all evil. It is the Lie that incites his enemies to revolt from him.[1] He advises his successor to protect himself from Lie and punish those that lie.[2] It was because he did not lie that Auramazda and other gods bore him aid.[3] Herodotus informs us that the Persians considered lying as most disgraceful.[4] The Gathas and the Later Avesta speak of the Path of Righteousness as the only true path,[5] or the truest path,[6] and Darius exhorts in the same vein not to leave pathim tyām rāstām, 'The Path of Truth,' not to slight the commandments of Auramazda and not to sin.[7] Closely parallel to Ys. 37. 1, which enumerates Ahura Mazda's earthly creation, and which formula is recited by devout Zoroastrians as grace before meals, the Old Persian Inscriptions state that Auramazda has created this earth, yonder heaven, man, and peace for man.[8]
The Persians, says Herodotus, sacrificed unto the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and winds.[9] The Magus, we are told, adorned his head-dress with a garland of myrtle and took the sacrificial animal to the highest peak of the mountain. He cut the animal, seethed its flesh, spread it out on a carpet of the tenderest herbage and consecrated it by chanting sacred texts.[10] The Yasht dedicated to Ardvi Sura Anahita depicts Iranian kings and heroes sacrificing her a hundred stallions, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand sheep. Herodotus attests to the fact that when Xerxes arrived at Hellespont in his expedition against Greece, he sacrificed a thousand oxen to Athene of Ilium, by which he evidently means Anahita.[11] The sculpture on the Tomb of Darius depicts the king reverentially facing fire on the stone altar, and the sun above.
Darius asks the reader of his inscriptions to make them known and not to conceal them. Upon him that carries out his wishes, he invokes his blessings that Auramazda may be his
