BABYLON AND PERSIA

372 MEDLA, BABYLON, AND PERSLA. -way, being introduced and favored as we mightexpectby the Magi :" There is another custom which is spoken of with reserve, andnot openly, concerning their dead. It is said that the body of a malePersian is never buried, until it has been torn either by a dog or abird of prey. That the Msigi have this custom is beyond a doubt,for they practise it without any concealment. The dead bodies arecovered with wax and then buried in the ground."This last practice looks very much like a conces¬sion' to the Magian teachings, as a layer of wax maybe considered to isolate the body and thus preservsthe earth from pollution. Nor, strictly speaking,can any of the elements be polluted by a body shut_up in a coffin or sarcophagus and then deposited,not in the earth itself, but in a chamber hewn in thehard, dry rock. That the Persians of Dareios' time,moreover, shunned the nearness of a corpse, as en¬tailing impurity, we may infer from another passageof Herodotus, which tells us that this king himself,on one occasion, refused to enter Babylon througha certain gate, because above that gate, was the sep¬ulchre of Queen Nitokris, the mother of Nabonidus,who, from some unaccountable whim, had chosen forherself that peculiar place of rest,"^he story maynot be true, but it is significant.7. If Dareios had hoped to aver^ further troublesby the .swift and .skilful blow which he struck at the' very root of evil, in the person of the impostor Gau¬mata, that hope was deceived, and he was given buta very few months for the work of reconstructionwhich he at once undertook. The Satraps of thedistant provinces had tasted the sweets of inde-