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θυσίη. For the resemblances of the ‘manner of sacrifice to the rites of the Ali Allahis in modern Persia’ cf. Rawlinson, ad loc.; the open air sacrifice, the ‘myrtle’, the ‘hymn’ (ἐπαοιδήν), the ‘boiling of the flesh’, and its distribution to the worshippers all occur in the modern rite. There can be no doubt that H. had watched a Persian sacrifice. Strabo (733) gives a fuller description, based partly on H., and partly on what he had seen in Armenia. H.'s object throughout is to contrast Persian and Greek customs; this will explain his verbal inaccuracies. The victim is not burned as in Greece, but H. writes loosely (cf. 131. 1 n.) in saying ‘no fire is kindled’; there was fire in the Persian sacrifices, but it was fed with wood; there were no ‘libations’ of wine; but the sacred water (‘zasthra’, S. B. E. iv, p. 69) was sometimes poured (cf. vii. 54. 2 (Xerxes at the Hellespont), 188. 2 n.); the fillet (ἐστεφανωμένος) was not a Greek στέμμα, which was always intertwined with woollen threads. οὐλῇσι. For the sacred ‘barley’ and its πρόχυσις cf. 160. 5, and Gardner and Jevons, G. A. p. 250. The meal offering of barley went with the burnt offering, as bread goes with meats in a meal (cf. Lev. ix. 17 R. V.). Another contrast is that the Greeks sacrificed bareheaded but for a garland, the Persian wore his ‘tiara’. καθαρόν. The idea is double, partly a place free from pollution, partly one where there is no obstacle to sacrifice; cf. vii. 183. 2 τὸ ἐμποδὼν ἐγεγόνεε καθαρόν.
ἁπαλός, ‘fresh’; cf. ii. 92. 4 ἁπαλὰ καὶ αὖα. ὦν marks the apodosis.
For the Magians cf. 101 n. and App. VIII, § 3. οἵην δή. Translate ‘for such they say the invocation is’; H. does not profess himself to have understood the incantation. Darmstetter (iv. 53) says, ‘H. may have heard the Magi sing the very same Gathas which are now sung by the Mobeds in Bombay.’ The hymns invoke Ormazd and his ministering spirits and dwell upon their attributes; they are not a ‘Theogony’ in the Hesiodic sense (ii. 53. 2 n.). ὁ θύσας. Greek usage left a portion for the priests. Strabo (732) says the Persian god's share was the life (ψυχή) of the victim. λόγος αἱρέει. More often without an object (cf. vi. 124. 3); ‘as reason takes him,’ i. e. as he pleases.
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