Empire: World History - 104. How Persian Religion Changed the World

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Three great religions have come out of Persia and all of them have influenced world history. First there was Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion, which had significant influence over Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Then there was Mithraism. It began in Persia but, through conquest, it filtered into the Roman pantheon. As a result, there are shrines to it as far away as Hadrian’s Wall. Lastly, there is Manichaeism. The religion that is fundamentally rooted in the struggle between good and evil, which is itself a Zoroastrian idea. Listen as William and Anita are joined by Vesta Sarkosh Curtis to discuss Persian religion and all its influence. For bonus episodes, ad-free listening, reading lists, book discounts, a weekly newsletter, and a chat community. Sign up at https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/ Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Drupul. I'm really excited about today. I remember from the very special guest, do not blow the surprise, William. Do not name the special guest.

You were just about to. I can see your... I will keep quiet. I can see it when an idea is pulling at your scenes, but just keep it zipped for a second. But look, we are talking about, well, something that I find completely fascinating, which is Zoroastrianism today, because we've talked about ancient Persia. And we've talked about battles and leadership and failure of leadership. But we haven't really got under the bonnet of belief and what the people were like and what sort of took up their days and their spirituality. And that's what we're going to do today.

And what an extraordinary story it is. And I think people don't realize how influential Zoroastrianism has been to different religions, east and west. This form of religion which today is limited to what, 100,000 people? I've seen estimates the absolute top, and this is probably excessive, is 200,000 Zoroastrians worldwide. But that is probably excessive. But it is somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000. A few surviving in Persia around Yazd, particularly a few in Tehran, and then most in Bombay. Bombay and Karachi and a very small population here in London.

I seem to know all of them just to be grown up knowing more than my fair share of Zoroastrians. And you know what? If you don't have Zoroastrian friends who you borrow sugar and socks from, you do know some very famous Zoroastrians because they may be few in number, but they have excelled in different. parts of our cultural heritage. So shall we do celebrities, Arastrian top trumps? Do you want to play? Shall we? I'll play. I'll play. I'll play. I'll let you go first because otherwise your head will fall off. So who is the most famous Arastrian that everyone knows? Well, the obvious one that everyone knows is Freddie B. Correct. Born in Zanzibar. Not born in Zanzibar or born in Bombay? No, no. Born in Zanzibar. He was born in Zanzibar to Parsi parents. So when people say they're

Parsi. Parsi is also, it is Zoroastrian diaspora who fled to India. Yeah, indeed. Zubin Meta, the fabulous conductor of classical music. He was also a Parsi-Zerastrian descent. Can you do another one? The business house, the Tartas, who now own British Steel, Rattan Tata as the head of that. Yeah. And quite a lot of the other main business families in Bombay, too. The Godridges, I think. I'm not sure about the Godrridges, but the Tartas, for sure. I was going to throw in a cricketer, just, you know, for the sporting fans. Is there a Parasy cricketer? Farooke engineer who played international cricket

and will be known to those people who, you know, like hitting balls with bats. You got another one? I'm beginning to run out of cards. You're running out of passes? This is where the research comes in. Okay. Faroz Gandhi, who was Indira Gandhi's husband, very famously a parasy. Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi's father.

Indeed. So there we are, and now I've run out. Okay, I win, I mean, I just... Just as long as I win that conversation. If you got my godridges, actually, I came in top... Well, I'm going to check the godridges. No, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure the goddages are right, yeah. No, no, okay, the godrridges are.

Damn it, it's a tie. Okay, I'm going to think of another one before the end of the program. Mysteries, business family... Oh, mysteries. Jimmy mystery, maybe? Yeah, I know. That's right. Mysteries are. Okay. Stop showing off now. You're beating me. I get competitive.

I know you are. I'm going to look some more up. But what I'm going to look. When we talk about Zoroastrianism, and you say that it's very, very influential. There are a number of reasons for that. I mean, there's, first of all, the idea of monotheism, which is a Zoroastrian concept and construct, good and evil, you know, the balance between good and evil, the struggle between good and evil.

The sort of dualisms that you get, heaven and hell. Yeah, yeah. And it enters our Christian faith, or the faith I grew up, rather than the Hindu faith you grew up in a whole variety of different ways. It's a lot of the Hebrew Bible gets written in Babylon and scholars speculate on how much influence the idea of Huramazda may or may not have had on the conception of Yahweh. You have then the Magi, the three wise men. We're getting close to Christmas. The three wise men who turn up in the Bible story and St. Matthew's Bible story. I know you've got a corker of a Magi story, but will you tell us later when we come to it?

I'll save that up. The Magi just have flagged. them are astronomers who did look at stars, who believed in a virgin birth, and the idea of a Messiah. So it's a perfectly legitimate story for St. Matthew to put in. He clearly had some knowledge of what the Magi were about when he wrote his gospel. Yeah. So in all these different ways, but it isn't just even the Christian faith and the Judaic faith, which it influences, You get the Persian goddess Anahita has a lion and she becomes Durga. Yes, well, Anahita, I've always celebrated the fact that it sounds a lot like Anita and Anita. So I claim that.

But also, you know, just in popular culture, I just wanted to also mention, you may not know who Zarathustra is, and our guest is going to shed some light on this. But you will maybe have heard of Nietzsche's thus spake Zarathustra. With the very nice piece of music to go with it. With a very beautiful piece of music by Rickard Strauss that goes with. it. Oh, and also, if you don't, you know, maybe the music will make sense, your Space Odyssey, that beginning music. Yes, that is the piece of music.

Well, actually, that seems like a very good fanfare to introduce our very patient, special VIP guest. He's been nodding in agreement to the Godredges. I know, she did. She agreed with the Godreggis, so I'll give it to you. Vesta Sarkh Curtis is with us, author, curator, honorary director of the British Institute of Persian Studies. Welcome to the Empire Podcast. And you're sitting in the British Museum because you also look after the coin collection at the British Museum and there they are behind you in the drawers. I can see behind you the wonderful oak cabinets. Good morning. Good morning to you both. So lovely to have you. So I mean, when we go through those lists, are you sort of surprised

that, you know, with a presence like this on such small numbers that actually you could say Zoroastrians punch a lot harder or a lot higher than their numbers would suggest they could. Yeah, I think one underestimates their influence, but it's also important that these Zoroastrians, and particularly the Parsis in India, they are very proud of their Persian heritage, which one shouldn't ignore or forget. So, you know, they have a very ancient tradition and they also have a Persian tradition, an Iranian tradition. So Vesta, I'd really love you to tell us a bit more about Zoroastro or Zarathustra, as his more. commonly referred to here in the West. Just tell us his origin story and the origins of the religion that he founded. And roughly what kind of time period are we talking about? We're talking very ancient, don't we? We talk very ancient. And I mean, there is no absolute date for Zoroaster or

Zarathustra, as we know him. First of all, the name, as you hear it, Zoroaster, is the Greek version of the ancient, a Western name, Zarathustra. And he is a name. It means gatherer of camels, Ushra, meaning camels. We have it also in Persian, Shotor. Similar to the Hindi Oot. And Persian, new Persian, Shotor. So basically there are two dates that are suggested for him. One around 1,500 before the Christian era,

and one around 700, 600 before the Christian era. But the tendency is really to put him earlier, in the sort of 1500 bracket because the hymns that are related to him, and we think that they were his hymns, the Gattars, have very close link with the Rig Veda, the Indian Rig Veda, and therefore the earlier date is much, much more plausible. Oh, right, okay. I'm speaking from India now,

and there's obviously a huge debate here on the dating of the Rig Veda. When would you put that and when would you put the Gattas? I would put it around 1,500, 1600 before the Christian era. When we say, shall we call him Zarathustra, because I think that'll probably be more familiar, particularly with an international audience. What do we know of him? What do we know of his life, how he lived and who he was? Was he a camel herder with that name? Probably, yes, but he was also a priest. And he talks in his, I mean, he gives this information in his hymns.

And we know that he probably came from the air. around north of the Aral Sea. I mean, again, there are two theories. One theory puts him in Western Iran and one theory puts him in sort of what is northern Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and I think the latter is much more plausible because of the language. When you say he was a priest, I mean, this is before he's founded his own religion, a priest of what? You know, what would have been the religion that he was being reared into, you know, representing? Well, there was an ancient Iranian religion that he reformed. Which is very closely related to Vedic Hinduism.

To the Indian, yeah, Vedic tradition. I mean, he did not introduce a completely new religion. He reformed the religion that was there. And he sort of took away power from the many gods that were worshipped, sacrifice to. and he created a much more even social environment. So when he was probably a priest, would it have been the situation, as in ancient Greece, where a boy would be chosen to be a priest? And would he have started that at a very young age?

Do we know any of that? At a very young day. I mean, nowadays in Zoroastrianism, you have to be born as a priest. It's a hereditary. Like being a Brahmin? Yeah. And you are trained from a very early age. age, and he was born into a priestly family, yes.

And is it fair to think of Zoroastrianism and Hinduism as two branches that begin at the same place? Absolutely, yes. They are related the same way that the languages are related, Iranian languages. Avesta and Sanskrit. Yes, yes, absolutely. But there's something weird happens, doesn't it? Because you get these inversions.

So Ahura Mazda is the good lord in the Zoroastrian version, but Asura. which is almost the same word as Ahura, is a demon in Vedic. There's a demon in Hinduism. Yes. And in the pre-Zarastrian, in the pre-reformed version of the religion, there were three important gods. Mithra, Varuna and Ahura. Right?

And they are reformed by Zarathustra. And Ahura Mazda takes the lead. Yeah. I mean, just for those who don't know who Ahura Mazda is, I mean, does he have an image? Is there, you know, in sculpture or in painting, what is he represented as? Well, there is a figure that appears on the rock reliefs of the ancient Persians, dating to around 500 before the Christian era, like, for example, the rock release of Darius near Persepolis.

At Behistoun. At Behistoun, at Nachirostam, at Persepolis, where the winged figure offers a ring to the king of kings who looks up to him. And looks very like him. They're kind of twins. One's got wings and one's hasn't. And it looks very like him. Yeah.

Yeah. And this figure is regarded by some people as Ahura Mazda, the image of Ahura Mazda, and by others as the symbol of the divine glory that God hands over to the king of kings. But whatever, this glory comes from Ahura Mazda. But in modern, Parsi version of the faith, in contemporary Zoroastrianism in India, that is the symbol, isn't it, outside every

fire temple? You still see that winged figure. Yes, yes. And even for Iranians, Zoroastrians and non-Zorastrians nowadays in modern Iran, this winged figure has become a symbol of identity. So Muslims, Zoroastrians usually wear a pendant even nowadays. But often in opposition to the regime. Yeah, to declare their nationalistic feelings, their patriotic feelings, and the fact that they are Iranians, most and foremost. I mean, that's interesting. So we did a previous episode where, I mean, to call it sort of a symbol of rebellion, but a symbol of opposition, the tomb of Cyrus. So you would say that Ahura Mazda is another one of those symbols that we do not agree with the reign of the Ayatollah. That was fascinating. The idea being, I think, that the regime stresses its Islamic nature.

Yeah. And that that is the primary thing for the regime, while many Persians regard their Persian nature, their nationalistic identity is their primary identifier. I think it's the patriotic message that we Iranians would like to give, that we are Iranian first, regardless of our religion. If we go back then to Zarathustra, he is visited in a dream by Ahura Mazda. That's how the story goes. What does Ahura Mazda say to him?

And how does he then wake from this dream and say, I must start a religion? Well, he sort of receives his doctrines from Ahura Mazda. But what is also very interesting in one of his hymns, he says to Ahura Mazda, Zarathustra, oh, you look like a human being. You have hands, you've got eyes, you've got feet. Can I touch you? and he says, Ahura Mazda says to him, no, you cannot touch me.

So he gets his sort of theological ideas, the doctrines from Ahura Mazda. I was reading a lovely essay by Mary Boyce about him this morning, and she says he's the first individual voice in all Indo-European literature. Yes. Would you go with that? Yeah, I would go with that. I mean, what is also very interesting about the whole concept of Ahura Mazda and Zarathustra is that he is a god for Zarathustra who develops.

He thinks he grows. He is not absolutely complete, but he is the Lord of Wisdom. And that is very important. So is this a religion which stays static from the time of the receipt of that vision? Or is it a religion, would you say, that evolves over time? I think it is a religion that evolves, and it's also a religion that is not the same, for example, at the time of the ancient Persians as it is under the Sasanians, or nowadays. So it definitely evolves. But the Gattas that we have, the earliest hymns, are they quite like those very cryptic hymns in the Rig Veda set in a pastoral world of flocks and horses? Yes, but very poetic, very poetic, so that they also. have a very beautiful sound and they can be regarded as a sort of poetic version of his words.

Yeah, I mean, poetry is absolutely right, but there's also sort of a sense of catechism about them because there's a lot of questions and answers, questions and answers. Yes, yes. Speak a little bit more about that. I mean, Zarathustra talks to God or the Lord of Wisdom and asks him questions and receives answers from the Lord of Wisdom, which is the beauty. And also, what is important in Zoroastrianism is that the decision that mankind takes, it's up to men and women. You know, at the end of the day, you are supposed and you're told that it's up to you to choose between good and evil. So the concept of free will, which is so prevalent in Christianity? Yeah, yeah. This is very important. Yeah.

And you also get this bifurcation between Ahura Mazda who represents good and Ariaman who represents all that's evil and dark. Yeah. It is important to take actually into account that Ahri-Man or Angramanyu, the evil spirit, is trying to take over and lure mankind into the world of darkness. but Ahura Mazda and his helpers help or try to lead men and women towards the righteous path. And I think that's what is important. The whole path towards truth, which is one of the most important elements in Zoroastrianism. And you see in Darius' inscriptions, which is some of the first written versions of Zoroastrian ideas, this dichotomy between the lie and the truth? I mean, he says very clearly, regardless of whether he followed it or not,

but he says that I'm a friend of the truth and I'm not the friend of the false. So very clearly he sets the parameters. And from that point of view, it must have been a Zoroastrian. Sylvester, do you also get this idea of a messiah, the Sheishant? Yes, the Saushan, yeah, who appears at the end of the end of the world. of the world. You have that. And then you have also the whole idea of, for example, what Darius explains in his inscriptions, that he comes to power and he defeats the enemy by the favor of Ahura Mazda. This is very important. And he says, a great god is Ahura Mazda who created this

earth, who created heaven, who created man. And I think this is beautiful, who created happiness for man. Oh, lovely. And I think in today's world, we need that. Yeah, you're not wrong there. We talked about what Hara Mazda looked like. What did the others look like? What were their representations? What did evil look like in this ancient religion? Funnily enough, we have a relief of the third century of the Christian era of Adishir, the first Sasanian king, where he's celebrates his victory over the last king of kings. This relief is at Nakhshurostam. And Arashir is sitting on his horse and he tramples on the Parthian king of king's body. And opposite him, Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom, sits on his horse. And underneath the horse's

feet is a figure that has snakes coming out of his head. Oh, really? This is Angramanyu or Ahreman or the evil spirit. And that's... The depiction, which is very much like Medusa, which is very much... I mean, the crossovers are extraordinary, aren't they, in ancient Greek? Yeah, yeah. Vesta, tell us about the Magi, because they're obviously something that the rest of the Mediterranean is fascinated by,

and everyone's slightly fearing and slightly looking up to the Magi. Yes. I'm actually very interested in them because for the first time the word Magush, which is... singular for Magi, Old Persian singular. As in John Fowles, Magus. Magus appears in the inscriptions of Darius at Bihistan, dating to 520 before the Christian era. And Darius describes in his inscriptions, there's a trilingual inscriptions. In the old Persian inscription, he says that he came back to Persia.

He was campaigning in Egypt. At that time, the Persians had conquered Egypt. He came back, rushed back to Persia because a Magush called Gaumata had claimed to be the son of Cyrus. So this is the first time that we have in the old Persian inscriptions the word Magush. What was a Magush? A priest. He was a priest. So not a wise man. They'd have to be actually off the priest.

priestly cast and a priest? It was a priest. Now, we don't know exactly whether he was a Zoroastrian priest or whether he was a Mithraic priest, because we have to bear in mind that Mithra, the Iranian god Mithra, also played a very important role. Who also appears in the Rig Vedron has a Hindu life. Yeah. And he appears in many of the small clay inscriptions found at Persepolis. Well, then we shouldn't overlook him.

Tell us about Mithras, because he's also, I mean, there were, Little Roman forts, which honor Mithras here in England, I've seen them myself. And in Scotland. Yeah. Yeah, but that's the Roman Mithras. Okay, so how are they different? He must have been, I think, personally, definitely influenced by the Iranian Mithra, because it's not a coincidence.

Okay. He's shown wearing Persian outfit. He has a Persian hat. And the name, the Persian god, he is the Persian god, described as the Persian god. But the Iranian Mithra is one. of the helpers of Ahura Mazda. He's the judge, isn't he? He presides over oath, friendship. He is the sun god.

And this is another idea that we get in Christianity and Judaism from Zerazdh. Because he has scales and he weighs the souls of the dead. Yeah, and he has a solar headdress. He is important for pacts and friendship, and he is, in a way, the most important divine being after Ahura Mazda. When he weighs your souls, Mithras, if your soul is not, you know, up to Muster and it doesn't, it doesn't weigh enough, what happens to it? Is there an idea of hell and heaven? Yeah, but hell is not a sort of place where you sizzle in heat and the fire. I mean, fire is a sacred element.

So the Zoroastrian hell is a sort of lead-filled mass where you're thrown into, but not a hot, fiery hell that we imagine. Yeah. But to go back to the Magi, what is very interesting is how they creep in to the Christian ideology and how in the gospel of St. Matthew, they are described as following the star and coming to Bethlehem to pay homage to the Son of God. Now, there is a very interesting theory that says, actually, that the whole inspiration came in the first century AD, or Christian era,

when the king of Armenia, who was the brother of the king of Parthia, was sent to Nero to the court of Rome to receive his crown, and he arrived in Rome with a large number of magi or priests dressed in white. How extraordinary. Bringing presence to the emperor in Rome with white horses. And everybody in Rome was so perplexed and fascinated to see this beautiful entourage arriving that this story may have been the inspiration. But before we get on to the New Testament, we should quickly say that during the time that the Jews were exiled in the Babylonian captivity, after Nebuchadnezzar conquers them and moves them from Jerusalem to Babylon, that many scholars believe that the form of Yahweh is often based on Ahura Mazda. Is that something you would believe?

It is possible. I mean, I can't really say whether it is or it isn't, but what is quite important is that the Old Testament was really. written at that time. But Vesta, there's also many ideas that appear in the Hebrew Bible that seem to come from that Babylonian period, the idea of a flood, the idea of the Garden of Eden, the idea of a covenant, the covenant that's made between the Shahar or the King of Kings and the different peoples is very like the covenant that the Jewish people have with Yahweh. This is, I should say, Lloyd's new book, Lloyd's, Lloyd's, Lloyd and Jones, who we had three times on our pod, just produced a book on the book of Esther, which develops these ideas. If people want to know more about that, they can go to that.

But yes, the New Testament, Anita, you were asking. The Magi... Because every time anyone says Majai, you get very excitable. Tell us why you get very excitable. I get quite excitable with all this sort of material. But when I was a teenager backpacking through Iran in 1986, I was following Marco Polo's route. And Marco Polo tells a story that, the 1270s, when he was passing through Iran as a young man, he went to see the tomb of the

three magi, the three wise men. And this is the most fantastic story. And he says he went to this town called Saveh, which is south of Tehran, beyond Tabriz, between Tabriz and Tehran. And he sees there the perfectly preserved bodies of the three wise men. And there are these accounts, we know that King Cabus and the Gumbadi Cabus, whose body is apparently suspended in a coffin of rock crystal. There are all these stories that we have from medieval around that occasionally people were buried or preserved like mummies. You're saying names I'm not familiar with. Who is Kim, I was going to say Kim Carbos, that sounds like Kim Kardashian, who is King Carbus suspended in crystal? King Carbos is not so far from Armenia, so near Kardashian territory, but arguably the greatest of all

medieval Iranian tomb towers is this extraordinary beautiful brick-celchuk cylinder, which is several hundred feet highs. It's a sort of big bend of the Persian Caspian step, except much more beautiful. And the king who is buried there is called King Cabos. He wrote a mirror for princes for his son, and he was buried in this rock crystal coffin. Anyway, but this is just a dog's leg away from fact that Marco Polo claims to have seen the place. Bester wants to come in, very politely, she's got something to add. Go on Vesta. Yeah. What is also interesting is the names of these three magi, the three wise men.

And one of them, we think we can identify him historically because the names are Casper, Melchio and Baltazar. And Casper is a Persian name. Is it? Yes. Gosh. Yes. In Persian, you have it as Gondofaris. You have it also in Armenian as Gaspar.

and we actually have a king of the first century of the Christian era called Gondofaris. Who allegedly welcomes St. Thomas. Exactly. He is located in eastern Iran, modern Afghanistan. And Pakistan, he leaves an inscription in a Buddhist monastery in Taktibahi. So one of them definitely, or most definitely, I think definitely, he must have come from Iran. Do you know off the top of your head who bought the mer?

I've always wondered about the mer. I mean, who bought the mer? It was like, yeah, anyway, forget that. And someone will know the answer to that. This is also interesting. I just love all this stuff. I mean, did you want to finish off your story about, you know, following the steps of Marco Polo? So there is this mosque where there is the remains of a tomb.

And it's now, of course, ruined. So it's not there anymore. But that was one of the first place I ever got arrested. I got taken in by the Revolutionary Guards in Sarvane. And I got saved by producing, I was then at Cambridge, and I produced my UL library card because he asked for identity. And it turned out this revolutionary guard was a would-be scholar. I was thrilled to see a Cambridge library card and then drove me around the village and showed me the sights after that. Oh, that is funny.

It's a good place to take a break because we were criticised. I'll just tell you, Vesta, once. And he does this in every episode. He dropped some kind of ridiculous statement like, oh, I once knew a boy who was raised by wolves. And we kind of move on very quickly. We didn't delve into it. I'm glad we got to the end of the, oh, the first time I was arrested story. Anyway, look, we'll take a break.

Join us after the break when we find out what happens to this very ancient, and as you can hear, extremely rich religion when the Persians are defeated. Welcome back. So just before the break, we had the hilarious story of Williams' first, almost arrest. Not almost. I was arrested. I ended up in jail. Oh, you went to talk in jail? Oh, you didn't say that.

until the Cambridge University card got me out. Get out of jail, free card that you had on you. Anyway, Vesta was telling us about this sort of rich and ancient history. I had a question, because we've very recently been talking about Alexander the Great, and his crushing of his Persian enemy. Did he also crush the religion when he crushed his enemies, or did it still flourish, or did it change under some kind of Hellenistic boot? I mean, what happened?

No, no, he didn't crush the religion. actually after the burning of Persepolis, which was totally unnecessary, because he had conquered Persia. Which all good Persians fester resent to this day? Absolutely. And that's why I don't call him Alexander the Great. For me, he's just Alexander of Macedon. Okay. Is he Alexander the cursed, Alexander the destroyer? I wouldn't go as far as that. I just refer to him as Alexander. Okay, fair enough. It is your prerogative. But what happens to Zerastrian? Trinism after Alexander. It continues. I mean, for example, in southern Iran, in the area around

Persepolis, the local kings of Persis, they continue. They mint even coins that show on the back, fire altars and priests standing in front of it. But we also get images of Hercules. Yes. In a slightly persianate form and a lot of Greek culture. Yeah, you can't deny that there is Greek rule. Macedonian rule, I would say, the successes of Alexander the Seleukits, for about 100 years, have power over the former ancient Persian Empire. And the images that we get there is a richness actually in the iconography, in the imagery that also can't be denied, that is influenced by

Hellenism. But I think what we need to remember and always bear in mind is that they use these Hellenistic Greek images, but when people look at them or worship them, they think of their own divine beings. For example, a Heracles-like figure is to the Iranian Zoroastrian world, Verathragana, the warrior god. Or Athena is anahita. You get the same in early India, don't you, under the Kushans, because you get these figures that could be Lord Shiva and could be Osho. Your colleague Joe Kribb has written long articles about this. Absolutely. And also the nice thing about the Indian material, the Kushan material, is that it names the gods,

sometimes in their Iranian name and sometimes in their Greek name. So you have Miro and Mithra and Mao and the moon. And Osho and Mahadev. Yeah. And then we have inscriptions from Anatolia, from Comagini in the first century before the Christian era, where all these gods appear in their Persian and Hellenistic name. This is the wonderful site of Nemrukda. Nemroddak, absolutely, yeah. This is one of the great sites of the world where these heads at the top of a mountain, all about what, some 20, 30 feet high. whereabouts? Now in eastern Turkey but

Eastern Turkey yeah and just I mean you mentioned her a few times and you know since I feel a kinship because of the name Anahita really interesting that a woman has such a central position in this religion Not just a woman I'll have you know Rita I love goddess I'm not surprised at all but tell us more about Anahita would you Anahita or as she is known in the scriptures, our Western scriptures are Drisura Anahita is the goddess of fertility and all waters. She is one of the main helpers of Ahura Mazda.

No surprise to this podcast, Vesta. Wheater's reputation as a love goddess. Has God before her? Silly boy. Yes. And she plays a very important role in looking after the kingly glory. Because in the Iranian sort of ideology, in the Avestan tradition, in the religious tradition,

only legitimate kings of Iran hold the divine glory that is presented to them by the Lord of Wisdom. So Vesta, at this point, having had this brief moment when you have a sort of wash of Hellenistic culture over Iran, you have, as always in Iranian history, this comeback of the native Iranian elements. And in this case, in the form of the Parthians, Yes.

Cavalry, nomads, bows, the Parthian shot. Yes. And these guys make mincemeat of the Romans. The famous, tell us about... Of the Romans. But ethnically, what were the Parthians? They were Iranians. So Iranians from a certain part, or just all Iranians got together and were the Parthians?

They were Iranians from Eastern Iran who actually turn up on the political map around 240 before the Christian era. they move gradually westwards, I mean, you have to imagine them south of the Caspian Sea. Right. So this is northeastern Iran. We should describe what they looked like, the images of them. We have these wonderful kings with big moustaches. Trousers, trousers. They had trousers, exactly.

They were rider people, rider nomads, who had settled in that part for, you know, a long time. And they introduced the trouser suit. Vesta, as a patriotic Persian, you've got to tell the story of the epic defeat of the Romans under Crassus at the Battle of Carhe. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I love it. Am I pronouncing it right? Carééi.

Carai, Carai. In southeastern Turkey nowadays. I mean, this is the battle between Crassus, who was a member of the triumvirate in Rome, and Orodes, the king of Parthia. and Crassus decides to invade Parthia in 54 before the Christian era. How dare he? How dare he, Vesta? Yes. And Orodes sends his general Sirena to the battlefield. The Romans suffer a humiliating defeat by particularly the cavalry,

because they think that the cavalry is retreating, and they then suddenly turn around with the famous people. Parthian shot. The backward shot. The backward shot while galloping. And several actually Greek historians, including Plutarch, who has a beautiful description of the life of Crassus, say that the battlefield actually went dark because of the arrows of the Parthians. They shot up and then went towards the enemy. And crucially for our story, these guys are most definitely Zoroastrian? Zoroastrian, but some of them were also following the Mithraic faith.

We can't deny that. Would they have seen a distinction between the two? No, they may not have. They may not, because Mithra was a divine being within the Zoroastrian pantheon. So, I mean, it would be like Hindus being Shivites or Vashnavites or, you know. I would think so, yeah, within the Zoroastrian religion. Okay, but still they would be Hindu. But it's interesting that a lot of the Parthian kings have names.

that allude to Mithras presence or have clearly the name of Mithra in it, like Mithradatus, for example. On Mithras, Mithras, again, is somebody who is very powerfully represented. Does he not also enter Buddhism somehow? I mean, is there not a link with Buddhism? Correct. So in Central Asia, a little bit later on, when the development of Mahayana Buddhism, some scholars believe that the future Buddha Maitria is a version of Mithra. Mithra, yeah, yeah.

And that's a theory. It's not a settled thing. But what we do know for sure, and this is so interesting if you're British, is that in the aftermath of this great Persian defeat of the Roman army, the Romans start worshipping this Persian god Mithras. And in England, you have a Mithraim underneath the Bloomberg building in the city of London. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's right. With this image of the bull being sorted. And it even gets as far north. I've been to one of a Mithraic temple on Hadrian's wall. Yes, yes. And there's one apparently in Scotland and Inveresque outside Edinburgh, but I haven't been to that one.

And there are many in Rome and in Italy. Under San Clemente, you can go and see it still. Yeah. I also know, look, I know people, I mean, somebody will, of course, write in and say it's not the same stem at all. But I know people of Hindu origin whose surname is Mithra, Mithra. And I wonder if that's the same kind of stem. It is. And in Persian, in the Iranian tradition, we have Mithra.

as the first name, girl's name. Right. Okay, so can we now talk about sort of another very important chapter in this religion? And this is the rise of the Sasanians. Who are the Sasanians? Where did they come from? And how are they different to what came before? The Sasanians came from southern Iran. While the Parthians came from northeastern Iran and gradually moved to Western and southwestern Iran, The Sasanians were a local dynasty, and their name comes from a Sarsan, one of the ancestors of the first Sasanian kings.

They were ruling in southern Iran, in the area around Persepolis, and then the prince called Adashir rises against the Parthian king of kings in 224 of the Christian era, and at a decisive battle. in Western Iran, the Parthian king, known as Artabanus, is defeated. And we now have a new dynasty of the Sasanians, and they are definitely Zoroastrians. And we know that through their inscriptions, through their coins, and through their texts. And this is the kind of high point, if you're a magist, this is the high point of your power. There's images of the Maggi on these wonderful Naxi Rustam sculptures, aren't there? And pictures of the High Priest, this very powerful-looking... Well, with the Kare Deer, the High Priest, features in a couple of the reliefs,

and he is left behind also about three or four inscriptions around Persepolis and at Persepolis. But the Sissanian kings in the early period were also priests and guardians of the Anahitianian. temple in past near Persepolis. Yes. When they defeat the Parthians, though, I mean, is there sort of slaughter and destruction, or do they recognize them as kindred and say, you know, what, you've lost? So now you bow down to us. How does that work? No, there is no slaughter. And the Parthians continue, actually, to be quite important in the background. For example, we know that when Sasanian kings were crowned by the seven noble families, these, representatives came from Parthian families. So we know that. And we should say that the Sassanians

grow to become an empire that is almost the equal of the great empire of Darias, Cyrus and Xerxes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, in the first century of their rule, that is sort of around from 224 until about 400 of the Christian era, we see them on rock reliefs. Roman historians and politicians refer to them, and the clash between Rome and the Persian Empire continues. They are the great rivals of Rome, aren't they? Because you have them under the Parthians, it continues under the Sissanians. Why?

For political and economic reasons. And when you go to Persepolis, you go beyond Tanakshirustam, and you see this image, this chilling image of the Emperor Valerian on his knees in front of Sharpur. Held by his hand, yes. And Philip the Arab, the Roman emperor, interesting. Most people don't know there was an Arab Roman emperor, but Philip the Arab is bowing also in this image. And Poro Valerian ends up building bridges the rest of his life in Hamadan, doesn't he?

He's mentioned actually in the Kave Zaradush inscription of Shapo near Persepolis. He described Shapo the first. he's the second Sasanian king who comes to power in 240 of the Christian era. He describes how he defeated these three Roman emperors, and Gordian is, of course, killed, and his body is stretched under the horses' hooves at Bishapur, another relief. What did the Romans make of this new ferocious rival that was undoing everything that had been done before and had, you know, pretty much chased them out of, well, vast tracks? Where did they get ousted from?

All of Eastern Turkey. Turkey. Armenia. You see Armenia was a very important center that both the Parthians and later Sassanians and the Romans wanted to control. The battleground. Yeah, battleground. But, you know, it sort of was at some point the Sussanians won the battles, then the Romans

won the battles. It sort of went backwards and forward. But what was important that throughout this time, the river Euphrates, more or less, which is now in modern Iraq, more or less remains the boundary between the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire. We should say that the art of the Sasanians is one of the great moments of Persian artistry. And if you're ever in Washington, you go to the Freer Smithsonian Gallery. And there's this room full of Sasanian golden plates with these images of these increasingly. incredibly handsome men with long curly beards and fantastic crowns riding out to battle, riding out in search of wild boar with their bows and their knives and their swords.

And it's a very, it's kind of pleasure-loving, romantic and very attractive civilization, isn't it? They're always drinking from wright and horns. And you get the impression of people that are really enjoying their lives. Well, if you were a member of the aristocracy and you were well off, you enjoyed your life. I don't know whether as the ordinary humble person you did. I don't know. But it was a time, particularly at the beginning, there was also a lot of religious freedom. And there were Jews and Christians and Zoroastrians.

There were intermarriages. You know, this was not a taboo thing. But in the sort of two 70s, the high priest Kedir lashes out on minority groups. Yes. He crushes the Christians. He crushes the Jews, the Buddhists. Yeah. And he tells also in his inscriptions and the Manichaeans.

That's what we're coming to. Well, who are the Manichaeans? Yes, tell us about them. The Manichaeans are new, yeah. Yes, this is the third great Persian religion. We've had Zoroastrianism. We've had Mithraism. And then there's a third one.

There's Manichism. It's named after Marni, the prophet, who was the son of apparently a Parthian prince, who grew up in Babylonia and who spread a religion that in a way sort of not denied, but was not very positive about material wealth and enjoyment. And it was quite a somber religion, but became very popular and even went as far as China. And to the West, St. August of Hippo as a young man becomes a manokin. and becomes part of the Manichan elect before he sees the error of his ways.

Yes. But then Kadya, the high priest in the early Sasanian period, he senses that there is danger coming from the Manichaeans. And Shapur, the second Sasanian king, was very much actually drawn towards the religion and the persecution starts. So, well, I mean, was in your opinion, now looking back at all this,

was Qadir right that there was, a threat, or, you know, if he would have just chilled out a bit more, you would have had, again, this kind of, this is an evolving religion that seems to envelop and develop all that is around it. What would have happened? It is difficult to say, but again, you have to remember that religion and kingship is very, very closely tied in the Iranian psyche and the ancient Iranian empires. And, you know, there are various references like kingship and religion are one. They are like two brothers separated at birth. So I think if he had not come down on the minorities, probably Zoroastrianism, as we know and has developed throughout the Sasanian period,

may not have survived. I'm not saying it was a good thing or a bad thing. Okay. So Vesta, as we come to the close of this, we end up with a very, very powerful Sasanian Empire, which is stretching. How far east does it get? Well, up to the Punjab, to Afghanistan, definitely, Pakistan. And to the west, it's butting into Rome with places like sort of Erzurum, Tabriz, Anatolia is the border. Yeah, yeah. And the river Euphrates, as I said, in modern Iraq.

And in the next episode, we're going to take this story forward. We're going to stay with the Sassanians as we look at the last great war of antiquity, an almost sort of Manichaean struggle, we should say, between on one hand the Sassanians and under Cusro and his Christian Armenian wife, Shireen, who appears in Ferdowsy and is a major figure in Persian literature. And on the other hand, the Christian Byzantines under Heraclius. And this is one of the great sort of epic battles, the Armageddon at the end of antiquity. And that is what we're going to be looking at in the next episode. Well, and it's been an absolute delight. Thank you so much for being such good company. Thank you. So clear and poetic about it.

That's a delightful. Thank you. Oh, what wonderful stuff. Sessa Khartis. It's been great. My pleasure. That is it from Empire until the next time. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan.

and goodbye from me, William Duremple.