137.  Plutarch, in his treatise On Isis and Osiris, knows of no writer more ancient than Zoroaster the magician, as he calls him, that is likely to have taught the two principles.  Trogus or Justin makes him a King of the Bactrians, who was conquered by Ninus or Semiramis; he attributes to him the knowledge of astronomy and the invention of magic.  But this magic was apparently the religion of the fire-worshippers:  and it appears that he looked upon light and heat as the good principle, while he added the [209] evil, that is to say, opacity, darkness, cold.  Pliny cites the testimony of a certain Hermippus, an interpreter of Zoroaster’s books, according to whom Zoroaster was a disciple in the art of magic to one named Azonacus; unless indeed this be a corruption of Oromases, of whom I shall speak presently, and whom Plato in the Alcibiades names as the father of Zoroaster.  Modern Orientals give the name Zerdust to him whom the Greeks named Zoroaster; he is regarded as corresponding to Mercury, because with some nations Wednesday (mercredi) takes its name from him.  It is difficult to disentangle the story of Zoroaster and know exactly when he lived.  Suidas puts him five hundred years before the taking of Troy.  Some Ancients cited by Pliny and Plutarch took it to be ten times as far back.  But Xanthus the Lydian (in the preface to Diogenes Laertius) put him only six hundred years before the expedition of Xerxes.  Plato declares in the same passage, as M. Bayle observes, that the magic of Zoroaster was nothing but the study of religion.  Mr. Hyde in his book on the religion of the ancient Persians tries to justify this magic, and to clear it not only of the crime of impiety but also of idolatry.  Fire-worship prevailed among the Persians and the Chaldaeans also; it is thought that Abraham left it when he departed from Ur of the Chaldees.  Mithras was the sun and he was also the God of the Persians; and according to Ovid’s account horses were offered in sacrifice to him,

  Placat equo Persis radiis Hyperiona cinctum,
  Ne detur celeri victima tarda Deo.

But Mr. Hyde believes that they only made use of the sun and fire in their worship as symbols of the Divinity.  It may be necessary to distinguish, as elsewhere, between the Wise and the Multitude.  There are in the splendid ruins of Persepolis or of Tschelminaar (which means forty columns) sculptured representations of their ceremonies.  An ambassador of Holland had had them sketched at very great cost by a painter, who had devoted a considerable time to the task:  but by some chance or other these sketches fell into the hands of a well-known traveller, M. Chardin, according to what he tells us himself.  It would be a pity if they were lost.  These ruins are one of the most ancient and most beautiful monuments of the earth; and in this respect I wonder at such lack of curiosity in a century so curious as ours.