"Before leaving the house, prayer had to be made to the sacred fire; and on returning, the father must do so even before embracing his wife and children. Thus Agamemnon acted, we are told, on his return from Troy. Sacrifices, libations, wine, oil and victims were regularly offered to the Fire, and as the god brightened up under the oils, all exulted and fell down before him. They believed that he ate and drank, and with more reason than the Jew said this of his Jehovah and El-Shadai. Above all, it was necessary to offer food and wine to him; to ask a blessing before every meal, and return thanks when it was over. From Ovid and Horace we see it was thought pious and proper to sup in presence of the sacred flame, and to make oblations to it. There was no difference between Romans, Greeks, and Hindoos in these respects, except that Soma wine in India took the place of the grape of cooler lands. All alike besought Agni by fervent prayers for increase of flocks and families, for happy lives and serene old age, for wisdom and pardon of sin. We see the great antiquity of this faith in the well-known fact, that even when the early Greeks were sacrificing to Zeus and Athene at Olympia, they always first invoked Agni, precisely as had been ordered in the Vedas some 2,000 years B.C., and probably as he had been invoked many thousands of years before the art of writing was known." CHAPTER VI. _Fire-worship in the States of the Mediterranean--Special Sacredness of the public City-fire of Greece and Rome--The sacred Fire of Tlachtga--Ceylon Fire-worship--The Parsees--Persian Monuments--Impiety of Cambyses--Cingalese Terms, Sanscrit, Welsh, &c.--The Yule-log-- Fire-worship in England--The Fire of Beltane--Druidical Fires--May-day Fires--November Fires in Ireland--Between Two Fires--Scotland--The Summer Solstice and Fire Ceremonies--Worship of Baal in Ireland--St. John's Day--Bonfires--Decree of Council of Constantinople._