'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎164v] (333/862)

226
HISTORY
leading to heaven for the good or hell for the bad. Ahura Mazda, the
supreme power of light and wisdom, with his six helpers abstrac
tions such as Good Thought, Orderly Government, Holy Character—
was opposed to the Evil Spirit and the Lie, Ahriman, whose assistants
were the old gods of the popular faith. Ahura Mazda was manifest
in fire, the pure element. Hence ‘fire worship’ and fire altars were
the outward mark of Mazdaeism. All this must have sounded very
strange to those brought up in the old polytheism, though the strong
ethical appeal was not alien to Semitic thought. But generally
Zoroastrian notions spread through the cult of particular pre-
Zoroastrian deities of the Iranians such as Anaitis and Mithras.
These were identified by the Mazdaeans with the helpers of Ahura
Mazda (instead of being classed as demons or Devas), and could
be regarded by ordinary polytheists as personified gods. Later
Mazdaeism in the hands of the priestly caste of Magi developed a
formal and ritualistic system of life, which through its stress on
purification contained rules and formulae very different from the
original code.
Organization. The second great contribution of the Persians was
in imperial organization. Hitherto empires had existed but had only
been organized in a rudimentary fashion. It was Darius (522-485)
who, adopting Assyrian and Egyptian precedents and inventing a
great deal more, first organized a modern form of provincial ad
ministration. Civil government—taxation, legal procedure, roads,
security—was in the hands of the satrap of each province and his
subordinate governors. Military forces raised within the provinces
and the general supervision of defence were in the hands of the satraps,
but garrisons of Persian troops were commanded by independent
generals. Both satrap and general were controlled by travelling
inspectors, the ‘Eyes and Ears of the King , while the central govern
ment was kept in touch with the provinces by a system of dispatch
riders and posting-stations along the ‘royal roads’ of the empire, of
which the route from Sardis to Susa is the best known. I he establish
ment of a skeleton road system, later developed by the Seleucids
and Romans, was in itself a great achievement, though at this period
the roads were not paved.
Warfare. The success of the Medes and Persians was due to the
organization of larger armies. The major units, of which the empire
could raise six, were army corps of 60,000 men containing six
divisions of 10,000 men, subdivided into ten battalions. The
strongest arm was the cavalry mounted on the famous Nisean horses