wife (Lidzbarski, Ephem. f. semit. Epigr. 1. 59 sqq.).
The gorgeous cult of the gods of civilization (especially of Babylon), with their host of temples, images and festivals, exercised a corresponding influence on the mother-country. Moreover, the unadulterated doctrine of Zoroaster could no more become a permanent popular religion than can Christianity. For the masses can make little of abstractions and an omnipotent, omnipresent deity; they need concrete divine powers, standing nearer to themselves and their lot. Thus the old figures of the Aryan folk-religion return to the foreground, there to be amalgamated with the Babylonian divinities. The goddess of springs and streams (of the Oxus in particular) and of all fertility—Ardvisura Anahita, Anaitis—is endowed with the form of the Babylonian Ishtar and Belit. She is now depicted as a beautiful and strong woman, with prominent breasts, a golden crown of stars and golden raiment. She is worshipped as the goddess of generation and all sexual life (cf. Herod. i. 131, where the names of Mithras and Anaitis are interchanged); and religious prostitution is transferred to her service (Strabo xi. 532, xii. 559). At her side stands the sun-god Mithras, who is represented as a young and victorious hero. Both deities occupy the very first rank in the popular creed; while to the theologian they are the most potent of the good powers—Mithras being the herald and propagator of the service of Light and the mediator betwixt man and Ahuramazda, who now fades more into the background. Thus, in the subsequent period, the Persian religion appears purely as the religion of Mithras. The festival of Mithras is the chief festival of the empire, at which the king drinks and is drunken, and dances the national dance (Ctes. fr. 55; Duris fr. 13). This development culminated under Artaxerxes II., who, according to Berossus (fr. 16 ap. Clem. Alex. prot. 1. 5, 65), first erected statues to Anaitis in Persegglis, Ecbatana, Bactria, Susa, Babylon, Damascus and Sardis. The truth of this account is proved by the fact that Artaxerxes II. and Artaxerxes III. are the only Achaemenids who, in their inscriptions, invoke Anaitis and Mithra side by side with Ahuramazda. Other gods, who come into prominence, are the dragon-slayer Verethraghna (Artagnes) and the Good Thought (Vohumano, Omanos); and even the Sacaean festival is adopted from Babylon (Berossus fr. 3; Ctes. fr. 16; Strabo xi. 512, &c.). The chief centres of the Persian cults in the west were the district of Acilisene in Armenia (Strabo xi. 532, &c.), the town of Zela in Cappadocia (Strabo xii. 559), and several cities in Lydia.
The position of the Persian monarchy as a world-empire is characteristically emphasized in the buildings of Darius and Xerxes in Persepolis and Susa. The peculiarly national basis, still recognizable in Cyrus’s architecture at Pasargadae, recedes into insignificance. The royal edifices and sculptures are dependent, mainly, on Babylonian models, but, at the same time, Art. we can trace in them the influence of Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor; the last in the rock-sepulchres. All these elements are combined into an organic unity, which achieved the greatest creations that Oriental architecture has found possible. Nevertheless, the result is not a national art, but the art of a world-empire; and it is obvious that foreign craftsmen must have been active in the royal services—among them, the Greek sculptor Telephanes of Phocaea (Pliny xxxiv. 68). So, with the collapse of the empire, the imperial art vanishes also: and when, some 500 years later, a new art arose under the Sassanids, whose achievements stand to those of Achaemenid art in much the same relation as the achievements of the two dynasties to each other, we discover only isolated reminiscences of its predecessor.
For the organization and character of the Persian Empire, see Barnabas Brisson, De regio Persarum principatu libri iii. (1590); Heeren, Ideen über Politik, Handel und Verkehr der alten Welt, i., G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, ii. 555 sqq.; Five Eastern Monarchies, iii.; Eduard Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, iii. On the Satrapies, cf. Krumbholz, De Asiae minoris satrapiis persicis (1883). See also Mithras.
3. History of the Achaemenian Empire.—The history of the Persian Empire was often written by the Greeks. The most ancient work preserved is that of Herodotus (q.v.), who supplies rich and valuable materials for the period ending in 479 B.C. These materials are drawn partly from sound tradition, partly from original knowledge—as in the account of the satrapies and their distribution, the royal highway, the nations in Xerxes’ army and their equipment. They also contain much that is admittedly fabulous: for instance, the stories of Cyrus and Croesus, the conquest of Babylon, &c. Forty years later (c. 390 B.C.), the physician Ctesias of Cnidus, who for 17 years (414–398 B.C.) remained in the service of the Great King, composed a great work on the Persian history, known to us from an extract in Photius and numerous fragments. Ctesias (q.v.) possesses a more precise acquaintance with Persian views and institutions than Herodotus; and, where he deals with matters that came under his own cognisance, he gives much useful information. For the early period, on the other hand, he only proves how rapidly the tradition had degenerated since Herodotus, and here his narrations can only be utilized in isolated cases, and that with the greatest caution. Of more value was the great work of Dinon of Colophon (c. 340), which we know from numerous excellent fragments; and on the same level may be placed a few statements from Heraclides of Cyme, which afford specially important evidence on Persian institutions. To these must be added the testimony of the other Greek historians (Thucydides, Ephorus, Theopompus, &c., with the histories of Alexander), and, before all that of Xenophon in the Anabasis and Hellenica. The Cyropaedia is a didactic romance, written with a view to Greek institutions and rarely preserving genuine information on the Persian Empire. Of Oriental sources, only the contemporary books of Ezra and Nehemiah are of much importance: also, a few statements in the much later Esther romance. Berossus’s history of Babylon contained much valuable and trustworthy information, but next to nothing has survived. That the native tradition almost entirely forgot the Achaemenid Empire, has been mentioned above. For a more detailed account
