ABSTRACT
Unlike Jews and Manichaeans, who could be found in most parts of the Roman empire during Late Antiquity, Zoroastrians were a geographically and numerically restricted religious group, confined to certain eastern provinces, especially in Asia Minor. This explains the relative brevity of this chapter, while also raising the question of whether they warrant separate consideration in a book about late Roman religious life. Perhaps not, but it seemed worth drawing attention to the fact that the spectrum of religious beliefs and practices encompassed by the Roman empire in this period included adherents of the ancient credal religion dominant in the regions to the east of the empire, a religion, moreover, actively supported by the rulers of the empire’s chief rival in Late Antiquity, the Sasanian Persians. (It is also worth noting that, of the various religions that flourished during Late Antiquity, Zoroastrianism takes its place alongside Judaism and Christianity as the only ones still practised today.)
Zoroastrianism takes its name from Zoroaster (the westernised form of Zarathushtra), the details of whose life remain controversial. He was a prophet or religious reformer, probably active in eastern Iran, perhaps as early as the late second millennium BC or possibly not until the early centuries of the first millennium BC. In due course, his teachings were taken up and supported by the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia – Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes and their successors – whose expansion into Asia Minor in the sixth century BC resulted in the establishment of Zoroastrianism there. After the conquest of the region by Alexander the Great and then the Romans, enclaves of Zoroastrian adherents maintained their traditional practices, and the following passages attest their continuing presence in Roman territory in the third (9.1), fourth (9.2) and fifth (9.3) centuries, respectively, while also alluding to distinctive elements of Zoroastrian religious practice and belief. A key feature of Zoroaster’s teaching was its dualistic emphasis: the world had been created by one eternal, uncreated and beneficent god, Ahuramazda (or Ohrmazd), aided by six lesser deities or yazads, but Ahuramazda was opposed by an evil spirit, Ahriman, with whom he engaged in an ongoing cosmic struggle – a struggle in which humans could play their part by choosing to do good. This included observance of various
rituals of purification, daily prayers, respect for the earth and living creatures, and special reverence for fire, the symbol of righteousness. This last feature in due course assumed architectural expression in the form of fire altars and fire temples.
