efforts of a race devoid of models,
they might fairly have been regarded as not altogether without promise.
But, considered as the work of a nation which possessed the Achaemenian
sculptures, and which had moreover, to a certain extent, access to Greek
examples, a they must be pronounced clumsy, coarse, and wanting in all
the higher qualities of Fine Art. It is no wonder that they are scanty
and exceptional. The nation which could produce nothing better must have
felt that its vocation was not towards the artistic, and that its powers
had better be employed in other directions, e.g. in conquest and in
organization. It would seem that the Parthians perceived this, and
therefore devoted slight attention to the Fine Arts, preferring to
occupy themselves mainly with those pursuits in which they excelled;
viz. war, hunting, and government.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Customs of the Parthians--in Religion; in War; in their Embassies and
Dealings with Foreign Nations; at the Court; in Private Life. Extent of
the Refinement to which they reached. Their gradual Decline in Taste and
Knowledge.

Very little is known as to the religion of the Parthians. It seems
probable that during the Persian period they submitted to the
Zoroastrian system, which was generally maintained by the Achaemenian
kings, acquiescing, like the great bulk of the conquered nations, in
the religious views of their conquerors; but as this was not their
own religion, we may conclude that they were at no time very zealous
followers of the Bactrian prophet, and that as age succeeded age they
became continually more lukewarm in their feelings, and more lax
in their religious practice. The essence of Zoroastrian belief was
dualism--recognition of Ormazd as the great Principle of Good, and of
Ahriman as the Principle of Evil. We need not doubt that, in word, the
Parthians from first to last admitted this antagonism, and professed
a belief in Ormazd as the supreme god, and a dread of Ahriman and his
ministers. But practically, their religious aspirations rested, not on
these dim abstractions, but on beings whose existence they could better
realize, and whom they could feel to be less remote from themselves.
The actual devotion of the Parthians was offered to the Sun and Moon,
to deities who were supposed to preside over the royal house, and to
ancestral idols which each family possessed, and conveyed with it from
place to place with every change of habitation. The