and amber, and was conveyed to the great reception-hall, where the
deputies and officers from the provinces awaited him.

As soon as the king and his retinue had departed, the priests selected,
for themselves, the best pieces of the flesh which had been offered in
sacrifice, and allowed the thronging crowd to take the rest.

The Persian divinities disdained sacrifices in the light of food,
requiring only the souls of the slaughtered animals, and many a poor man,
especially among the priests, subsisted on the flesh of the abundant
royal sacrifices.

The prayer offered up by the Magian was a model for those of the Persian
people. No man was allowed to ask anything of the gods for himself
alone. Every pious soul was rather to implore blessings for his nation;
for was not each only a part of the whole? and did not each man share in
the blessings granted to the whole kingdom? But especially they were
commanded to pray for the king, in whom the realm was embodied and
shadowed forth. It was this beautiful surrender of self for the public
weal, that had made the Persians great. The doctrines of the Egyptian
priesthood represented the Pharaohs as actual divinities, while the
Persian monarchs were only called "sons of the gods;" yet the power of
the latter was far more absolute and unfettered than that of the former;
the reason for this being that the Persians had been wise enough to free
themselves from priestly domination, while the Pharaohs, as we have seen,
if not entirely under the dominion of the priestly caste, were yet under
its influence in the most important matters.

The Egyptian intolerance of all strange religions was unknown in Asia.
The conquered Babylonians were allowed by Cyrus to retain their own gods,