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Rh friend, may there be a large family unto him, may he live long, and may all his actions be crowned with success. Whoso, however, acts against the royal wish and keeps back the achievements of the king from the knowledge of the people, unto him, says Darius, Auramazda may not be a friend, he may not be blessed with a large family and long life and fulfilment of his wishes. The Later Avesta names the demon of drought Duzhyāirya, and Darius invokes Auramazda and his associates to protect his country from Dushiyār. The inscriptions do not mention Angra Mainyu. We have, however, seen that Darius uses Drauga, Lie, with the emphasis that the Later Avesta puts on Angra Mainyu, and in thus seeing all evil in Drauga instead of in Angra Mainyu, Darius is more faithful to the spirit of the Gathas than the Later Avesta is. It is true that the inscriptions never mention Zarathushtra by name, but they undoubtedly breathe the spirit of his teachings. The royal house of the Achaemenians is a devout Mazda-worshipper at its rise, it imbibes the Zoroastrian cult gradually and is fully Mazdayasnian Zarathushtrian by the time of its downfall.

Magi, the Zoroastrian priesthood of Western Iran. Herodotus tells us that the Magi formed one of the six tribes into which the Medes were divided and constituted their sacerdotal class. They wore the white robe and covered the head with the woolen tiara with long flaps on each side to cover the mouth. The Median empire was short-lived. Cyrus overthrew Astyages, the last Median king, in 550 and laid the foundation of the great Achaemenian empire. The Persians thus conquered the earthly possessions of the Medes and the Magi, their priests; but they were in turn conquered by the latter in spirit. The Magian victory in the spiritual domain more than made amends for the loss of their temporal power. The racial jealousy and antagonism between the conquerors and the subdued races, however, continued for a considerable time owing to the Median attempts to regain their ascendency. When Cambyses heard of the Magian priest Gaumata's revolt to overthrow the Persian empire, he ex-