ons. The poets sing the praises of the most renowned leaders
and the victories. Nevertheless, if any of them should deceive even
by disparaging a foreign hero, he is punished. No one can exercise the
function of a poet who invents that which is not true, and a license
like this they think to be a pest of our world, for the reason that it
puts a premium upon virtue and often assigns it to unworthy persons,
either from fear of flattery, or ambition, or avarice.

For the praise of no one is a statue erected until after his death; but
while he is alive, who has found out new arts and very useful secrets,
or who has rendered great service to the State either at home or on the
battle-field, his name is written in the book of heroes. They do not
bury dead bodies, but burn them, so that a plague may not arise from
them, and so that they may be converted into fire, a very noble and
powerful thing, which has its coming from the sun and returns to it. And
for the above reasons no chance is given for idolatry. The statues and
pictures of the heroes, however, are there, and the splendid women set
apart to become mothers often look at them. Prayers are made from the
State to the four horizontal corners of the world--in the morning to the
rising sun, then to the setting sun, then to the south, and lastly
to the north; and in the contrary order in the evening, first to the
setting sun, to the rising sun, to the north, and at length to the
south. They repeat but one prayer, which asks for health of body and of
mind, and happiness for themselves and all people, and they conclude it
with the petition "As it seems best to God." The public prayer for all
is long, and it is poured forth to heaven. For this reason the altar is
round and is divided crosswise by ways at right angles to one another.
By these ways Hoh enters after he has repeated the four prayers, and he
prays looking up to heaven. And then a great mystery is seen by them.
The priestly vestments are of a beauty and meaning like to those of
Aaron. They resemble nature and they surpass Art.

They divide the seasons according to the revolution of the sun, and not
of the stars, and they observe yearly by how much time the one precedes
the other. They hold that the sun approaches nearer and nearer, and
therefore by ever-lessening circles reaches the tropics and the equator
every year a little sooner. They measure months by the course of the
moon, years by that of the sun. They praise