heaven, and made Çpentodata invulnerable.[142] Hence from the Bundehesh we obtain no more than the genealogical tree of Zarathrustra, which though characteristic for the place allotted to him, is without historical value; and from the Zartusht Nameh, Sharastani, and Mirkhond, which repeat some miracles more or less similar to those quoted, we gather nothing beyond certain traits: the smiling at birth, the fiery mountain, the preservation of Zarathrustra in the fire, which Pliny and Dio Chrysostom had already made known to us, and which belong to the ancient tradition of Iran. In the miracles which take place by means of oxen and horses, we can merely recognise the ancient and close relation of the Arians in Iran to these animals, a relation which has already been remarked (p. 46). We might perhaps add that Firdusi represents Zarathrustra, whom he puts beside Vistaçpa, as having been killed at a fire in Balkh when the city was captured by Turanians. The intercourse of Zarathrustra with Auramazda was known to Western writers, as we saw, at a far earlier date. If we can hardly glean anything worth notice from these accounts about Zarathrustra's life and work, we may perhaps gain some information about his date. The evidence of Ammianus Marcellinus and Agathias, when they represent him as a contemporary of Hystaspes, in whom we recognise Vistaçpa of Bactria, carries us no further than the Avesta, which places him in the closest relation to this prince (p. 38), because his date is equally uncertain. Trogus Pompeius, Kephalion, Theon, and Eusebius make Zarathrustra an opponent and therefore a contemporary of Ninus and Semiramis. But as neither Semiramis nor Ninus ruled over Asshur, and they are to be regarded as the personification of the rise of the power and dominion of that country (II. 23), we must substitute for this king and queen the ruler or rulers of Asshur of whom it is certain that their campaigns reached the east of Iran. We found that so far as we can at present judge from the monuments it was only Shalmanesar II. who received tribute from the Eastern lands, and that the armies of Tiglath Pilesar II. trod the soil of Arachosia (p. 19). If we could assume that the contests of Ninus and Semiramis have taken the place of the achievements of these rulers in the East of Iran, the date of Vistaçpa and Zarathrustra would have to be placed between 860 and 740 B.C. But this supposition is really without any basis.