But neither of the two liquors, homa and sura, seems to have been employed by the lower classes in the sense in which it is used by the populace to-day. A third and very deleterious drink called “banga” is mentioned in the Zend-Avesta. It is there personified as a bad spirit, and is named in conjunction with two others as the demon of intoxication.[82] Like the modern bang, referred to in our account of India, it is believed to have been extracted from the hemp plant (_Cannabis sativa_); and it may be interesting to mention that the same substance, somewhat modified in each case, is used in Turkey under the name of “hadschy,” in Arabia as “hashish,” and by the Hottentots as “dacha,” producing in all instances an intoxicating effect. Whatever may have been the means employed in the earliest times, there is no doubt that, notwithstanding the prohibitions and denunciations of their religion, the ancient Persians were much addicted to intoxication.[83] Of that we have evidence in the pages of Herodotus the Greek historian,[84] who says that they were in the habit of discussing most public affairs of importance under the influence of wine, and that the landlord of the house where they met kept a record of their decisions, which he submitted for their approval on the following day. If these still met with their approbation, they were adopted and carried into effect. _Per contra_, if they came to any resolution whilst they were sober, it was reconsidered and approved or disapproved under the influence of drink.[85] The same historian also tells us that Cyrus gave a feast to the Persians in which he provided rich wines;[86] and the following story is narrated concerning that monarch, showing the excess to which drinking was carried in his day.[87] Cyrus made war upon Tomyris, queen of the Massagetæ, a race living in Central Asia, and by the advice of Cræsus the Lydian, he made a feint of deserting his camp, and left “flowing goblets of wine” to tempt the enemy to excess. The stratagem succeeded, and when the enemy was drunk, he attacked him and took the queen’s son prisoner. Cyrus was, however, ultimately defeated and slain. The drink here referred to was made from the vine, but Herodotus also mentions an incident which shows that palm-wine was drunk in the time of Cambyses (B.C. 529-522). “He (Cambyses) sent the Ichthyophagæ into Ethiopia with the following gifts, to wit, a purple robe, a gold chain for the neck, armlets, an alabaster box of myrrh, and a cask of palm-wine.” The king of the Ethiops was greatly delighted with those gifts, and “last of all he came to the palm-wine, and having learned their way of making it, he drank a draught, which greatly delighted him.”[88]