Persian Customs According to Herodotus
From Herodotus translated by William Beloe, 1830.
From: 484 B.C.E. To: 525 B.C.E.
Location: Persepolis, Iran
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Herodotus translated by William Beloe, 1830.
CXXXI. My attention to the subject has enabled me to make the following observations on the manners and customs of the Persians. They have among them neither statues, temples, nor altars; the use of which they censure as impious, and a gross violation of reason, probably because, in opposition to the Greeks, they do not believe that the gods partake of our human nature.
Their custom is to offer from the summits of the highest mountains sacrifices to Jove, distinguishing by that appellation all the expanse of the firmament. They also adore the sun, the moon, earth, fire, water, and the winds, which may be termed their original deities. In aftertimes, from the examples of the Assyrians and Arabians, they added Urania to this number. The name of the Assyrian Venus is Mylitta, whom the Arabians call Alitta, and the Persians Mithra.
CXXXII. Their mode of paying their devotions to the above-mentioned deities, confirmed by undeviating custom, is to sacrifice to them without altars or fire libations or instrumental music, garlands or consecrated cakes; but every individual, as he wishes to sacrifice to any particular divinity, conducts his victim to a place made clean for the purpose, and makes his invocation or his prayers with a tiara enriched generally with myrtle.
The supplicant is not permitted to implore blessings on himself alone; his whole nation, and particularly his sovereign, have a claim to his prayers, himself being necessarily comprehended with the rest. He proceeds to divide his victim into several minute parts, which, when boiled, he places on the most delicate verdure he can find, giving the preference to trefoil. When things are thus prepared, one of the magi, without whose presence no sacrifice is deemed lawful, stands up and chants the primeval origin of the gods, which they suppose to have a sacred and mysterious influence. The worshipper after this takes with him, for his own use, such parts of the flesh as he thinks proper.
CXXXIII. Among all their festivals each individual pays particular regard to his birthday, when they indulge themselves with better fare than usual. The more rich among them prepare on this day an ox, a horse, a camel, or an ass, which is roasted whole; the poorer sort are satisfied with a lamb or a sheep: they eat but sparingly of meat, but are fond of the after dishes, which are separately introduced. From hence the Persians take occasion to say that the Grecians do not leave their tables satisfied, having nothing good to induce them to continue there—if they had they would eat more.
Of wine they drink profusely: but they may not vomit before any one; which customs they still observe. They are accustomed to deliberate on matters of the highest moment when warm with wine; but whatever they in this situation may determine is again proposed to them on the morrow, in their cooler moments, by the person in whose house they had before assembled. If at this time also it meet their approbation, it is executed, otherwise it is rejected. Whatever also they discuss when sober, is always a second time examined after they have been drinking.
CXXXIV. If they meet at any time by accident, the rank of each party is easily discovered: if they are of equal dignity, they salute each other on the mouth; if one is an inferior, they only kiss the cheek; if there be a great difference in situation, the inferior falls prostrate on the ground.
They treat with most respect those who live nearest to them; as they become more and more remote their esteem of each other diminishes; for those who live very distant from them they entertain not the smallest regard: esteeming themselves the most excellent of mankind, they think that the value of others must diminish in proportion to their distance.
During the empire of the Medes there was a regular gradation of authority; the Medes governed all as well as their neighbors, but these also were superior to those contiguous to them, who again held the next nation in subjection; which example the Persians followed when their dominions became extended, and their authority increased.
CXXXV. The Persians are of all men most inclined to adopt foreign manners: thinking the dress of the Medes more becoming than their own, they wear it in preference. They use also, in their armies, the Egyptian breastplate; they discover an ardor for all pleasures of which they have heard; and each man has many wives, but many more concubines.
CXXXVI. Next to valor in the field, a man is esteemed in proportion to the number of his offspring; to him who has the greater number of children the king every year sends presents; their national strength depending, as they suppose, on their numbers. From their fifth to their twentieth year they instruct their children in three things only, the art of the bow, horsemanship, and a strict regard to truth.
Till his fifth year a boy is kept in the female apartments, and not permitted to see his father: the motive of which is, that if the child die before this period, his death may give no uneasiness to the father.
CXXXVII. This custom appears commendable: I cannot but think highly of that custom also, which does not allow even the sovereign to put any one to death for a single offence; neither from any one provocation is a Persian permitted to exercise extreme severity in his family.
Severity is there only lawful when, after careful examination, the offences are found to exceed the merits. They will not believe that any one ever killed his parent: when such accidents have apparently happened, they assert their belief that the child would, on inquiry, be found either to have been the produce of adultery, or spurious; conceiving it altogether impossible that any real parent can be killed by his own offspring.
CXXXVIII. Whatever they may not act with impunity, they cannot mention without guilt. They hold falsehood in the greatest abhorrence; next to which they esteem it disgraceful to be in debt, as well for other reasons, as for the temptations to falsehood, which they think it necessarily introduces.
A leprous Persian must neither enter the city, nor have communication with any of his countrymen; this disease they always think occasioned by some offence committed against the sun.
If a foreigner is afflicted with it, he is tumultuously expelled the country. They have also, for the same reason, an aversion to white pigeons.
To all rivers they pay extreme veneration; they will neither spit, wash their hands, nor throw any filth in any of them; and a violation of this custom may not happen with impunity.
CXXXIX. They have one peculiarity, which, though they are not aware of it themselves, is notorious to us; all those words which are expressive of personal or of any other distinction, terminate in the Doric san, which is the same with the Ionic sigma: and attentive observation will farther discover that all the names of Persians end without exception alike.
CXL. The above remarks are delivered without hesitation, as being the result of my own positive knowlege. They have other customs, concerning which, as they are of a secret nature, I will not pretend to express myself decisively: as to what relates to their dead, I will not affirm it to be true that these never are interred till some bird or dog has discovered a propensity to prey on them.
This, however, is unquestionably certain of the magi, who publicly observe this custom. The Persians first inclose the dead body in wax, and afterwards place it in the ground. Their magi are a distinct body of men, having many peculiarities, which distinguish them from others, and from the Egyptian priests in particular.
These last think it essential to their sanctity to destroy no animals but the victims of sacrifice. The magi except a man and a dog, but put other animals without compunction to death. They even think it an action highly meritorious to destroy serpents, ants, and the different species of reptiles.—After this digression I return to my former subject.
Herodotus. Translated by William Beloe, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830.
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