Part 4

Customer.--Thank you, but I know how to count already.

Pythagoras.--How do you count?

Customer.--One, two, three, four----

Pythagoras.--Ha! what you call four is ten, and the perfect triangle, and the great oath by which we swear.

Customer.--Now, so help me, the great ten and four, I never heard more divine or more wonderful words!

Pythagoras.--And afterwards, stranger, you shall learn about Earth, and Air, and Water, and Fire--what is their action, and what their form, and what their motion.

Customer.--What! have Fire, Air, or Water bodily shape?

Pythagoras.--Surely they have; else, without form and shape, how could they move! Besides, you shall learn that the Deity consists in Number, Mind, and Harmony.

Customer.--What you say is really wonderful.

Pythagoras.--Besides what I have just told you, you shall understand that you yourself, who seem to be one individual, are really somebody else.

Customer.--What! do you mean to say I'm somebody else, and not myself, now talking to you?

Pythagoras.--Just at this moment you are; but once upon a time you appeared in another body, and under another name; and hereafter you will pass again into another shape still.

(After a little more discussion of this philosopher's tenets, he is purchased on behalf of a company of professors from Magna Græca for ten minæ. The next lot is Diogenes, the Cynic.)

Apuleius says in the Florida, Section XV., in reference to Pythagoras, that he went to Egypt to acquire learning, "that he was there taught by the priests the incredible power of ceremonies, the wonderful commutations of numbers, and the most ingenious figures of geometry; but that, not satisfied with these mental accomplishments, he afterwards visited the Chaldæans and the Brahmins, and amongst the latter the Gymnosophists. The Chaldæans taught him the stars, the definite orbits of the planets, and the various effects of both kinds of stars upon the nativity of men, as also, for much money, the remedies for human use derived from the earth, the air, and the sea (the elements earth, air, and water, or all nature).

"But the Brahmins taught him the greater part of his philosophy--what are the rules and principles of the understanding; what the functions of the body; how many the faculties of the soul; how many the mutations of life; what torments or rewards devolve upon the souls of the dead, according to their respective deserts."

There is ample evidence, therefore, that the Greeks had communication with, and borrowed the philosophy of, both Persia and India at a very early date.

That there was intimate intercourse with India in very ancient times there can be no doubt. In addition to the classical sources of information collected chiefly by the officers of Alexander the Great, Seleucus and the Ptolemies, and which was condensed and reduced to consistent shape by Diodorus, Strabo, Pliny, and Arrian, within the first century before and the first century after Christ, we have the further proof of the fact by the constant finds of innumerable Greek coins over a large portion of north-western India, and even at Cabul. These, so far as yet known, commence with the third of the Seleucidæ, and run on for many centuries, the inscriptions showing that the Greek characters were used in the provinces of Cabul and the Punjab even so late as the fourth century A.D. The consideration of these coins of the Græco-Persian empire of the Seleucidæ naturally leads us to the consideration of the Persians.

I have already shown that the Greeks and Persians held intimate relations with each other as early as the fourth century B.C., and from the speech of Demosthenes against a proposed war with Persia, delivered in 354 B.C, we may well believe that they had already had a long and intimate connection with each other. The passage rends thus:-

"All Greeks know that, so long as they regarded Persia as their common enemy, they were at peace with each other, and enjoyed much prosperity, but since they have looked upon the King (of Persia) as a friend, and quarrelled about disputes with each other, they have suffered worse calamities than any one could possibly imprecate upon them."

The Persian empire was founded by Cyrus, about B.C. 560, and rapidly rose to be perhaps the greatest power of the world of that age. The rise of the Persian empire is not unlike that of the Arabian power in regard to the wide range of conquest achieved in a very limited period. Its actual existence, from the foundation of the empire by Cyrus in B.C. 560 to the death of Darius III., was barely two centuries and a half.

Previous to the Persian empire there existed three principal powers in Asia--the Medes, the Chaldæans or Babylonish, and the Lydian. Of these the Medes and Chaldæans were the most ancient, and their joint power would seem to have extended eastward as far as the Oxus and Indus.

Of these nations the Babylonians were the most highly civilized, and, did time permit, we might find much that would interest and instruct in examining the various facts relating to the arts and sciences amongst these nations. We know that arts and sciences must have been diligently cultivated amongst them, and that magic and astrology were held in high repute.

That the Persians were well acquainted with other nations is shown clearly from the remains of their great city of Persepolis, where the sculptured figures represent many types of mankind--the negro, with thick lips and flat nose, and with his crisp, wooly hair, clearly cut; and the half-naked Indian, with his distinguishing features, being easily singled out from many others.

Persia held sway over a huge district of India--the limits of this are not known; but, in addition, they were well acquainted with a large portion of the north-western part of India.

The traditions and historical records of the Persians are contained in the famous series of writings culled the Zend-avesta. These writings are, it is thought, of an age even before the Persian dynasty was established; and it has been shown by the researches of M. Anguetil and Sir W. Jones that there is indeed a great probability of the Zend having been a dialect of the ancient Sanscrit language. In the vocabulary attached to M. Anguetil's great work on the Zend-avesta no less than 60 to 70 per cent. of the words are said to be pure Sanscrit.

As the oldest known language of Persia was Chaldæic, we are again thrown back on Indian sources for the origin of the great book of the ancient Persians. Even the name of the priests of the Persian religion of Zoroaster, Mag or Magi, is of Sanscrit derivation.

The Persians kept up an enormous army, which was spread through all the various provinces and Satrapies, and consisted in great part of paid auxiliaries. In at least the later period of Persian power the Greeks were preferred to all others, and in the time of Cyrus the Younger they composed the flower of the Persian army, and were employed in garrisoning most of the chief cities of Asia Minor.

The description given by Herodotus of the vast army and fleet prepared for the expedition of Xerxes against the Greeks gives us an idea of the extent of the Persian power, and of the wide range of countries and nations over which they held sway. The review held on the Plain of Doriscus was perhaps the greatest military spectacle ever beheld either before or since. Herodotus enumerates no less than 56 different nations, all of them in their national dress and arms. Besides the Persians there were "Medes and Bactrians; Libyans in war chariots with four horses; Arabs on camels; Sagartians, wild huntsmen who employed, instead of the usual weapons of the time, the lasso; the nomadic tribes of Bucharia and Mongolia; Ethiopians in lions' skins, and Indians in cotton robes; Phoenician sailors, and Greeks from Asia Minor." All these and many others were there assembled by the despotic power of the Persian king.