Written by A reference compilation
The Magi — the priestly class of the Medes and Persians — are among the most widely attested institutions of the ancient Near East, named across a full millennium of Greek, Roman, and Jewish writing. This catalog gathers the genuine references. It is grounded in the standard scholarly treatment, Albert de Jong’s Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature, which remains the fullest collection of the classical material, supplemented by the Encyclopaedia Iranica.[^1]
Three honest notes frame the whole list, and they keep it accurate. First, this is a catalog of the Magi — the priesthood — not a dating of Zarathustra. The prophet’s own antiquity rests on the archaic language of his Gathas; these sources establish the standing and reputation of his clergy, which is a separate matter on a separate clock. Second, the Greek word magos carried two senses: the Persian priestly class, and, more loosely, a “sorcerer” or “magician.” This catalog concerns the former; the generic-sorcerer usage (as with Simon Magus or Elymas) is noted separately at the end. Third, where a reference is genuinely debated, it is flagged as such — because a list is only as strong as its weakest verifiable entry.
I. The Greek sources
Herodotus (5th c. BCE), Histories. The earliest and fullest early account: the Magi as one of the six tribes of the Medes (1.101), the Persian priestly class and its rites of sacrifice, dream interpretation, and the killing of “noxious creatures” (1.131–132, 1.140), and the full narrative of the Magian usurpation and its overthrow (3.61–79). One of de Jong’s five principal passages.[^2]
Xanthus of Lydia (5th c. BCE). An early Lydian historian who wrote on the Magi and named Zoroaster, cited by later authors; the Magika attributed to him is of debated authenticity, but the references to the Magi are early.[^3]
Ctesias of Cnidus (5th–4th c. BCE), Persica. A Greek physician at the Persian court whose history (surviving in fragments) describes the Magi among the figures of the Achaemenid royal world.
Xenophon (4th c. BCE), Cyropaedia. Presents the Magi as the established religious authority of the Persian court, charged with the proper worship of the gods, and credits Cyrus with regularizing their role (8.1).[^4]
Plato (4th c. BCE), Alcibiades I. Names “Zoroaster son of Oromazes” as the source of the magēia — the lore of the Magi — in which the Persian royal heirs were instructed (122a).[^5]
Aristotle (4th c. BCE), in his lost On Philosophy (cited as Magikos). Discussed the Magi and their doctrine of two opposed principles, a good power and an evil one, and reckoned them older than the Egyptians; preserved through Diogenes Laertius.[^6]
Eudoxus of Cnidus (4th c. BCE). The great mathematician and astronomer held the wisdom of the Magi in the highest regard, ranking it among the most renowned and beneficial of philosophical traditions; reported by Pliny and Diogenes Laertius.[^7]
Theopompus of Chios (4th c. BCE), Philippica. Recorded Magian doctrine in detail — the two spirits, the alternating cosmic ages, and the final renovation in which evil is destroyed and the world made whole; preserved through Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius. The single most valuable doctrinal witness.[^8]
Hermippus of Smyrna (3rd c. BCE), On the Magi. Claimed to have studied the Zoroastrian books and reported on their vast extent; cited by Pliny.[^9]
Dinon (4th c. BCE), Persica; Hecataeus of Abdera (4th c. BCE); Clearchus of Soli (4th–3rd c. BCE), On Education; Sotion (2nd c. BCE), Succession of Philosophers; Eudemus of Rhodes (4th c. BCE). A cluster of authors who wrote on the Magi and are preserved chiefly through Diogenes Laertius: Sotion (with Aristotle) traced philosophy itself partly to the Magi; Clearchus derived the Indian Gymnosophists from them; Hecataeus reported their view that the gods are subject to birth; Eudemus preserved their cosmology of two first principles.[^10]
Diodorus Siculus (1st c. BCE), Library of History. Lists Zoroaster (“Zathraustes”) among the great lawgivers who claimed divine sanction for their laws (1.94), and treats the Magi among the Persians.[^11]
Strabo (1st c. BCE–CE), Geography. A detailed description of the Magi — their fire rituals, their sacrifices, the sacred fire tended without bellows, the religion of the Persians (15.3.13–15). One of de Jong’s five principal passages.[^12]
Plutarch (1st–2nd c. CE), On Isis and Osiris, and the Lives. The fullest Greek account of Zoroastrian theology — Oromazes and Areimanius, light against darkness, Mithras the Mediator, and the eschatology (46–47); the Magi also appear in the Life of Alexander and Life of Artaxerxes. One of de Jong’s five principal passages.[^13]
Dio Chrysostom (1st–2nd c. CE), Orations. Reports a Magian teaching attributed to Zoroaster, including the great cosmic hymn (Oration 36, the Borysthenitic).
Diogenes Laertius (3rd c. CE), Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Prologue. Opens his work with the Magi, gathering the earlier writers on them, defending them against the charge of sinister “magic,” and offering the etymology of Zoroaster’s name; he is the channel through which much earlier testimony survives (1.1–9). One of de Jong’s five principal passages.[^14]
Porphyry (3rd c. CE), On Abstinence, Life of Pythagoras, De Antro Nympharum. The Neoplatonist reports the Magi’s practices and the tradition of Pythagoras’s contact with them, and discusses the Mithraic associations of Magian lore.
Agathias (6th c. CE), Histories. A late account of the Magi under the Sasanians and the Zoroastrian religion of his own day, including its reform (2.23–25). The latest of de Jong’s five principal passages.[^15]
II. The Roman (Latin) sources
Cicero (1st c. BCE), On Divination and On the Laws. Describes the Magi as the priestly and learned class of the Persians, diviners and counselors, noting that no man could become king of Persia without first mastering their discipline (De Divinatione 1.46, 1.90–91).[^16]
Pompeius Trogus / Justin (1st c. BCE; epitomized by Justin), Philippic History. Treats the Magi and the usurpation, and the Persian royal religion; named by the Encyclopaedia Iranica among the principal classical sources on the Magi.[^17]
Curtius Rufus (1st c. CE), History of Alexander. Describes the Magi marching with the Persian army of Darius III, chanting the traditional hymn before the sacred fire (3.3.9).[^18]
Pliny the Elder (1st c. CE), Natural History, Book 30. Opens his account of magic by tracing its origin to Zoroaster and the Magi of Persia, names Ostanes and Hermippus, and distinguishes a later Jewish branch; Pliny himself regards “magic” as fraudulent, so his is a hostile framing of an ancient lineage.[^19]
Apuleius (2nd c. CE), Apologia. Defending himself against a charge of sorcery, Apuleius appeals to the dignified, original sense of magus — the Persian priest, the wise man in the lore of Zoroaster and Oromazes (25–26); named by the Encyclopaedia Iranica among the principal sources.[^20]
Aulus Gellius (2nd c. CE), Attic Nights. Reports the Magi as the Persian class of wise men and priests, in connection with the learning attributed to Pythagoras (1.9).
Ammianus Marcellinus (4th c. CE), Res Gestae. A detailed late account: the origins of the Magi, their sacred fire, the lore traced to Zoroaster and Ostanes, and the note that the Magi held their own lands in Media and grew into a powerful estate (23.6.32–36). Named by the Encyclopaedia Iranica among the principal sources.[^21]
III. The Hebrew and Jewish sources
Jeremiah (6th c. BCE), 39:3 and 39:13. Names Nergal-sharezer, an officer of Nebuchadnezzar at the fall of Jerusalem (587 BCE), with the title Rab-mag — widely read as “chief magus.” Flagged honestly: the reading is debated (some take Rab-mag as a Babylonian court title, and the Septuagint rendered it as a proper name), and even as “chief magus” this is a Babylonian magus — evidence that the magi were a Near Eastern priestly caste known before, and partly independent of, Zoroastrianism.[^22]
The Book of Daniel (Hebrew Bible; set in the 6th c. BCE, with the book’s final form generally dated later). Repeatedly names the “magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and wise men” of the Babylonian court (1:20, 2:2, 2:10, 2:27, 4:7, 5:11), some of which the Greek versions render with magoi. Flagged honestly: these are Babylonian court diviners, not the Persian Magi, and the book’s dating is itself debated.[^23]
Philo of Alexandria (1st c. CE), Every Good Man Is Free and On the Special Laws. The Jewish philosopher describes the true Magi of Persia in favorable terms — investigators of nature and of the divine — explicitly distinguishing this genuine Persian wisdom from charlatan “magic.”[^24]
Josephus (1st c. CE), Antiquities of the Jews. Records the Magi who seized the Persian government for a year after Cambyses’s death and were then overthrown before Darius’s accession (11.3.1); the Babylonian “magicians” also appear in his retelling of Daniel (10.10).[^25]
The Gospel of Matthew (1st c. CE), 2:1–12. The magi “from the East” who follow a star to Jerusalem — testimony not to any date but to the enduring reputation of the caste as the sages of the East.[^26]
The Babylonian Talmud (compiled under Sasanian rule, c. 3rd–6th c. CE). Rabbinic literature produced within the Sasanian empire contains references to the Zoroastrian magi (the amgusha) and to frictions between Jewish communities and the Persian priesthood — Jewish testimony to the Magi as the living, powerful clergy of the Sasanian state.[^27]
A note on the other magos: the “sorcerer” sense
Separately from the Persian priesthood, the Greek magos was also used loosely for a “sorcerer” or “magician,” and several famous references belong to that sense rather than to the Median-Persian caste: Simon Magus (Acts 8:9–24) and Elymas / Bar-Jesus (Acts 13:6–8) in the New Testament, and the scattered uses in poets such as Catullus. These attest the word’s broader life in the ancient world, but they are not witnesses to the Magi as the priestly class, and an honest catalog keeps them in their own column.
What the catalog establishes
Taken together, these sources document the Magi as a prominent, widely recognized priestly class of the Median and Persian world, attested continuously from the sixth century BCE (Jeremiah, Herodotus, the Behistun Inscription) through the Sasanian period (Agathias, the Talmud) — by Greeks, Romans, and Jews alike, including many with no stake whatever in the matter. Some sources revered them as sages and philosophers (Plato, Eudoxus, Diogenes Laertius, Philo); some recorded their doctrine (Theopompus, Plutarch, Strabo); some treated their “magic” as fraud (Pliny). The Magi were, in all probability, the priesthood of the Persian religion of Ahura Mazda and became the Zoroastrian clergy, though the fullest identification of the early Magi with Zarathustra’s specific reform remains a matter of scholarly debate.
What this catalog proves is the standing and reach of the priesthood across a millennium of independent testimony. It does not, by itself, date the prophet — that is the work of the Gathas — and it should be cited for what it is: the remarkable, multi-civilizational record of the Magi as one of the great religious institutions of the ancient world.
Notes
[^1]: Albert F. de Jong, Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1997) — the standard collection and analysis of the classical references; and the Encyclopaedia Iranica entries “Magi” and “Zoroaster v. As Perceived by the Greeks.” De Jong isolates five principal Greek passages of substantial information on Persian religion: Herodotus 1.131–132, Strabo 15.3.13–15, Plutarch On Isis and Osiris 46–47, Diogenes Laertius 1.6–9, and Agathias 2.23–25.
[^2]: Herodotus, Histories 1.101, 1.131–132, 1.140, 3.61–79.
[^3]: On Xanthus of Lydia and the debated Magika, see de Jong, Traditions of the Magi, and Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Prologue.
[^4]: Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.1.
[^5]: Plato, Alcibiades I 122a.
[^6]: Aristotle, On Philosophy (Magikos), via Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Prologue 1.6–8.
[^7]: Eudoxus of Cnidus, via Pliny, Natural History 30.3, and Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Prologue.
[^8]: Theopompus of Chios, FGrHist 115 F64–65, via Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 47 (370b–c), and Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Prologue.
[^9]: Hermippus of Smyrna, via Pliny, Natural History 30.4.
[^10]: Dinon, Hecataeus of Abdera, Clearchus of Soli, Sotion, and Eudemus of Rhodes, all preserved chiefly via Diogenes Laertius, Lives, Prologue 1.1–9; see de Jong, Traditions of the Magi.
[^11]: Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 1.94.
[^12]: Strabo, Geography 15.3.13–15.
[^13]: Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 46–47 (369d–370c); Life of Alexander; Life of Artaxerxes.
[^14]: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Prologue 1.1–9.
[^15]: Agathias, Histories 2.23–25.
[^16]: Cicero, On Divination 1.46 and 1.90–91.
[^17]: Pompeius Trogus, epitomized in Justin, Philippic History; cited in Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Magi.”
[^18]: Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander the Great 3.3.9.
[^19]: Pliny the Elder, Natural History 30.1–11 (origin of magic with Zoroaster and the Magi; Ostanes; Hermippus; the later Jewish branch).
[^20]: Apuleius, Apologia 25–26; cited in Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Magi.”
[^21]: Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 23.6.32–36; cited in Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Magi.”
[^22]: Jeremiah 39:3, 39:13; and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “Rab-mag,” with James Hope Moulton’s note (Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible) that the magi may have named a priestly caste in Babylon before becoming associated with Zoroastrianism.
[^23]: Daniel 1:20, 2:2, 2:10, 2:27, 4:7, 5:11; on the Babylonian (not Persian) setting and the debated dating of the book, see standard critical introductions to Daniel.
[^24]: Philo of Alexandria, Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit 74, and De Specialibus Legibus 3.100.
[^25]: Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 11.3.1 and 10.10 (Whiston translation).
[^26]: Matthew 2:1–12.
[^27]: On references to the Zoroastrian magi (amgusha) and Jewish–Magian friction in the Babylonian Talmud under Sasanian rule, see the scholarship on the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia (e.g., the work of Jacob Neusner and Geoffrey Herman); specific passages should be consulted in the critical literature.