writer unfortunately opposes all who have written upon the subject, however determinately they may have expressed themselves. [949]At quicquid dixerint, ille (Zoroaster) fuit tantum unus, isque tempore Darii Hystaspis: nec ejus nomine plures unquam extitere. It is to be observed, that the person, whom he styles Zoroaster, was one Zerdusht. He lived, it seems, in the reign of Darius, the father of Xerxes; which was about the time of the battle of Marathon: consequently not a century before the birth of Eudoxus, Xenophon, and Plato. We have therefore no authority to suppose [950]this Zerdusht to have been the famous Zoroaster. He was apparently the renewer of the Sabian rites: and we may be assured, that he could not be the person so celebrated by the antients, who was referred to the first ages. Hyde asserts, that all writers agree about the time, when Zoroaster made his appearance: and he places him, as we have seen above, in the reign of Darius. But Xanthus Lydius made him above [951]six hundred years prior. And [952]Suidas from some anonymous author places him five hundred years before the war of Troy. Hermodorus Platonicus went much farther, and made him five thousand years before that [953]æra. Hermippus, who professedly wrote of his doctrines, supposed him to have been of the same [954]antiquity. Plutarch also [955]concurs, and allows him five thousand years before that war. Eudoxus, who was a consummate philosopher, and a great traveller, supposed him to have flourished six thousand years before the death of [956]Plato. Moses [957]Chorenensis, and [958]Cephalion, make him only contemporary with Ninus, and Semiramis: but even this removes him very far from the reign of Darius. Pliny goes beyond them all; and places him many thousand years before Moses. [959]Est et alia Magices factio, a Mose, et Jamne, et Lotapea Judæis pendens: sed multis millibus annorum post Zoroastrem. The numbers in all these authors, are extravagant: but so much we may learn from them, that they relate to a person of the highest antiquity. And the purport of the original writers, from whence the Grecians borrowed their evidence, was undoubtedly to shew, that the person spoken of lived at the extent of time; at the commencement of all historical data. No fact, no memorial upon record, is placed so high as they have carried this personage. Had Zoroaster been no earlier than Darius, Eudoxus would never have advanced him to this degree of antiquity. This writer was at the same distance from Darius, as Plato, of whom he speaks: and it is not to be believed, that he could be so ignorant, as not to distinguish between a century, and six thousand years. Agathias indeed mentions, that some of the Persians had a notion, that he flourished in the time of one Hystaspes; but he confesses, that who the Hystaspes was, and at what time he lived, was [960]uncertain. Aristotle wrote not long after Eudoxus, when the history of the Persians was more known to the Grecians,