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67-577: Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, mágos (μάγος) was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek goēs (γόης), the older word for a practitioner of magic , with a meaning expanded to include astronomy , astrology , alchemy , and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for Pseudo-Zoroaster , who

134-542: A "sage and philosopher-king" based on its Platonic notion. Once the magi had been associated with "magic" – Greek magikos – it was but a natural progression that the Greeks' image of Zoroaster would metamorphose into a magician too. The first century Pliny the Elder names "Zoroaster" as the inventor of magic ( Natural History xxx.2.3), but a "principle of the division of labor appears to have spared Zoroaster most of

201-473: A boy living on the island of Samos, to which he had fled with his family from the oppressions of Lygdamis, tyrant of Halicarnassus and grandson of Artemisia. Panyassis , the epic poet related to Herodotus, is reported to have taken part in a failed uprising. The Suda also states that Herodotus later returned home to lead the revolt that eventually overthrew the tyrant. Due to recent discoveries of inscriptions at Halicarnassus dated to about Herodotus's time, it

268-420: A dream they are warned not to return to Herod, and therefore return to their homes by taking another route. Since its composition in the late 1st century, numerous apocryphal stories have embellished the gospel's account. Matthew 2:16 implies that Herod learned from the wise men that up to two years had passed since the birth, which is why all male children two years or younger were slaughtered . In addition to

335-572: A generalization of all modern-day Iranians. "By referring to the Iranians in these documents as majus , the security apparatus [implied] that the Iranians [were] not sincere Muslims, but rather covertly practice their pre-Islamic beliefs. Thus, in their eyes, Iraq's war took on the dimensions of not only a struggle for Arab nationalism, but also a campaign in the name of Islam." In India, the Sakaldwipiya Brahmins are considered to be

402-611: A historical topic more in keeping with the Greek world-view: focused on the context of the polis or city-state. The interplay of civilizations was more relevant to Greeks living in Anatolia, such as Herodotus himself, for whom life within a foreign civilization was a recent memory. Before the Persian crisis, history had been represented among the Greeks only by local or family traditions. The "Wars of Liberation" had given to Herodotus

469-404: A literary critic of Augustan Rome , listed seven predecessors of Herodotus, describing their works as simple unadorned accounts of their own and other cities and people, Greek or foreign, including popular legends, sometimes melodramatic and naïve, often charming – all traits that can be found in the work of Herodotus himself. Modern historians regard the chronology as uncertain, but according to

536-527: A loan word from Median ). The meaning of the term in this context is uncertain. The other instance appears in the texts of the Avesta , the sacred literature of Zoroastrianism. In this instance, which is in the Younger Avestan portion, the term appears in the hapax moghu.tbiš , meaning "hostile to the moghu ", where moghu does not (as was previously thought) mean "magus", but rather "a member of

603-482: A loanword from Old Persian * maguš "magician; magi". Mair reconstructs an Old Chinese * mag . The reconstruction of Old Chinese forms is somewhat speculative. The velar final -g in Mair's * mag (巫) is evident in several Old Chinese reconstructions (Dong Tonghe's * mwag , Zhou Fagao's * mjwaγ , and Li Fanggui 's * mjag ), but not all ( Bernhard Karlgren 's * mwo and Axel Schuessler's * ma ). Mair adduces

670-534: A native of Halicarnassus in Anatolia , and it is generally accepted that he was born there around 485 BC. The Suda says his family was influential, that he was the son of Lyxes and Dryo and the brother of Theodorus, and that he was also related to Panyassis – an epic poet of the time. Halicarnassus was then within the Persian Empire , making Herodotus a Persian subject, and it may be that

737-696: A version of the Histories written by "Herodotus of Thurium", and some passages in the Histories have been interpreted as proof that he wrote about Magna Graecia from personal experience there (IV, 15,99; VI, 127). According to Ptolemaeus Chennus , a late source summarized in the Library of Photius , Plesirrhous the Thessalian, the hymnographer, was the eromenos of Herodotus and his heir. This account has also led some historians to assume Herodotus died childless. Intimate knowledge of some events in

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804-520: A young Thucydides happened to be in the assembly with his father, and burst into tears during the recital. Herodotus observed prophetically to the boy's father: "Your son's soul yearns for knowledge." Eventually, Thucydides and Herodotus became close enough for both to be interred in Thucydides's tomb in Athens. Such at least was the opinion of Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides . According to

871-558: Is also commonly rendered in English as "kings" and more often in recent times as "wise men"). The singular "magus" appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning magician . Hereditary Zoroastrian priesthood has survived in India and Iran. They are termed Herbad , Mobad (Magupat, i.e. chief of the Maga), and Dastur depending on

938-640: Is consistent with a tyrant under pressure. His name is not mentioned later in the tribute list of the Athenian Delian League , indicating that there might well have been a successful uprising against him some time before 454 BC. Herodotus wrote his Histories in the Ionian dialect , in spite of being born in a Dorian settlement. According to the Suda , Herodotus learned the Ionian dialect as

1005-491: Is generally assumed that he died not long afterwards, possibly before his sixtieth year. Herodotus would have made his researches known to the larger world through oral recitations to a public crowd. John Marincola writes in his introduction to the Penguin edition of the Histories that there are certain identifiable pieces in the early books of Herodotus's work which could be labeled as "performance pieces". These portions of

1072-502: Is never again so much as mentioned." According to Robert Charles Zaehner , in other accounts, "we hear of Magi not only in Persia , Parthia , Bactria , Chorasmia , Aria , Media , and among the Sakas , but also in non-Iranian lands like Samaria , Ethiopia , and Egypt . Their influence was also widespread throughout Asia Minor. It is, therefore, quite likely that the sacerdotal caste of

1139-809: Is now known that the Ionic dialect was used in Halicarnassus in some official documents, so there is no need to assume (like the Suda ) that he must have learned the dialect elsewhere. The Suda is the only source placing Herodotus as the heroic liberator of his birthplace, casting doubt upon the veracity of that romantic account. As Herodotus himself reveals, Halicarnassus, though a Dorian city, had ended its close relations with its Dorian neighbours after an unseemly quarrel (I, 144), and it had helped pioneer Greek trade with Egypt (II, 178). It was, therefore, an outward-looking, international-minded port within

1206-609: Is on account of the many strange stories and the folk-tales he reported that his critics have branded him "The Father of Lies". Even his own contemporaries found reason to scoff at his achievement. In fact, one modern scholar has wondered whether Herodotus left his home in Greek Anatolia , migrating westwards to Athens and beyond, because his own countrymen had ridiculed his work, a circumstance possibly hinted at in an epitaph said to have been dedicated to Herodotus at one of his three supposed resting places, Thuria : Herodotus

1273-614: The Histories , a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars , and was the first writer to apply a scientific method to historical events. He has been described as " The Father of History ", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Cicero , and the " Father of Lies " by others. The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon , Thermopylae , Artemisium , Salamis , Plataea , and Mycale . His work deviates from

1340-535: The Alcmaeonids , a clan whose history is featured frequently in his writing. According to Plutarch , Herodotus was granted a financial reward by the Athenian assembly in recognition of his work. Plutarch, using Diyllus as a source, says this was 10 talents . In 443 BC or shortly afterwards, he migrated to Thurii , in modern Calabria , as part of an Athenian-sponsored colony . Aristotle refers to

1407-614: The Black Sea 's economy and history. The three-word term is mainly a complex euphemism for the Balkan peninsula used by those who stigmatise the word " Balkanisation " and to suggest parallels with other conflicts of the Eastern Mediterranean. The WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean includes the Eastern Mediterranean as well as the other regions of contiguous Afro-Eurasia : West Asia , North Africa ,

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1474-491: The Euphrates to Babylon . For some reason, possibly associated with local politics, he subsequently found himself unpopular in Halicarnassus, and sometime around 447 BC, migrated to Periclean Athens  – a city whose people and democratic institutions he openly admired (V, 78). Athens was also the place where he came to know the local topography (VI, 137; VIII, 52–55), as well as leading citizens such as

1541-463: The Gathas the word seems to mean both the teaching of Zoroaster and the community that accepted that teaching", and it seems that Avestan maga- is related to Sanskrit magha- , "there is no reason to suppose that the western Iranian form magu (Magus) has exactly the same meaning" as well. But it "may be, however", that Avestan moghu (which is not the same as Avestan maga- ) "and Medean magu were

1608-621: The Greek Dodecanese islands, and the countries of Lebanon , Syria , Palestine , Israel , Jordan and Egypt . North-eastern Mediterranean has been put to print as a term for the Greater Balkans: Albania , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Croatia , Greece , Slovenia , North Macedonia , Serbia , Kosovo , Montenegro , Romania . A five-author statistics-rich study of 2019 has sought to add Moldova and Ukraine beyond, which others link more to

1675-552: The Hellenistic period include the gentleman-soldier Xenophon , who had first-hand experience at the Persian Achaemenid court. In his early 4th century BC Cyropaedia , Xenophon depicts the magians as authorities for all religious matters (8.3.11), and imagines the magians to be responsible for the education of the emperor-to-be. Apuleius , a Numidian Platonist philosopher, describes magus to be considered as

1742-531: The Horn of Africa , Central Asia , Afghanistan , and Pakistan . Herodotus Herodotus ( Ancient Greek : Ἡρόδοτος , romanized :  Hēródotos ; c.  484  – c.  425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus , part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum , Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria , Italy. He wrote

1809-629: The Old and New Testaments . Ordinarily this word is translated "magician" or "sorcerer" in the sense of illusionist or fortune-teller, and this is how it is translated in all of its occurrences (e.g. Acts 13:6) except for the Gospel of Matthew , where, depending on translation, it is rendered "wise man" ( KJV , RSV ) or left untranslated as Magi , typically with an explanatory note ( NIV ). However, early church fathers, such as St. Justin , Origen , St. Augustine and St. Jerome , did not make an exception for

1876-772: The Peloponnesian War on the abduction of some prostitutes – a mocking reference to Herodotus, who reported the Persians' account of their wars with Greece , beginning with the rapes of the mythical heroines Io , Europa , Medea , and Helen . Similarly, the Athenian historian Thucydides dismissed Herodotus as a story-teller. Thucydides, who had been trained in rhetoric , became the model for subsequent prose-writers as an author who seeks to appear firmly in control of his material, whereas with his frequent digressions Herodotus appeared to minimize (or possibly disguise) his authorial control. Moreover, Thucydides developed

1943-513: The Persian Empire , and the historian's family could well have had contacts in other countries under Persian rule, facilitating his travels and his researches. Herodotus's eyewitness accounts indicate that he traveled in Egypt in association with Athenians, probably sometime after 454 BC or possibly earlier, after an Athenian fleet had assisted the uprising against Persian rule in 460–454 BC. He probably traveled to Tyre next and then down

2010-581: The Suda , he was buried in Macedonian Pella and in the agora in Thurii. Herodotus announced the purpose and scope of his work at the beginning of his Histories: Here are presented the results of the inquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among

2077-494: The Zo- , even as the living star. Later, an even more elaborate mytho-etymology evolved: Zoroaster died by the living ( zo- ) flux ( -ro- ) of fire from the star ( -astr- ) which he himself had invoked, and even that the stars killed him in revenge for having been restrained by him. The second, and "more serious" factor for the association with astrology was the notion that Zoroaster was a Chaldean . The alternate Greek name for Zoroaster

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2144-560: The Gospel, and translated the word in its ordinary sense, i.e. as "magician". The Gospel of Matthew states that magi visited the infant Jesus to do him homage shortly after his birth ( 2:1–2:12 ). The gospel describes how magi from the east were notified of the birth of a king in Judaea by the appearance of his star. Upon their arrival in Jerusalem , they visited King Herod to determine

2211-485: The Greeks supposed him to be – was for the Hellenists the figurehead of the 'magi', and the founder of that order (or what the Greeks considered to be an order ). He was further projected as the author of a vast compendium of "Zoroastrian" pseudepigrapha , composed in the main to discredit the texts of rivals. "The Greeks considered the best wisdom to be exotic wisdom" and "what better and more convenient authority than

2278-769: The Magas. Some classical astronomers and mathematicians of India such are Varahamihira are considered to be the descendants of the Magas. Varahamihira specifies that installation and consecration of the Sun images should be done by the Magas. al-Biruni mentions that the priests of the Sun Temple at Multan were Magas. The Magas had colonies in a number of places in India, and were the priests at Konark , Martanda and other sun temples. Victor H. Mair (1990) suggested that Chinese wū (巫 "shaman; witch, wizard; magician") may originate as

2345-582: The Magi as sorcerers and in several descriptions, they are negatively described as obstructing Jewish religious practices. Several references include the sages criticizing practices performed by various magi. One instance is a description of the Zoroastrian priests exhuming corpses for their burial practices which directly interfered with the Jewish burial rites. Another instance is a sage forbidding learning from

2412-467: The Magi was distinct from the Median tribe of the same name." As early as the 5th century BC, Greek magos had spawned mageia and magike to describe the activity of a magus, that is, it was his or her art and practice. But almost from the outset the noun for the action and the noun for the actor parted company. Thereafter, mageia was used not for what actual magi did, but for something related to

2479-407: The ancient account, these predecessors included Dionysius of Miletus , Charon of Lampsacus, Hellanicus of Lesbos , Xanthus of Lydia and, the best attested of them all, Hecataeus of Miletus . Of these, only fragments of Hecataeus's works survived, and the authenticity of these is debatable, but they provide a glimpse into the kind of tradition within which Herodotus wrote his own Histories . It

2546-591: The audience. It was conventional in Herodotus's day for authors to "publish" their works by reciting them at popular festivals. According to Lucian , Herodotus took his finished work straight from Anatolia to the Olympic Games and read the entire Histories to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end of it. According to a very different account by an ancient grammarian, Herodotus refused to begin reading his work at

2613-408: The challenge is great: The data are so few – they rest upon such late and slight authority; they are so improbable or so contradictory, that to compile them into a biography is like building a house of cards, which the first breath of criticism will blow to the ground. Still, certain points may be approximately fixed ... Herodotus was, according to his own statement, at the beginning of his work,

2680-646: The descendants of the ten Maga (Sanskrit मग ) priests who were invited to conduct worship of Mitra ( Surya ) at Mitravana ( Multan ), as described in the Samba Purana , Bhavishya Purana and the Mahabharata . Their original home was a mythological region called Śākadvīpa . According to Varahamihira (c. 505 – c. 587), the statue of the Sun god (Mitra), is represented as wearing the "northern" (Central Asian) dress, specifically with horse riding boots. Some Brahmin communities of India trace their descent from

2747-595: The descriptions of the mid-5th century BC Herodotus , who in his portrayal of the Iranian expatriates living in Asia Minor uses the term "magi" in two different senses. In the first sense ( Histories 1.101), Herodotus speaks of the magi as one of the tribes/peoples ( ethnous ) of the Medes . In another sense (1.132), Herodotus uses the term "magi" to generically refer to a " sacerdotal caste", but "whose ethnic origin

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2814-493: The discovery of two figurines with unmistakably Caucasoid or Europoid features dated to the 8th century BC, found in a 1980 excavation of a Zhou dynasty palace in Fufeng County , Shaanxi Province. One of the figurines is marked on the top of its head with an incised ☩ graph. Mair's suggestion is based on a proposal by Jao Tsung-I (1990), which connects the " cross potent " bronzeware script glyph for wu 巫 with

2881-486: The distant – temporally and geographically – Zoroaster?" The subject of these texts, the authenticity of which was rarely challenged, ranged from treatises on nature to ones on necromancy . But the bulk of these texts dealt with astronomical speculations and magical lore. One factor for the association with astrology was Zoroaster's name, or rather, what the Greeks made of it. His name was identified at first with star-worshiping ( astrothytes "star sacrificer") and, with

2948-439: The festival of Olympia until some clouds offered him a bit of shade – by which time the assembly had dispersed. (Hence the proverbial expression "Herodotus and his shade" to describe someone who misses an opportunity through delay.) Herodotus's recitation at Olympia was a favourite theme among ancient writers, and there is another interesting variation on the story to be found in the Suda : that of Photius and Tzetzes , in which

3015-422: The first genuinely historical inspiration felt by a Greek. These wars showed him that there was a corporate life, higher than that of the city, of which the story might be told; and they offered to him as a subject the drama of the collision between East and West. With him, the spirit of history was born into Greece; and his work, called after the nine Muses, was indeed the first utterance of Clio . Though Herodotus

3082-505: The first years of the Peloponnesian War (VI, 91; VII, 133, 233; IX, 73) suggests that he returned to Athens, in which case it is possible that he died there during an outbreak of the plague. It is also possible he died in Macedonia instead, after obtaining the patronage of the court there; or else he died back in Thurii. There is nothing in the Histories that can be dated to later than 430 BC with any certainty, and it

3149-713: The location of the king of the Jews 's birthplace. Herod, disturbed, told them that he had not heard of the child, but informed them of a prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem . He then asked the magi to inform him when they find the child so that he himself may also pay homage to the child. Guided by the Star of Bethlehem , the wise men found the child Jesus in a house. They paid homage to him, and presented him with "gifts of gold and of frankincense and of myrrh." (2.11) In

3216-434: The magi"). The oldest surviving Greek reference to the magi – from Greek μάγος ( mágos , plural: magoi ) – might be from 6th century BC Heraclitus (apud Clemens Protrepticus 2.22.2), who curses the magi for their "impious" rites and rituals. A description of the rituals that Heraclitus refers to has not survived, and there is nothing to suggest that Heraclitus was referring to foreigners. Better preserved are

3283-717: The magi. In Arabic, "Magians" ( majus ) is the term for Zoroastrians . The term is mentioned in the Quran, in sura 22 verse 17, where the "Magians" are mentioned alongside the Jews , the Sabians and the Christians in a list of religions who will be judged on the Day of Resurrection . In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein 's Ba'ath Party used the term majus during the Iran–Iraq War as

3350-473: The main topics to provide a cultural, ethnographical , geographical, and historiographical background that forms an essential part of the narrative and provides readers with a wellspring of additional information. Herodotus was criticized in ancient times for his inclusion of "legends and fanciful accounts" in his work. The contemporaneous historian Thucydides accused him of making up stories for entertainment. He retorted that he reported what he could see and

3417-565: The mainland and islands of Greece ), the Ionian Sea (thus southern Albania in Southeastern Europe ), and can extend west to Italy 's farthest south-eastern coasts. Jordan is climatically and economically part of the region. The eastern Mediterranean region is commonly interpreted in two ways: The countries and territories of the Eastern Mediterranean include Cyprus , Turkey ( Anatolia ), its smaller Hatay Province ,

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3484-424: The matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks. His record of the achievements of others was an achievement in itself, though the extent of it has been debated. Herodotus's place in history and his significance may be understood according to the traditions within which he worked. His work is the earliest Greek prose to have survived intact. Dionysius of Halicarnassus ,

3551-521: The more famous story of Simon Magus found in chapter 8, the Book of Acts ( 13:6–11 ) also describes another magus who acted as an advisor of Sergius Paulus , the Roman proconsul at Paphos on the island of Cyprus . He was a Jew named Bar-Jesus (son of Jesus), or alternatively Elymas . (Another Cypriot magus named Atomos is referenced by Josephus , working at the court of Felix at Caesarea .) One of

3618-715: The non-canonical Christian sources, the Syriac Infancy Gospel , provides, in its third chapter, a story of the wise men of the East which is very similar to much of the story in Matthew. This account cites Zoradascht (Zoroaster) as the source of the prophecy that motivated the wise men to seek the infant Jesus. In the Talmud , instances of dialogue between the Jewish sages and various magi are recorded. The Talmud depicts

3685-568: The rank. The term only appears twice in Iranian texts from before the 5th century BC, and only one of these can be dated with precision. This one instance occurs in the trilingual Behistun inscription of Darius the Great , and which can be dated to about 520 BC. In this trilingual text, certain rebels have magian as an attribute; in the Old Persian portion as maγu- (generally assumed to be

3752-468: The research seem independent and "almost detachable", so that they might have been set aside by the author for the purposes of an oral performance. The intellectual matrix of the 5th century, Marincola suggests, comprised many oral performances in which philosophers would dramatically recite such detachable pieces of their work. The idea was to criticize previous arguments on a topic and emphatically and enthusiastically insert their own in order to win over

3819-587: The responsibility for introducing the dark arts to the Greek and Roman worlds. That dubious honor went to another fabulous magus, Ostanes , to whom most of the pseudepigraphic magical literature was attributed." For Pliny, this magic was a "monstrous craft" that gave the Greeks not only a "lust" ( aviditatem ) for magic, but a downright "madness" ( rabiem ) for it, and Pliny supposed that Greek philosophers – among them Pythagoras , Empedocles , Democritus , and Plato – traveled abroad to study it, and then returned to teach it (xxx.2.8–10). "Zoroaster" – or rather what

3886-705: The same shape found in Neolithic West Asia, specifically a cross potent carved in the shoulder of a goddess figure of the Halaf period . Eastern Mediterranean Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half , or third, of the Mediterranean Sea , often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea . It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to communities connected with

3953-444: The same word in origin, a common Iranian term for 'member of the tribe' having developed among the Medes the special sense of 'member of the (priestly) tribe', hence a priest." Some examples of the use of magi in Persian poetry , are present in the poems of Hafez . There are two frequent terms used by him, first one is Peer-e Moghan (literally "the old man of the magi") and second one is Deyr-e Moghan (literally "the monastery of

4020-408: The sea and land greatly climatically influenced. It includes the southern half of Turkey's main region Anatolia , its smaller Hatay Province , the island of Cyprus , the Greek Dodecanese islands, and the countries of Egypt , Israel , Jordan , Palestine , Syria and Lebanon . Its broadest uses can encompass the Libyan Sea (thus Libya ), the Aegean Sea (thus European Turkey and

4087-421: The son of Sphynx lies; in Ionic history without peer; a Dorian born, who fled from slander's brand and made in Thuria his new native land. Yet it was in Athens where his most formidable contemporary critics could be found. In 425 BC, which is about the time that Herodotus is thought by many scholars to have died, the Athenian comic dramatist Aristophanes created The Acharnians , in which he blames

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4154-471: The tribe" or referred to a particular social class in the proto-Iranian language and then continued to do so in Avestan. An unrelated term, but previously assumed to be related, appears in the older Gathic Avestan language texts. This word, adjectival magavan meaning "possessing maga- ", was once the premise that Avestan maga- and Median (i.e. Old Persian) magu- were coeval (and also that both these were cognates of Vedic Sanskrit magha- ). While "in

4221-530: The word 'magic' in the modern sense, i.e. using supernatural means to achieve an effect in the natural world, or the appearance of achieving these effects through trickery or sleight of hand. The early Greek texts typically have the pejorative meaning, which in turn influenced the meaning of magos to denote a conjurer and a charlatan. Already in the mid-5th century BC, Herodotus identifies the magi as interpreters of omens and dreams ( Histories 7.19, 7.37, 1.107, 1.108, 1.120, 1.128). Other Greek sources from before

4288-404: The young Herodotus heard local eyewitness accounts of events within the empire and of Persian preparations for the invasion of Greece , including the movements of the local fleet under the command of Artemisia I of Caria . Inscriptions recently discovered at Halicarnassus indicate that Artemesia's grandson Lygdamis negotiated with a local assembly to settle disputes over seized property, which

4355-486: Was Zaratas / Zaradas / Zaratos ( cf. Agathias 2.23–5, Clement Stromata I.15), which – according to Bidez and Cumont – derived from a Semitic form of his name. The Suda 's chapter on astronomia notes that the Babylonians learned their astrology from Zoroaster. Lucian of Samosata ( Mennipus 6) decides to journey to Babylon "to ask one of the magi, Zoroaster's disciples and successors", for their opinion. The word mágos (Greek) and its variants appear in both

4422-405: Was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words "magic" and " magician ". In the Gospel of Matthew , "μάγοι" ( magoi ) from the east do homage to the Christ Child , and the transliterated plural "magi" entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 CE (this particular use

4489-401: Was told. A sizable portion of the Histories has since been confirmed by modern historians and archaeologists . Modern scholars generally turn to Herodotus's own writing for reliable information about his life, supplemented with ancient yet much later sources, such as the Byzantine Suda , an 11th-century encyclopedia which possibly took its information from traditional accounts. Still,

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