Achaemenid Empire
Religion

Mithra was worshipped; his temples and symbols were the most widespread, most people bore names related to him and most festivals were dedicated to him. Religious toleration has been described as a "remarkable feature" of the Achaemenid Empire. The Old Testament reports that Persian king Cyrus the Great released the Jewish people from the Babylonian captivity in 539–530 BC and permitted them to return to their homeland. Cyrus the Great assisted in the restoration of the sacred places of various cities.

It was during the Achaemenid period that Zoroastrianism reached southwestern Iran, where it came to be accepted by the rulers and through them became a defining element of Persian culture. The religion was not only accompanied by a formalization of the concepts and divinities of the traditional Iranian pantheon but also introduced several novel ideas, including that of free will.

During the reign of Artaxerxes I and Darius II, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote: " have no images of the gods, no temples nor altars, and consider the use of them a sign of folly. This comes, I think, from their not believing the gods to have the same nature with men, as the Greeks imagine." He claims the Persians offer sacrifice to: "the sun and moon, to the earth, to fire, to water, and to the winds. These are the only gods whose worship has come down to them from ancient times. At a later period, they began the worship of Urania, which they borrowed from the Arabians and Assyrians. Mylitta is the name by which the Assyrians know this goddess, to whom the Persians referred as Anahita."

The Babylonian scholar and priest Berosus records—although writing over seventy years after the reign of Artaxerxes II — that the emperor had been the first to make cult statues of divinities and have them placed in temples in many of the major cities of the empire. Berosus also substantiates Herodotus when he says the Persians knew of no images of gods until Artaxerxes II erected those images. On the means of sacrifice, Herodotus adds "they raise no altar, light no fire, pour no libations." Herodotus also observed that "no prayer or offering can be made without a magus present".
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