manios shall perish, and the earth under one rule shall be 
inhabited by happy men, speaking only one language.* In 
the Bundahishf (Kosmogony), which, in its existing form, is 
a Persian work of the period of the Sassanian dynasty, 
A.D. 226-641, is contained, amongst other things, an 
account of the Creation, of the conflict between the good and 
evil powers, of the future destiny of mankind, and of the 
general resurrection and Last Judgment. Of this book Haug 
observes that its contents agree “ so exceedingly well with the 
reports of Theopompos and Hermippos, that we are driven 
to assign to the original or its sources, a date not later than 
the fourth century before the Christian era.” J In the Bunda- 
hish we meet with a great kosmical period of 12,000 years, a 
term which also appears in Brahmanism, § and in the kos- 
mogony ascribed by Souidas|| to the ancient Tuscans. 
According to this later system, the Demiurge consecrated the 
period of 12,000 years to his works as at present existing ; in 
the first thousand years, he made heaven and earth ; in the 
second, the firmament; in the third, the sea and waters; in the 
fourth, sun, moon, and stars; in the fifth, animals, except man; 
in the sixth, man ; the human race, therefore, will continue 
for six thousand years. With this whole period the writer 
connects the twelve houses of the sun or signs of the zodiac. 
The cycle, therefore, is derived from an intensification of the 
ordinary year. Of this system M. Darmesteter observes, 
iC This pretended Etruscan kosmogony is merely a fusion of 
the Biblical kosmogony and that of the Bundehesli : on the 
one hand, the creations of the first six thousand years corre- 
spond to those of the six days ; on the other hand, there are 
twelve thousand years, as in the Bundehesh,”1f i n which also 
it is explained that “each 1,000 years, each month of the 
world, is under the sway of one of the signs of the zodiac.” 
It is quite possible that Souidas, or the writer in his Lexicon , 
derived a portion of the above kosmogony from Biblical sources, 
but we must remember in this connection the statement of 
Plutarch respecting the prodigies which occurred at the time 
of the civil wars between Marius and Sulla. He says, — “ One 
day, when the sky was serene and clear, there was heard in 
it the sound of a trumpet, so loud, so shrill, and mournful, that 
it frightened and astonished all the world. The Tuscan sages 
said it portended a new race of men, and a renovation of the 
world : for they observed that there were eight several kinds of 
* Vide Plutarch, Peri Is. kai Os., 47 ; Haug, Essays on the P arsis, 9. 
t Translated by Justi in 1868. X Essays, 33. 
§ Vide Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman, 300. 
| In voc. Tyrrhenia. Ormazd et Ahriman, 306, note. 
