CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME VII The Expedition of the Hero, Sahm . ✓ Zoroaster's Only Known Portrait Where Greece Conquered Persia ✔The Prophecy of Artakshir's Empire Rustem's Victory over the White Demon ✓ The Flying-Machine of King Kai Kaus FACING PAGE Frontispiece 64 176 240 318 330 SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF ANCIENT PERSIA IN INTRODUCTION THE FIRST KNOWN TEACHER OF THE ARYAN RACE, N this volume we turn from the great books of the Semitic races to trace the earliest literature and the expanding thought of the Aryan peoples, the ancestors of the Europeans of to-day. The Aryans first stepped forth as political leaders of the world in the year 539 B.C., when, as noted in our earliest volume, Cyrus, the great Persian conqueror, seized possession of Babylon. Ancient Babylon had been for thousands of years the center of Semitic thought and culture and power. Since then, for other thousands of years, the Aryan peoples, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and modern Europeans, have held control of the earth. When we turn to look back of Cyrus' sudden victory to see who these Persians were and whence they came, we enter one of the most fascinating fields of the far past. In religion Cyrus was presumably, like the rest of his nation, a Zoroastrian. But who was Zoroaster, and what was his religion? Up to a century or so ago, the world could scarcely answer. Old Greek books were indeed full of praise of Zoroaster. The Greek traveler Herodotus, "the Father of History," spoke much and enthusiastically of the Persian religion; but he dwelt mainly on its moral influence as making its followers noble of character, and he explained but little of its doctrines. Greek philosophers bestowed on |