_magi_ applied to all workers of miracles, strictly designates the
priests of Mazdeism, and well-attested tradition made certain Persians
the inventors of genuine magic, the magic which the Middle Ages styled
the black art. If they did not invent it, for it is as old as
humanity, they were at least the first to give magic a doctrinal basis
and to assign it a place in a well-defined theological system.... By
the Alexandrian period, books attributed to Zoroaster, Hostanes, and
Hystaspes were translated into Greek.' Cumont, Les Religions
Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain, p. 227. Cp. Pliny, N.H. xxx. 7.
_Plato_, Alcibiades i. 121 E.
_Zoroaster, son of Oromazes_, the founder of the ancient religion of
Persia (Mazdeism).