between the married pair was the closer: not only was the sister united
in marriage to her brother, as in Egypt, but the father to his daughter,
and the mother to her son, at least among the Magi.

* A passage in the _Vendidad_ even enumerates how many
noisome beasts must be slain to accomplish one full work of
expiation--"to kill 1000 serpents of those who drag
themselves upon the belly, and 2000 of the other species,
1000 land frogs or 2000 water frogs, 1000 ants who steal the
grain," and so on.

** The _Vendidad_ says, "And I tell thee, O Spitama
Zarathustra, the man who has a wife is above him who lives
in continency;" and, as we have seen in the text, one of
these forms of expiation consisted in "marrying to a worthy
man a young girl who has never known a man" (_Vendidad_, 14,
§ 15). Herodotus of old remarked that one of the chief
merits in an Iranian was to have many children: the King of
Persia encouraged fecundity in his realm, and awarded a
prize each year to that one of his subjects who could boast
the most numerous progeny.

Polygamy was also encouraged and widely practised: the code imposed no
limit on the number of wives and concubines, and custom was in favour of
a man's having as many wives as his fortune permitted him to maintain.
On the occasion of a death, it was forbidden to burn the corpse, to bury
it, or to cast it into a river, as it would have polluted the fire,
the earth, or the water--an unpardonable offence. The corpse could be
disposed of in different ways. The Persians were accustomed to cover it
with a thick layer of wax, and then to bury it in the ground: the wax