FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93  
94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   >>   >|  
er they neither make water nor spit, neither do they wash their hands in it, nor allow any other to do these things, but they reverence rivers very greatly. 139. This moreover also has chanced to them, which the Persians have themselves failed to notice but I have not failed to do so:--their names, which are formed to correspond with their bodily shapes or their magnificence of station, end all with the same letter, that letter which the Dorians call san and the Ionians sigma; with this you will find, if you examine the matter, that all the Persian names end, not some with this and others with other letters, but all alike. 140. So much I am able to say for certain from my own knowledge about them: but what follows is reported about their dead as a secret mystery and not with clearness, namely that the body of a Persian man is not buried until it has been torn by a bird or a dog. (The Magians I know for a certainty have this practice, for they do it openly.) However that may be, the Persians cover the body with wax and then bury it in the earth. Now the Magians are distinguished in many ways from other men, as also from the priests in Egypt: for these last esteem it a matter of purity to kill no living creature except the animals which they sacrifice; but the Magians kill with their own hands all creatures except dogs and men, and they even make this a great end to aim at, killing both ants and serpents and all other creeping and flying things. About this custom then be it as it was from the first established; and I now to the former narrative. 145 141. The Ionians and Aiolians, as soon as the Lydians had been subdued by the Persians, sent messengers to Cyrus at Sardis, desiring to be his subjects on the same terms as they had been subjects of Croesus. And when he heard that which they proposed to him, he spoke to them a fable, saying that a certain player on the pipe saw fishes in the sea and played on his pipe, supposing that they would come out to land; but being deceived in his expectation, he took a casting-net and enclosed a great multitude of the fishes and drew them forth from the water: and when he saw them leaping about, he said to the fishes: "Stop dancing I pray you now, seeing that ye would not come out and dance before when I piped." Cyrus spoke this fable to the Ionians and Aiolians for this reason, because the Ionians had refused to comply before, when Cyrus himself by a messenger requested them to
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93  
94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Ionians

 

Persians

 

fishes

 

Magians

 

matter

 
Persian
 

Aiolians

 

subjects

 

failed

 
things

letter

 
comply
 

killing

 

refused

 

requested

 

messengers

 

subdued

 

Lydians

 

custom

 

creeping


flying

 

established

 

narrative

 

serpents

 

messenger

 

multitude

 

enclosed

 

player

 

played

 

supposing


expectation

 
casting
 

leaping

 

deceived

 

desiring

 
Sardis
 

Croesus

 

proposed

 

dancing

 

reason


examine

 

station

 

Dorians

 

letters

 

magnificence

 

shapes

 
reverence
 

rivers

 

greatly

 

formed