A Conversation Between a Date Palm and a Goat

As early as the second century BCE Iranian nomads were considering the benefits of a settled agricultural life versus their pastoral one—and possibly vegetarianism versus meat-eating. This is played out in a poem (which starts as a riddle), Drakht-e Asurik, written in Parthian (an Iranian language preceding Middle Persian) around the second century BCE by an anonymous poet, who sets up a dialogue between the tree, a female palm in the land of Assyria, lists for the goat all the benefits she provides: