MAGI. A priestly caste from whom, on account of their practice of astrology and the interpretation of dreams, the word magic is derived. Iranian scholars find a marked difference between the Persians and the Magi. The Magi were one of six tribes in Media. " They made a temporarily successful bid for political power when Gauniata the Magus seized the throne in the character of Bardiya (Smerdis), the murdered brother of Cambyses. The Aryan aristocracy regained its power under the leadership of the great Darius, and an annual festival, the Magophon4a, celebrated the downfall of the priests who had tried to be kings. After a generation or two we find the Magi firmly established as a sacred caste. Their general resemblance to the Brahmans is very suggestive in the light of Dr. D. B. Spooner's in vestigations. They kept their distinctive practices for centuries, and Greek witnesses expressly show that the Persians did not share them. Conspicuous among these were the exposing of the dead to vultures, and the prac tice of next-of-kin marriage " (J. H. Moulton). There
is no proof that the Persians made use of the vultures before the Sassanian age; and they rejected the Magian doctrine of marriage, as well as other characteristics of the caste. According to Plutarch, the Magi sacrificed a wolf to the god of evil in a sunless place. Moulton notes that while this is akin to the spirit of Mithraism, the propitiation of evil powers never gained any footing in Parsism. " We may reasonably conjecture that only the Magi resident in Persia identified themselves with Zoroastrianism, and that a great many Magi living in other countries kept up their own special beliefs and usages, which might easily be credited to Zoroastrian Magi by misunderstanding." Those, however, who threw in their lot with Zoroastrianism (probably in the fifth century B.C.) profoundly modified Its whole spirit. They introduced. for instance, the great development of ritual. Cp. F. W. Russell.