On the Mysteries (Thomas Taylor trans.)

divine worship, which had been preserved inviolable among them. The worship of the Gods had been kept up in temples, with altars, and images, and sacrifices, and hymns, and prostrations Prostration, or 'proskynesis' in Greek, was the act of bowing down to the ground. While common in the Persian court, the Greeks generally viewed it as a gesture reserved strictly for the gods., and such like ; but it is by no means fitting, says he, for us to confound these things, either by lifting up men to the honours of the Gods, or depressing the Gods to the honours of men. For if Alexander Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), King of Macedon, who famously sought to adopt Persian customs of divine honors, much to the chagrin of his Greek companions. would not suffer any man to usurp his royal dignity by the votes of men ; how much more justly may the Gods disdain for any man to take their honours to himself. And it appears by Plutarch, Plutarch (c. 46 – 119 AD) was a Greek biographer and philosopher whose writings are a primary source for the lives of ancient statesmen. * that the Greeks thought it a mean and base thing for any of them, when sent on any embassy to the kings of Persia, to prostrate themselves before them, because this was only allowed among them in divine adoration. Therefore, says he, when Pelopidas and Ismenias Pelopidas and Ismenias were notable Theban statesmen and generals sent as ambassadors to the Persian court in the 4th century BC. were sent to Artaxerxes Artaxerxes II, the King of Persia, who reigned from 404 to 358 BC., Pelopidas did nothing unworthy, but Ismenias let fall his ring to the ground, and stooping for that, was thought to make his adoration ; which

<em> Plutarch, Life of Artaxerxes; Aelian, Historical Miscellany, book 1, chapter 21.* original: "Vit. Artaxerx. Ælian. Var. Hist. lib. i. c. 21."