"taboo" for a similar reason.[1] They were very much given to wine;[2] and discussed every subject of importance twice—first when they were drunk, and again when they were sober. As water was a sacred element, none might defile a river—a sanitary regulation in which we moderns would do well to follow them. The bodies of the dead presented a difficulty. They might not be buried, for the earth was sacred; or thrown into rivers, for water was sacred; or burnt, for fire was sacred. They were therefore exposed to be torn by birds and beasts—a fate of which the Greeks had the greatest horror. The Parsees of India, and the native Australians, dispose of their dead in much the same way. As a compromise, adopted from the Magi, a body might be buried when covered with wax to prevent its contact with the earth.
The Persians, when they had conquered the Medes, soon degenerated from their earlier simplicity, which is celebrated by Xenophon in his romance of the 'Education of Cyrus.'
When Cyrus, by the defeat of Crœsus, had made himself master of Lydia, the Greek colonists on the Asiatic seaboard sent to him in alarm, and begged to be allowed to be his vassals on the same terms as they had been to Crœsus. He answered them by a scornful parable: "There was a certain piper who piped on the
- ↑ So to this day, in India, all white animals are looked upon much in the way in which we ourselves regard albinoes—a kind of unhealthy lusus naturæ.
- ↑ Their successors retain the taste. "It is quite appalling," says Sir H. Rawlinson, "to see the quantity of liquor which some of these topers habitually consume, and they usually prefer spirits to wine."
