tion.

** Menander speaks of this festival as conducted in his own
times, and tells us that it was called Eurdigan; modern
authorities usually admit that it goes back to the times of
the Achaemenids or even beyond.

*** Agathias says that every worshipper of Ahura-mazda is
enjoined to kill the greatest possible number of animals
created by Angro-mainyus, and bring to the Magi the fruits
of his hunting. Herodotus had already spoken of this
destruction of life as one of the duties incumbent on every
Persian, and this gives probability to the view of modern
writers that the festival went back to the Achaemenian epoch.

**** The festival of the Sakoa is mentioned by Ctesias. It
was also a Babylonian festival, and most modern authorities
conclude from this double use of the name that the festival
was borrowed from the Babylonians by the Persians, but this
point is not so certain as it is made out to be, and at any
rate the borrowing must have taken place very early, for the
festival was already well established in the Achaemenian
period.

All the Magi were not necessarily devoted to the priesthood; but
those only became apt in the execution of their functions who had been
dedicated to them from infancy, and who, having received the necessary
instruction, were duly consecrated. These adepts were divided into
several classes, of which three at least were never confounded in their
functions--the sorcerers, the interpreters of dreams, and the most
venerated sages--and from these three classes were chosen the ruling
body of the order and its supreme head. Their rule of life was
strict and austere, and was encumbered with a thousand observances
indispensable to the preservation of perfect purity in their persons,
their altars, their victims, and their sacrificial vessels and
implements. The Magi of highest rank abstained from every form of
living thing as food, and the rest only partook of meat under certain
restrictions. Their dress was unpretentious, they wore no jewels, and
observed strict fidelity to the marriage vow;* and the virtues with
which they were accredited obtained for them, from very early times,
unbounded influence over the minds of the common people as well as over
those of the nobles: the king himself boasted of being their pupil, and
took no serious step in state affairs without consulting Ahura-mazda or
the othe