unt with great exultation. They call them
Nesaei.[145]

31. They have also as many cities as Media, and villages as strongly
built as towns in other countries, inhabited by large bodies of
citizens. In short, it is the richest quarter of the kingdom.

32. In these districts the lands of the Magi are fertile; and it may be
as well to give a short account of that sect and their studies, since we
have occasion to mention their name. Plato, that most learned deliverer
of wise opinions, teaches us that Magiae is by a mystic name
Machagistia,[146] that is to say, the purest worship of divine beings;
of which knowledge in olden times the Bactrian Zoroaster derived much
from the secret rites of the Chaldaeans; and after him Hystaspes, a very
wise monarch, the father of Darius.

33. Who while boldly penetrating into the remoter districts of upper
India, came to a certain woody retreat, of which with its tranquil
silence the Brahmans, men of sublime genius, were the possessors. From
their teaching he learnt the principles of the motion of the world and
of the stars, and the pure rites of sacrifice, as far as he could; and
of what he learnt he infused some portion into the minds of the Magi,
which they have handed down by tradition to later ages, each instructing
his own children, and adding to it their own system of divination.

34. From his time, through many ages to the present era, a number of
priests of one and the same race has arisen, dedicated to the worship of
the gods. And they say, if it can be believed, that they even keep alive
in everlasting fires a flame which descended from heaven among them; a
small portion of which, as a favourable omen, used to be borne before
the kings of Asia.

35. Of this class the number among the ancients was small, and the
Persian sovereigns employed their ministry in the solemn performance of
divine sacrifices, and it was profanation to approach the altars, or to
touch a victim before a Magus with solemn prayers had poured over it a
preliminary libation. But becoming gradually more numerous they arrived
at the dignity and reputation of a substantial race; inhabiting towns
protected by no fortifications, allowed to live by their own laws, and
honoured from the regard borne to their religion.

36. It was of this race of Magi that the ancient volumes relate that
after the death of Cambyses, seven men seized on the kingdom of Persia,
who were put down by Darius, after he obtained the ki