Achaemenid/Early Zoroastrian Influences on Phoenician Cultic Practices during the Persian Period (original) (raw)
2021
It is commonly maintained that the official Achaemenid policy, enacted by Cyrus the Great, was to allow religious freedom to the various peoples under their hegemony. Cyrus specifically was renowned for reinstating deportees to their homelands, permitting them to carry back the stolen treasures of their sacked temples, and reestablish their cults. Yet, when examining the cult practices of the Phoenicians in the eastern Mediterranean during the Persian period, several dramatic changes seem to have occurred, most of which remain unexplained. Some of these changes are consistent with principals of the Zoroastrian religion, the official religion of the Achaemenids from the time of Darius I, as they appear in their late holy scriptures. Although written sources suggest that in certain instances the Achaemenid court did in fact attempt to interfere with the cultic practices of other nations, it seems highly unlikely that the Achaemenids forced their system of beliefs on the Phoenicians, with whom they maintained good relations throughout most of the Persian period. However, it is more than possible that as part of those warm relations, certain Zoroastrian ideas sipped into Phoenician society bringing about changes to their cultic practices.
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