Topic: ritual (2)

• Survey essayReligion & the Lie: the Achaemenid religious world

  A survey of Achaemenid religion: the worship of Ahura Mazdā and the ideology of Truth against the Lie; the Magi and their rites of fire, oath, and death; the toleration of subject gods; and the vexed question of the kings' relationship to Zoroaster.

• PeopleThe Magi

  The hereditary Iranian priestly class (originally, Herodotus says, a Median tribe) who conducted sacrifice, tended the sacred fire, interpreted dreams and omens, and presided over rites of birth, oath, and death in the Achaemenid world.