gravitated towards the west. Ragha, hereafter, became the pontifical seat of the descendants of the prophet. The temporal and spiritual power here was vested in the chief pontiff of the Zoroastrian world.[1] Religious influence radiated from this ecclesiastical centre, and the Magian neighbours, who formed the priestly caste among the Medo-Persians, were probably the first to imbibe the new ideas and gradually to spread them among the peoples of Western Iran.
The Achaemenian empire was made up of various nationalities of diverse faiths, and the rulers were always tolerant towards the religions of these subject races. Guided by political expediency, they often built or restored the temples of alien peoples, and occasionally even honoured the Jewish, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek divinities.[2] Cyrus ordered the restoration of the temple at Jerusalem,[3] and Darius, the devout worshipper of Auramazda, favoured its rebuilding as decreed by Cyrus.[4] According to the Babylonian inscriptions, Cyrus restored the gods of Sumer and Akkad to their former temples, from which they had been brought out by Nabuna'id, the last native ruler of Babylon. He returned the captive gods of Kutu to their home and rebuilt their temples.[5] Cyrus was the shepherd and the anointed of Yahweh in Judea,[6] he was the chosen of Marduk in Babylon. Darius is called the son of the goddess Neit of Sais in an Egyptian inscription at Tell el-Maskhutah.[7] Cambyses, according to an Egyptian inscription on a naophoric statue preserved in the Vatican, ordered the purification of the desecrated temple of Neit at Sais, and paid homage to the goddess.[8] In a Greek inscription Darius reproved his satrap Gadatas for neglecting the reverential attitude toward Apollo.[9]
The religion of the Achaemenians. Zarathushtra's new religion took time to penetrate into Western Iran, and, in absence of any data, we are not in a position to say how far Cyrus and
- ↑ Ys. 19. 18.
- ↑ Cf. Gray, Achaemenians, in ERE. 1, 69-73.
- ↑ Ezra 1. 1-11; 3. 7, 4. 3; Is. 44. 28; 2. Chron. 36. 22, 23.
- ↑ Ezra 6. 1-15.
- ↑ Cylinder Inscription, 32-35.
- ↑ Is. 44. 28; 45. 1.
- ↑ Golenischeff, Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie, 13. 106, 107.
- ↑ Petrie, A History of Egypt from the Nineteenth to the Thirtieth Dynasties 3. 361, 362. London, 1905.
- ↑ Cousin and Deschamps, Lettre de Darius, fils d'Hystaspes in Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, vol. 13. p. 529-542.
