Recasting Zoroastrian dualism within the Greek philosophical imagination

This chapter explores how Greek philosophers appropriated and reinterpreted Zoroastrian dualism to corroborate their own metaphysical systems. It examines Eudemus’ testimony, preserved by Damascius, on a Zurvanite cosmogonical myth, and Plutarch’s account of Zoroastrian dualism in De Iside et Osiride. This analysis reveals that Greek philosophers incorporated Zoroastrian ideas not to exoticise their works but to strategically bolster cosmological and ontological arguments. By merging foreign myths into structured philosophical theories, these testimonies highlight a dynamic process of intellectual exchange.