That the sanctity of "seven" was impressed on all usages of life in Persia is shown in the story of Esther. King Ahasuerus feasts on the seventh day, has seven chamberlains, and consults the seven princes of Media and Persia ("wise men which knew the times"). When Esther finds favor of the King above all other maidens, as successor to deposed Vashti, she is at once given "the seven maidens, which were meet to be given her, out of the King's house; and he removed her and her maidens to the best place of the house of the women." Esther was thus a Queen of the Seven,--of Sheba, in Hebrew,--and although this was some centuries after Solomon's time, there is every reason to suppose that the Zoroastrian social usages in Persia prevailed in Solomon's time. At any rate we find in the ancient Psalm lxxii., labeled "Of Solomon," Kings of Sheba (the Seven) mentioned along with the Euphrates, chief of the Seven Rivers (Zend Haptaheando); and remembering also the "sevens" of Esther, we may safely infer that a "Queen of Sheba" connoted a Persian or Median Queen. We may also fairly infer, from the emphasis laid on "sevens" in Esther, in connexion with her wit and wisdom, that a Queen of the Seven had come to mean a wise woman, whether of Jewish or Persian origin, a woman instructed among the Magi, and enjoying the freedom allowed by them to women. There is no geographical difficulty in supposing that a Persian queen like Hutaosa, a devotee of Armaîti (Queen of the Seven, genius of Peace and Agriculture), might not have heard of Salem, the City of Peace, of its king whose title was the Peaceful (Solomon), and visited that city,--though of course the location of the meeting may have been only a later tradition. [10] The object of the Queen's visit to Solomon was "to test him with hard questions" as to his wisdom. It was not to discover or pay court to his wisdom, though he received from her "of the gold of Sheba" spoken of in the psalm. As a royal missionary of the Magi her ability and title to prove Solomon's knowledge, and decide on it, are assumed in the narrative (1 Kings x.). Several sentences in her tribute to Solomon's "wisdom and goodness" recall passages in the Psalm (lxxii.). There is here an intimation of some prevailing belief that Solomon's wisdom was harmonious with the Zoroastrian wisdom. Whether the visit of the Queen be mythical or not, and even if both she and Solomon are regarded as mythical, the legend would none the less be an expression of a popular perception of elements not Jewish in Solomonic literature.