Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 4.djvu/46

Rh of the elements. When he came from Asia to Rome to receive the crown of Armenia at the hands of Nero, he avoided coming by sea, and rode along the coasts, 'because the Magi are forbidden to defile the sea .' This is quite in the spirit of later Zoroastrianism, and savours much of Mazdeism. That Vologeses himself shared the religious scruples of his brother appears from his answer to Nero, who insisted upon his coming to Rome also: 'Come yourself, it is easier for you to cross such immensity of sea .' What we know moreover of his personal character qualifies him for taking the initiative in a religious work. He seems to have been a man of contemplative mind rather than a man of action, which often excited the anger or scorn of his people against him ; he had the glory of breaking with the family policy of Parthian kings by giving his brothers a share in the empire, instead of strangling them (Tacitus, Annales, XV, i, 2). At that time the East was in religious fermentation ; Christianity was in its infancy; gnostic sects were rife: moreover religion was fast becoming part of politics. Vologeses was called by the people of Adiabene against their king Izates, who had turned Jew (Josephus, Antiq. XX, 4, 2) and himself offered the help of his cavalry to Vespasian against Jerusalem.

The namesakes of Vologeses I had too short or too uncertain a lease of power for any one of them to be likely to compete with him as the author of that first religious restoration. We shall therefore assume that the Valkhash of the Dinkart is the same as Vologeses I, and, in this hypothesis, we will ascribe the first collection of Zoroastrian fragments to the third quarter of the first century (50–75),