412 ON THE TEN TRIBES OF THE PERSIANS. APP. BOOK L ESSAY IV. ON THE TEN TRIBES OF THE PERSIANS.—[H. C. R.] 1. Eminence of the Pasargada-modern parallel. 2. The Maraphians and Maspians. 3. The Panthialæans, Derusians, and Germanians. 4. The nomade tribes the Dahi mentioned in Scripture-the Mardi or Heroes" -the Dropici or Derbices-the Sagartii. 1. THE Pasargadæ seem to have been the direct descendants of the original Persian tribe which emigrated from the far East fifteen centuries, perhaps, before the Christian era, and which, as it rose to power, imposed its name on the province adjoining the Erythræan sea. The Pasargada, among the other tribes of Persia, were like the Durranees among the Afghans: they enjoyed especial advantages, and kept themselves quite distinct from the hordes by whom they were surrounded. Their chief settlement seems to have been about forty miles north of Persepolis,1 and here, in the midst of his kinsmen, Cyrus the Great established his capital. 2. The Maraphii and Maspii, classed with the Pasargada, were probably cognate races, who accompanied them in their original immigration. Possibly the old name of the former 2 is to be recog nized in the title of Máfee, which is borne by a Persian tribe at the present day, acknowledged to be one of the most ancient tribes in the country. Of the Maspii we know nothing, but their appellation probably includes the word aspa, "a horse." 3. The name of Panthialean resembles a Greek rather than a Persian title;3 at any rate, neither of this tribe, nor of their asso 1 On the site of Pasargadæ, see note 5 on book i. ch. 125. Niebuhr, following Sir W. Ouseley and others, decides that it was the same place as Persepolis (Lecture on Ancient History, vol. i. p. 115, E. T.). But the ruins of the two are forty miles apart, and ancient writers carefully distinguish them. (See below, Essay x. § 10, iii. note.) The Pasargadæ are not often distinguished as a tribe by ancient authors: but they appear to have been mentioned as such by Apollodorus (cf. Steph. Byz. ad voc.) 2 The fancy which derived the Maraphians from a certain Maraphius, the son of Menelaus and Helen (cf. Steph. Byz. ad voc. Mapápio; Eustath. ad Hom. II. iii. 175; Porphyr. Quæst. Hom. 13), is as little felicitous as the general run of such speculations in the grammarians. The city Marrhasium in Ptolemy (Geograph. vi. 4) may with more reason be connected with the name. 3 It must be noticed that Stephen of Byzantium read "Penthiada" for "Panthialæi." There is, however, no ESSAY IV. ON THE TEN TRIBES OF THE PERSIANS. 413 ciates, the Derusians, does our modern ethnographical knowledge afford any illustration. The Germanians were in all likelihood colonists from Carmania (Kermán).4 6 The Dahi, 4. With the nomade tribes we are more familiar. whose name is equivalent to the Latin "Rustici," were spread over the whole country, from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf and the Tigris. They are even mentioned in Scripture, among the Samarian colonists, being classed with the men of Archoe (Erech or 'Opxon), of Babylon, of Susa, and of Elam.5 The Mardi-the heroes, as the name may be interpreted-were also established in most of the mountain-chains which intersected the empire. Their particular seats in Persia Proper, where indeed they were attacked and brought under subjection by Alexander, were in the range which divides Persepolis from the Persian Gulf. The Dropici of Herodotus are probably the same as the Derbicci of other authors,7 whose principal establishments seem to have been to the south-east of the Caspian Sea. The Sagartians, at any rate, who are here mentioned with the Dropici, were in their proper northern settlements immediate neighbours of the Derbicci, and colonies of the two tribes may thus be very well understood to have emigrated to the southward simultaneously. The Sagartians are expressly stated by Herodotus to be of cognate origin with the Persians, and the name of Chitratakhma, a Sagartian chief, who revolted against Darius, is undoubtedly of Persian etymology, signifying =strong leopard."-[H. C. R.] 9 explanation of either term. (Cf. Steph. Byz. sub voc. Anpovoaîo..) Stephen (1. s. c.) substitutes the word Καρμάνιοι for the Γερμάνιοι οι our author, where he is professedly quoting from him. The position of Carmania on the eastern borders of Persia Proper is marked in Strabo (xv. p. 1029, &c.), Pliny (H. N. vi. 23), Ptolemy (Geograph. vi. 6), and others. ⚫ Ezra iv. 9. 6 Arrian Exp. Alex. iii. 24. The Mardi were mentioned by Apollodorus 8 "the 414 RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERSIANS. APP. BOOK I ESSAY V. ON THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT PERSIANS. 1. Difficulties of the common view. 2. Dualism and elemental worship twe different systems. 3. Worship of the elements not the original Persian religion. 4. Their most ancient belief pure Dualism. 5. Elemental worship the religion of the Magi, who were Scyths. 6. Gradual amalga mation of the two religions. 1. Ir has long been felt as a difficulty of no ordinary magnitude, to reconcile the account which Herodotus, Dino,1 and others, give of the ancient Persian religion, with the primitive traditions of the Persian race embodied in the first Fargard of the Vendidad, which are now found to agree remarkably with the authentic historical notices contained in the Achæmenian monuments. In the one case we have a religion, the special characteristic of which is the worship of all the elements, and of fire in particular; in the other, one, the essence of which is Dualism, the belief in two first Principles, the authors respectively of good and evil, Ormazd and Ahriman. Attempts have been made from time to time to represent these two conflicting systems as in reality harmonious, and as constituting together the most ancient religion of Persia; but it is impossible, on such a theory, to account on the one hand, for the omission by the early Greek writers of all mention of the two great antagonistic principles of light and darkness, and on the other, for the absence from the monuments, and from the more ancient portions of the Vendidad, of any distinct notice of the fireworship. It cannot indeed be denied, that in later times a mongrel religion did exist, the result of the contact of the two systems, to which the accounts of modern writers would very fairly apply. But the further we go back the fewer traces do we find of any such intermixture the more manifestly does the religion described, or otherwise indicated, belong unmistakably to one or other of the two types. Throughout Herodotus we have not a single trace of 1 For a collection of the fragments of Dino, see Müller's Fragmenta Historicorum Græcorum, vol. ii. pp. 90-1. 2 By Brisson (De Regio Persarum Principatu, book ii. pp. 203.238), Hyde (De Religione Veterum Persarum), Heeren (Asiatic Nations, vol. i. pp. 374-392), and others. ESSAY V. COMPOSED OF TWO SYSTEMS. 415 Dualism; we have not even any mention of Ormazd; the religion depicted is purely and entirely elemental, the worship of the sun and moon, of fire, earth, water, and the winds or air.3 Conversely, in the inscriptions there is nothing elemental; but the worship of one Supreme God, under the name of Ormazd, with perhaps an occasional mention of an Evil Principle.* 2. If then these two systems are in their origin so distinct, it becomes necessary to consider, first of all, which of them in reality constituted the ancient Persian religion, and which was intruded upon it afterwards. Did the Arian nations bring with them Dualism from the East, or was the religion which accompanied them from beyond the Oxus, that mere elemental worship which Herodotus and Dino describe, and which in the later times of Greece and Rome, was especially regarded as Magism ? 6 5 3. In favour of the latter supposition it may be urged, that the religion of the Eastern or Indo-Arians, appears from the Vedas to have been entirely free from any Dualistic leaven, while it possessed to some extent the character of a worship of the powers of nature. It may therefore seem to be improbable that a branch of the Arian nation, which separated from the main body at a comparatively recent period, should have brought with them into their new settlement a religion opposed entirely to that of their brethren whom they left behind, and far more likely that they should have merely modified their religion into the peculiar form of elemental worship which has been ascribed to them. But the elementary worship in question is not really a modification of the Vedic creed, but a distinct and independent religion. The religion of the Vedas is spiritual and personal; that which Herodotus describes is material and pantheistic. Again, it is clear that some special reason must have caused the division of the Arian nation, and the conjecture is plausible, that "it was in fact the Dualistic heresy which separated the Zend, or Persian branch of the Arians, from their Vedic brethren, and compelled them to migrate to the westward." 7 3 Herod. i. 131. Compare iii. 16. 4 See the Behistun Inscription, col. 4, par. 4, § 3, where, in the Scythic version, the false religion which Darius displaced is said to have been established by the "god of lies." It need surprise no one that notices are not more frequent, or that the name of Ahriman does not occur. 5 Frs. 5, 8, and 9. 6 Cf. Strabo, xv. pp. 1039.41; Agathias, ii. pp. 62-3; Amm. Marc. xxiii. 6. 7 See Sir H. Rawlinson's Notes on the Early History of Babylonia, p. 37. 416 DUALISM OF THE MONUMENTS. APP. BOOK L 4. Certainly, if we throw ourselves upon the ancient monuments of the Arian people, we must believe that Dualism was not a religion which they adopted after their migration was accomplished, but the faith which they brought with them from beyond the Oxus. In that most ancient account of the Arian Exodus which is contained in the first chapter of the Vendidad, the whole series of Arian triumphs and reverses is depicted as the effect of the struggle between Ormazd and Ahriman. Elemental worship nowhere appears; and there is not even any trace of that reverential regard of the sun and moon, which was undoubtedly a part, though a subordinate one, of the ancient religion. Similarly, in the Achæmenian monuments, while the name of Ormazd is continually invoked, and a mention of "the god of lies" is perhaps made in one passage, the elements receive no respect. Even Mithras is unmentioned until the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon, when his name occurs in a single inscription in conjunction with Tanat, or Anaitis. Nothing is more plain than that the faith of the early Achæmenian kings was mere Dualism, without the slightest admixture of fireworship or elemental religion. 5. If then it be asked, how Herodotus came to describe the Persian religious system as he did, and whence that elemental worship originated which undoubtedly formed a part of the later Persian religion, it must be answered that that worship is Magism, and that it was from a remote antiquity the religion of the Scythic tribes, who were thickly spread in early times over the whole extent of Western Asia.1 That the Magian religion was distinct from that of the early Persians, is clear from the Behistun Inscription, where we find that a complete religious revolution was accomplished by the Magian Pseudo-Smerdis, and that Darius, on his accession, had to rebuild temples which had been demolished, and re-establish a worship which had been put down. That the religion which Hero 8 Behist. Ins. col. iv. par. 4. The Persian transcript seems to speak only of Ormazd; but the Scythic is thought to mention "the god of lies." (See note ad loc.) In the inscription of Artaxerxes Mnemon, discovered at Susa. (See Mr. Norris's paper in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. xv. part i. p. 159; and Mr. Loftus's Chaldæa and Susiana, p. 372). 1 See Appendix, ch. xi., 'On the Ethnic Affinities of the Nations of Western Asia.' 2 The words of Darius are as follows: "The temples which Gomates the Magian had destroyed I rebuilt. I reinstituted for the state, both the religious chaunts and the worship, and gave them to the families which Gomates the Magian had deprived of them" (col. i. par. 14). |