Note 506 — Chapter I · (continued 3)

According to an ancient custom which is observed even in our days, the mouth of a dying Parsí is applied to that of a dog, who is to receive the man’s last breath. This custom may have occasioned the belief that the Persians let dogs devour their sick and dying. So says Herodotus (l. III.); Strabo (l. XI.) names the Bactrians and Sogdians as feeding for this purpose certain dogs, whom they call “buriers of the dead;” Cicero (Tusc., l. XLV) mentions the same of the Hyrcanians. Certainly, different customs prevailed in different times among the numerous nations who inhabited the vast empire of Persia: hence may be explained the various and sometimes contradictory accounts of ancient authors whose affirmation, denial, and silence, with respect to a particular fact, may however, in many instances, with equal truth but with due restriction, be applied to particular places and epochs.—A. T.