The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

PERSIA. 137
docia and Commagene, cultivate political traditions
that brought them nearer to their supposed ancestors,
but those traditions were partly adopted even by the
Seleucides and the Ptolemies, the legitimate heirs of
the ancient masters of Asia. People were fond of re
calling the ideals of past grandeur and sought to.
realize them in the present. In that manner several
institutions were transmitted to the Roman emperors
through the agency of the Asiatic monarchies. The
institution of the amid Augusti, for instance, the ap
pointed friends and intimate counselors of the rulers,
adopted in Italy the forms in use at the court of
the Diadochi, who had themselves imitated the an
cient organization of the palace of the Great Kings.3
The custom of carrying the sacred fire before the
Caesars as an emblem of the perpetuity of their power,
dated back to Darius and with other Persian traditions
passed on to the dynasties that divided the empire of
Alexander. There is a striking similarity not only
between the observance of the Caesars and the practice
of the Oriental monarchs, but also between the beliefs
that they held. The continuity of the political and
religious tradition cannot be doubted. 4 As the court
ceremonial and the internal history of the Hellenistic
become better known we shall be able to
kingdoms
outline with greater precision the manner in which the
divided and diminished heritage of the Achemenides,
after generations of rulers, was finally left to those
Occidental sovereigns who called themselves the sacro
sanct lords of the world as Artaxerxes had done. 5
It may not be generally known that the habit of wel
coming friends with a kiss was a ceremony
in the