Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/289

thraghna, we have noticed, received cooked repasts of cattle and Haoma received his share of the sacrificed animal. Xerxes sacrificed a thousand oxen at Hellespont to the Athene of Ilium, while the Magi offered libations to the sun, and to the Manes of the heroes.^[1] When the great king came to the river Strymon, the Magi offered a sacrifice of white horses.^[2] We have already seen that other classical writers speak of the horses sacrificed to the sun by the Persian kings. The most important form of the sacrifice among the Vedic Indians was, likewise, the ashvamedha in which horses were sacrificed. Cyrus, says Xenophon, sacrificed bulls to God, horses to the sun, and other animals to the earth.^[3] Strabo tells us that the animal was garlanded and sacrificed at a clean place after reciting the dedicatory prayer. The victim was then divided limb from limb by the presiding priest and portions were distributed among the sacrificers. The divinity, it was believed, required the spirit of the victim. A little piece of caul was, however, put upon the fire.^[4]

1. Herod. 7. 43, 53, 54.
2. Ib., 7. 113; cf. Ovid, Fasti, 1. 385.
3. Cyropaedia, 8. 24.
4. P. 732, cf. Herod. 1. 132; see Edwards, Sacrifice (Iranian) in ERE. 11. 18-21.