n to us as Zoroaster.* Most classical writers relegated Zoroaster
to some remote age of antiquity--thus he is variously said to have lived
six thousand years before the death of Plato,** five thousand before the
Trojan war,*** one thousand before Moses, and six hundred before Xerxes'
campaign against Athens; while some few only affirmed that he had lived
at a comparatively recent period, and made him out a disciple of the
philosopher Pythagoras, who flourished about the middle of the fifth
century B.C.

* The name Zarathustra has been interpreted in a score of
different ways. The Greeks sometimes attributed to it the
meaning "worshipper of the stars," probably by reason of the
similarity in sound of the termination "-astres" of
Zoroaster with the word "astron." Among modern writers, H.
Rawlinson derived it from the Assyrian Ziru-Ishtar, "the
seed of Ishtar," but the etymology now most generally
accepted is that of Burnouf, according to which it would
signify "the man with gold-coloured camels," the "possessor
of tawny camels." The ordinary Greek form Zoroaster seems to
be derived from some name quite distinct from Zarathustra.

** This was, as Pliny records, the opinion of Eudoxus; not
Eudoxus of Cnidus, pupil of Plato, as is usually stated, but
a more obscure personage, Eudoxus of Rhodes.

*** This was the statement of Hermodorus.

According to the most ancient national traditions, he was born in the
Aryanem-vaejo, or, in other words, in the region between the Araxes and
the Kur, to the west of the Caspian Sea. Later tradition asserted
that his conception was attended by supernatural circumstances, and
the miracles which accompanied his birth announced the advent of a saint
destined to regenerate the world by the revelation of the True Law. In
the belief of an Iranian, every man, every living creature now existing
or henceforth to exist, not excluding the gods themselves, possesses a
Frohar, or guardian spirit, who is assigned to him at his entrance into
the world, and who is thenceforth devoted entirely to watching over
his material and moral well-being,* About the time appointed for the
appearance of the prophet, his Frohar was, by divine grace, imprisoned
in the heart of a Haoma,** and was absorbed, along with the juice of
the plant, by the priest Purushaspa,*** during a sacrifice, a ray of
heavenly glory descending at the same time into