The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

PERSIA. 139
even the lower classes under the name of "magic"
was to a considerable extent of Persian origin, as its
name indicates, and along with physician s recipes
and thaumaturgic processes it imparted some theo
logical doctrines in a confused fashion. 9
This explains why certain institutions and beliefs
of the Persians had found imitators and adepts in the
Greco-Oriental world long before the Romans had
gained
a- foothold in Asia. Their influence was in
direct, secret, frequently indiscernible, but it was cer
tain. The most active agencies in the diffusion of
Mazdaism as of Judaism seem to have been colonies
of believers who had emigrated far from the mother
country. There was a Persian dispersion similar to
that of the Israelites. Communities of magi were
established not only in eastern Asia Minor, but in
Galatia, Phrygia, Lydia and even in Egypt. Every
where they remained attached to their customs and
10
beliefs with persistent tenacity.
When Rome extended her conquests into Asia Minor
and Mesopotamia, the influence -of Persia became much
more direct. Superficial contact with the Mazdean
populations began with the wars against Mithradates,
but it did not become frequent and lasting until the
first century of our era. During that century the
empire gradually extended its limits to the upper Eu
phrates, and thereby absorbed all the uplands of Ana
tolia and Commagene south of the Taurus. The native
dynasties which had fostered the secular isolation of
those distant countries in spite of the state of vassalage
to which they had been reduced disappeared one after
another. The Flavians constructed through those hith
erto almost inaccessible regions an immense network