Clad in white robes, and bearing Upon their heads tall felt caps, with
long lappets at the sides, which concealed the jaw and even the lips,
each with his barsom in his hand, they marched in procession to their
pynetheia, or fire altars, and standing around them performed for an
hour at a time their magical incantations. The credulous multitude,
impressed by sights of this kind, and imposed on by the claims to
supernatural power which the Magi advanced, paid them a willing homage;
the kings and chiefs consulted them; and when the Arian tribes, pressing
westward, came into contact with the races professing the Magian
religion, they found a sacerdotal caste all-powerful in most of the
Scythic nations.

The original spirit of Zoroastrianism was fierce and exclusive. The
early Iranians looked with contempt and hatred on the creed of their
Indian brethren; they abhorred idolatry; and were disinclined to
tolerate any religion except that which they had themselves worked out.
But with the lapse of ages this spirit became softened. Polytheistic
creeds are far less jealous than monotheism; and the development of
Zoroastrianism had been in a polytheistic direction. By the time that
the Zoroastrians were brought into contact with Magism, the first fervor
of their religious zeal had abated, and they were in that intermediate
condition of religious faith which at once impresses and is impressed,
acts upon other systems, and allows itself to be acted upon in return.
The result which supervened upon contact with Magism seems to have been
a fusion, an absorption into Zoroastrianism of all the chief points of
the Magian belief, and all the more remarkable of the Magian religious
usages. This absorption appears to have taken place in Media. It was
there that the Arian tribes first associated with themselves, and
formally adopted into their body, the priest-caste of the Magi, which
thenceforth was recognized as one of the six Median tribes. It is there
that Magi are first found acting in the capacity of Arian priests.
According to all the accounts which have come down to us, they soon
acquired a predominating influence, which they no doubt used to impress
their own religious doctrines more and more upon the nation at large,
and to thrust into the background, so far as they dared, the peculiar
features of the old Arian belief. It is not necessary to suppose that
the Medes ever apostatized altogether from the worship of Ormazd, or
formally