of which Zoroaster was the
great prophet, and the Avesta the sacred book. The king, as servant of
Ormazd, is worshipping the fire and the sun,--symbols of the god; he
resists the impure griffin, the creature of Ahriman; and the half-length
figure over his head is the surest evidence of the religion of Zoroaster.
For, according to the Avesta, every created being has its archetype or
Fereuer (Ferver, Fravashis), which is its ideal essence, first created by
the thought of Ormazd. Even Ormazd himself has his Fravashis,[109] and
these angelic essences are everywhere objects of worship to the disciple
of Zoroaster. We have thus found in Persepolis, not only the palace of the
great kings of Persia, but the home of that most ancient system of
Dualism, the system of Zoroaster.

Sec. 2. Greek Accounts of Zoroaster. Plutarch's Description of his Religion.

But who was Zoroaster, and what do we know of him? He is mentioned by
Plato, about four hundred years before Christ. In speaking of the
education of a Persian prince he says that "one teacher instructs him in
the magic of Zoroaster, the son (or priest) of Ormazd (or Oromazes), in
which is comprehended all the worship of the gods." He is also spoken of
by Diodorus, Plutarch, the elder Pliny, and many writers of the first
centuries after Christ. The worship of the Magians is described by
Herodotus before Plato. Herodotus gives very minute accounts of the
ritual, priests, sacrifices, purifications, and mode of burial used by the
Persian Magi in his time, four hundred and fifty years before Christ; and
his account closely corresponds with the practices of the Parsis, or
fire-worshippers, still remaining in one or two places in Persia and India
at the present day. "The Persians," he says, "have no altars, no temples
nor images; they worship on the tops of the mountains. They adore the
heavens, and sacrifice to the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and
winds."[110] "They do not erect altars, nor use libations, fillets, or
cakes. One of the Magi sings an ode concerning the origin of the gods,
over the sacrifice, which is laid on a bed of tender grass." "They pay
great reverence to all rivers, and must do nothing to defile them; in
burying they never put the body in the ground till it has been torn by
some bird or dog; they cover the body with wax, and then put it in the
ground." "The Magi think they do a meritorious act when they kill ants,
snakes, reptiles."[111]

Plutarch's acco