Page:Next-of-kin Marriages in Old Iran.djvu/41

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NEXT-OF-KIN MARRIAGES.

As for Agathias, the Byzantine writer who flourished in the middle of the sixth century after Christ, his works ought to be consulted with greater caution. Besides, Diogenes Laertius is very often called 'an inaccurate and unphilosophical writer.' Even the true Plutarch's testimony is frequently questioned by modren critics. The reference to consanguineous marriages amongst the Magi: τουτοις δε καὶ μητρας συνερχεσθαι πατριον νενόμισται, in Strabo's Geography, Bk. XV., is a very short and isolated sentence, which has not the least connection with the main subject of the passage wherein it occurs, viz., the mode of disposing of the dead among the early Persians.[1] It might, therefore, be justly regarded as an interpolation by some unknown reader, similar to the interpolations noticed in the work of Xenophon, Bk. VIII., Ch. V., p. 26, and condemned as such by all his critics of authority, viz., Bornemann, Schneider and Dindorf.

  1. ↑ 'Géographie de Strabon' traduit du Grec en Français, tome cinquième, à Paris, de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1819, pp. 140–141.
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