422 
PLI3S[T's NATCJliAL HISTORY. 
I 
[Book XXX. I 
CHAP. 2. WHEIf AND WHEEE THE AllT OF MAGIC OEIGINATED : 
BY WHAT PERSONS IT WAS FIRST PRACTISED. 
There is no doubt that this art originated in Persia/ under 
Zoroaster,^ this being a point upon which authors are generally 
agreed ; but whether there was only one Zoroaster, or whether 
in later times there was a second person of that name, is a 
matter which still remains undecided. Eudoxus,''' who has 
endeavoured to show that of all branches of philosophy the 
magic art is the most illustrious and the most beneficial, in- 
forms us that this Zoroaster existed six thousand years before 
the death of Plato, an assertion in which he is supported by 
Aristotle. Hermippus,^ again, an author who has written 
with the greatest exactness on all particulars connected with 
this art, and has commented upon the two millions ® of verses 
left by Zoroaster, besides completing indexes to his several 
works, has left a statement, that Agonaces was the name of 
the master from whom Zoroaster derived his doctrines, and 
that he lived five thousand years before the time of the Trojan 
"War. The first thing, however, that must strike us with sur- 
prise, is the fact that this art, and the traditions connected 
with it, should have survived for so many ages, all written 
commentaries thereon having perished in the meanwhile ; and 
this, too, when there was no continuous succession of adepts, 
no professors of note, to ensure their transmission. 
Eor how few there are, in fact, who know anything, even 
by hearsay, about the only professors of this art whose names 
have come down to us, Apusorus^° and Zaratus of Media, 
Marmarus and Arabantiphocus of Babylonia, and Tarmoendas 
of Assyria, men who have left not the slightest memorials of 
their existence. Put the most surprising thing of all is, that 
Or Bactriana, more properly. 
^ Magic, no doubt, has been the subject of belief from the earliest times, 
whatever may have been the age of Zoroaster, the Zarathustra of theZend- 
avesta, and the Zerdusht of the Persians. In the Zenda vesta he is repre- 
sented as living in the reign of Gushtasp, generally identified with Darius 
Hystaspes. He probably lived at a period anterior to that of the Median 
and Persian kings. Niebuhr regards him as a purely mythical personage 
' See end of B. ii. See end of this Book. 
^ An exaggeration, of Oriental origin, most probably. 
10 These names have all, most probably, been transmitted to us in a cor- 
rupted form. Ajasson gives some suggestions as to their probable Eastern 
form and origin. 
