"That Jupiter, with Herodotus, is Belus and Assyrius, for in that name he was called Jove in the most ancient theology of the Persians, as Berosus, Athenocles, and Simachus write. It is a question for the learned whether in the god Omanus, or Amanus, whom Strabo mentions, reference may be had to Chamanim, or Hamanim. Scaliger thinks in the affirmative, and he thence deduces Achæmenis and Achæmeniss, who denote Persian extraction. Amanus was indeed the sun, as Anaitis was the moon, and who were called Diana and Venus. No one, however, is ignorant that the Persians worshipped fire as a symbol of the sun, and that is the reason why Datis, the captain of a ship under Xerxes, left the island of Delos unharmed, inasmuch as it was sacred to the sun, or Apollo. As to the other kind of Chamanim, or effigy reduced to powder by King Josiah, the following will be found in II. Kings, XXIII., 11, 'And in process of time he removed the horses which the King of Judah had given to the sun, in the entrance of the temple of the Lord, near the tabernacle of Nathan-melech the eunuch, who was a prince in the suburbs, and he burnt the chariots of the sun in fire.' These also, perhaps, should be called Chamanim, as Cimchi, Solomon Jarchi, and Levi Ben Gershon explain that place concerning the horses and chariot, that, while adoring the rising sun, they led them in solemn pomp from the entrance of the temple to the tabernacle of Nathan-melech. This more probably means the molten images of the horses and chariots consecrated to the sun, for, among the Persians, the horse was sacred to the sun, and accustomed to be sacrificed to it. The same custom was transplanted among the Grecians. In ancient times the chariots were also dedicated to the same, as the swiftest of swift gods. But their place was at the door of the True God. The Jews worshipped the sun towards the east within the vestibule of the door. Thus in Ezekiel VIII., 14, 'And behold, near the temple of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, there were as if twenty-five men, whose backs were towards the temple of the Lord, and their faces towards the east, and they adored the sun in the east.'"[30] From most of the classic authors, such as Homer, Tibullus, Horace, Ovid, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, &c., we gather that every Greek and Roman house had its altar on which fire was ever burning. At night it was covered up with ashes so as to reserve some of the wood for the morrow and keep it gently and slowly smouldering. Day by day, the first thing in the morning, the master of the house applied himself to the rousing up or rekindling of the fire, in order that it might be ready for the coming ceremonies and worship; in his absence from home this duty devolved upon his wife as his nearest relation. Writers tell us that the fire did not cease to burn until the family had altogether perished, and an extinguished hearth in early days meant the same thing as an extinguished family.