The main outlines of this religion were already fixed when the Medes rose in rebellion against Assur-bani-pal; and the very name of Confessor—­Fravartish—­applied to the chief of that day, proves that it was the faith of the royal family.  It was a religion common to all the Iranians, the Persians as well as the Medes, and legend honoured as its first lawgiver and expounder an ancient prophet named Zarathustra, known 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 the bosom of a maiden of noble race, named Dughdova, whom Purushaspa shortly afterwards espoused.