information on our subject. There are stray passages in Chinese literature with reference to the religious beliefs and practices of the Zoroastrians.
Occidental sources. The contact of Persia with Greece began in the fifth century b.c. under the Achaemenians. It continued with Rome up to the middle of the seventh century a.d., to the last days of the Sasanians. Ktesias was the court physician of king Artaxerxes II. Xanthus and Herodotus began to acquaint their readers with the manners and customs and religious beliefs of the Persians. Hermippus (b.c. 250) is said to have studied the writings of Zarathushtra. Theopompus and Hermippus are the two writers upon whose writings on Persian religion the later writers have drawn considerably. Plutarch was familiar with the lost work of Theopompus and gives useful information on his authority. Diogenes Laertius says that Aristotle was familiar with the theory of Persian dualism. Plutarch, Strabo, and a few others write from their personal observation. Cicero, Pliny, Ammianus Marcellinus, and other Roman writers continued to write about Persia up to the Middle Ages. The writings of the earlier classical authors throw special light upon the religious beliefs and practices of the Achaemenians.
Inscriptions, coins, and tablets as the last source of information. The Old Persian Inscriptions with their Babylonian and New Elamitic renderings found at Behistan, Persepolis, Naqsh-i Rustam, Elvand, Susa, Kerman, and Suez; the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek inscriptions, together with the works of the ancient classical writers, furnish us with information about the religious beliefs and practices of the Achaemenians. The Pahlavi inscriptions, likewise, add to our knowledge of the religious life of the Sasanian period. The names of about ten Zoroastrian Amesha Spentas and Yazatas that appear on the coins of Indo-Scythic rulers of Northwestern India in Greek characters and the epigraphic texts in Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek contribute to the information that we get about Zoroastrianism from varied sources.
