« Hdt. 1.130 | Hdt. 1.131 | Hdt. 1.132 | About This Work »
131These are the customs, so far as I know, which the Persians practise:—Images and temples and altars they do not account it lawful to erect, nay they even charge with folly those who do these things; and this, as it seems to me, because they do not account the gods to be in the likeness of men, as do the Hellenes. But it is their wont to perform sacrifices to Zeus going up to the most lofty of the mountains, and the whole circle of the heavens they call Zeus: and they sacrifice to the Sun and the Moon and the Earth, to Fire and to Water and to the Winds: these are the only gods to whom they have sacrificed ever from the first; but they have learnt also to sacrifice to Aphrodite Urania, having learnt it both from the Assyrians and the Arabians; and the Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alitta,[136a] and the Persians Mitra.
« Hdt. 1.130 | Hdt. 1.131 | Hdt. 1.132 | About This Work »
Notes
[136a] This is by some altered to "Alilat," by comparison of iii. 8.