of the first Darius ; and the historian adds that whenever he 
lived he was the Persian prophet and “master of the magic 
rites.”* Pliny has preserved several traditional incidents 
connected with Zoroaster, such as praise of a mysterious 
stone called Astriotes, “the Star-like ;”f that he laughed on 
the day of his birth, J a circumstance which those who connect 
him with natural phenomena would probably regard as indi- 
cating the joyousness of the bright heaven or the dread exult- 
ation of the thunder-god ;§ and that he lived on cheese with 
great austerity for twenty years, || a statement which reminds 
us of the traditional and mythical austerities of Hindu saints 
and divinities. After referring to the general consent of authori- 
ties that he was the inventor of magic, which Pliny judiciously 
observes was doubtless originally connected with the healing 
art, the Roman writer states that Eudoxos and Aristotle placed 
Zoroaster 6,000 years before the time of Plato ; whilst Her- 
rnippos the philosopher, B.C. 250, who, of all the Greeks, most 
deeply studied Zoroastrianism, and who wrote a work upon it, 
now lost, entitled Peri Magon, placed the age of Zoroaster 
5,000 years before the Trojan War.^f With this date riutarch, 
in, perhaps, his most valuable tractate, agrees when referring 
to “ Zoroastris the Magian.”** Masudi, the Arabian historian, 
A.D. 950, assigns Zoroaster a date about B.C. 600, a compu- 
tation probably connected with the view that places him in the 
period of the later Hystaspes. From these different opinions 
we gain at least one important fact, that in comparatively late 
times the people of the country in or near which he was said 
to have lived still connected him with an Hystaspes (A isli- 
taspa), who, in reality, was the Kava AGshtaspa, a friend of 
Zoroaster, who is mentioned in the Gdthas. 
2. The name “ Magian.” 
The name “ magi an,” whence magic and magician, occurs 
in both our Testaments. In the Old, the Rab-mag, or chief 
magian, is mentioned amongst the Babylonian princes of 
Nebuchadnezzar at Jerusalem ;+f whilst in the New it is 
recorded that magians (/my oi) came to worship the infant 
Jesus. X J In both cases the term implies not merely “wise 
men,” but special experts belonging to a particular country. 
What, then, is the derivation and meaning of the word, which 
* Hist. ii. 24. f Hist. Nat. xxxvii. 49. + Ibid. vii. 15. 
§ Of. Shelley, The Cloud: “I laugh as I pass in thunder.” 
|'| Hist. Nat. xi. 96. % Ibid. xxx. 1,2. ** Per* Is. Icai Os. xlvi. 
•ft Jeremiah xxxix. 9. It St. Matthew ii. 1. 
