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Rh Zaratus and Zoroaster. Diogenes Laertius says that (fifth century ) mentioned Zoroaster by name. The earliest authentic allusion to him, however, is found in the Platonic Alcibiades. Pliny the Elder ( 23–79) says that Zoroaster was the only human being that laughed when he was born and adds that his brain pulsated so forcibly that it repelled the hand put over it. Tradition, has it, he says, that Zoroaster lived in a desert upon cheese for twenty years. Diogenes of Laerte (second century ) quotes Dino (about 340 ) as saying that Zoroaster meant one who sacrificed to the stars and adds that Hermodorus, a disciple of Plato, agreed with this. He is spoken of as Chaldaean by Hippolytus ( 236), or as an Assyrian, or generally as a Magian or Bactrian. He is called the king of Bactria who fought with Ninus and Semiramis and was defeated. The Avestan texts are silent over the question of the age in which he was born. The classical writers speak upon the subject, but their testimony is not reliable. Pliny says on the authority of Eudoxus (368 ), Aristotle (350 ), and Hermippus (250 ) that Zoroaster lived 6000 years before the death of Plato or 5000 years before the Trojan war, and Diogenes of Laerte quotes Hermodorus and Xanthus to the same effect. Pliny quotes Hermippus as saying that Zoroaster composed two million lines of verse. Polyhistor (about first century ), Plutarch ( 46–120), Apuleius of Madaura ( 124–170), Clement of Alexandria ( 150–211) and Hippolytus say on the authority of Diodorus of Eretria (60 ), and Aristoxenus, a disciple of Aristotle, that Pythagoras was a pupil of Zoroaster. He is generally designated the discoverer of magic. Dio Chrysostom ( 40–120) says that according to the account given by the Persians, Zoroaster withdrew from the society of men to live in a mountain. A great fire fell from