Among the magnates six great houses—seven, if we include the royal house—were still regarded as the foremost, precisely as under the Achaemenids, and from these were drawn the generals, crown officials and governors (cf. Procop. Pers. i. 6, 13 sqq.). In the last of these positions we frequently find princes of the blood, who then bear the royal title (shah). Some of these houses —whose origin the legends derive from King Gushtasp (i.e. Vishtaspa), the protector of Zoroaster (Marquart, Zeitschr. d. d. morgenl. Ges. xlix. 635 sqq.)—already existed under the Arsacids, e.g., the Suren (Surenas, vide supra, p. 798) and Karen (Carenes, Tac. Ann. XI 12 sqq.), who had obviously embraced the cause of the victorious dynasty at the correct moment and so retained their position. The name Pahlavan, moreover, which denoted the Parthian magnates, passed over into the new empire. Below these there was an inferior nobility, the dikhans ("village-lords") and the "knights" (aswar) ; who, as among the Parthians, took the field in heavy scale-armour. To an even greater extent than under the Arsacids the empire was subdivided into a host of small provinces, at the head of each being a Marzban ("boun dary-lord," "lord of the marches"). These were again comprised in four great districts. With each of these local potentates the king could deal with as scant consideration as he pleased, always provided that he had the power or understood the art of making himself feared. But to break through the system or replace it by another was impossible. In fact he was compelled to proceed with great caution whenever he wished to elevate a favourite of humbler origin to an office which custom reserved for the no bility. Thus it is all the more worthy of recognition that the Sassanian empire was a fairly orderly empire, with an excellent legal administration, and that the later sovereigns did their ut most to repress the encroachments of the nobility, to protect the commonalty, and, above all, to carry out a just system of taxation.
Religious Development.—Side by side with the nobles ranked the spiritual chiefs, now a far more powerful body than under the Arsacids. Every larger district had its upper Magian (Magupat, mobed, i.e., "Lord of the Magian"). At their head was the supreme Mobed, resident in Rhagae (Rai), who was re garded as the successor of Zoroaster. In the new empire, of which the king and people were alike zealous professors of the true faith, their influence was extraordinarily strong (cf. Agathias ii. 26)—comparable to the influence of the priesthood in later Egypt, and especially in Byzantium and mediaeval Christendom. As has already been indicated, it was in their religious attitudes that the essential difference lay between the Sassanid empire and the older Iranian states. But, in details, the fluctuations were so manifold that it is necessary at this point to enter more fully into the history of Persian religion (cf. especially H. Gelzer, "Eznik u. d. Entwickel. des pers. Religions-systems," in the Zeitschr. f. armen. Philol. i. 149 sqq.).
The Persian religion, as we have seen, spread more and more widely after the Achaemenian period. In the Indo-Scythian em pire the Persian gods were zealously worshipped ; in Armenia the old national religion was almost entirely banished by the Persian cults (Gelzer, "Zur armen. Gotterlehre," in Ber. d. sacks. Gesch. d. Wissensch., 1895) ; in Cappadocia, North Syria and the west of Asia Minor, the Persian gods were everywhere adored side by side with the native deities. It was in the 3rd century that the cult of Mithras, with its mysteries and a theology evolved from Zoroastrianism, attained the widest dif fusion in all Latin-speaking provinces of the Roman dominion; and it even seemed for a while as though the Sol invictus Mithras, highly favoured by the Caesars, would become the official deity in-chief of the empire. But in all these cults the Persian gods
are perfectly tolerant of other native or foreign divinities ; vig orous as was their propagandism, it was yet equally far removed from an attack on other creeds. Thus this Parseeism always bears a syncretic character; and the supreme god of Zoroastrian theory, Ahuramazda (i.e. Zeus or Jupiter), in practice yields place to his attendant deities, who work in the world and are able to lead the believer, who has been initiated and keeps the commendments of purity, to salvation.
But meanwhile, in its Iranian home and especially in Persis, the religion of Zoroaster lived a quiet life, undisturbed by the proceedings of the outside world. Here the poems of the prophet and fragments of ancient religious literature survived, under stood by the Magians and rendered accessible to the faithful laity by versions in the modern dialect (Pehlevi). Here the opposition between the good spirit of light and the demons of evil—between Ormuzd and Ahriman—still remained the principal dogma of the creed ; while all other gods and angels, however estimable their aid, were but subordinate servants of Ormuzd, whose highest manifestation on earth was not the sun-god Mithras, but the holy fire guarded by his priests. Here all the prescrip tions of purity—partly connected with national customs, and impossible of execution abroad—were diligently observed ; and even the injunction not to pollute earth with corpses, but to cast out the dead to vulture and dog, was obeyed in its full force. At the same time Ahuramazda preserved his character as a national god, who bestowed on his worshippers victory and world dominion. In the sculptures of the Sassanids, as also in Armenian traditions, he appears on horseback as a war-god. Here, again, the theology was further developed, and an attempt made to annul the old dualism by envisaging both Ormuzd and Ahriman as emanations of an original principle of infinite time (Zervan), a doctrine which long enjoyed official validity undex the Sassanids till, in the reign of Chosroes I., "the sect of Zervanites" was pronounced heretical.' But, above all, the ritual and the doctrine of purity were elaborated and expanded, and there was evolved a complete and detailed system of casuist ry, dealing with all things allowed and forbidden, the forms of 'It may be observed that this innovation was also known to the Mithras-cult of the west, where Zervan appears as a Icioy pollution and the expiation for each, etc., which, in its arid and spiritless monotony, vividly recalls the similar prescriptions in the Pentateuch. The consequences of this development were that orthodoxy and literal obedience to all priestly injunctions now assumed an importance far greater than previously; hence forward, the great commandment of Zoroastrianism, as of Juda ism, is to combat the heresies of the heathen, a movement which had already had an energetic representative in the prophet himself. Heathenish cults and forbidden manners and customs are a pollu tion to the land and a deep insult to the true God. Therefore the duty of the believer is to combat and destroy the unbeliever and the heretic. In short, the tolerance of the Achaemenids and the indifference of the Arsacids are now replaced by intolerance and religious persecution.