Note 16 — Chapter V

See Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, where he identifies Zoroaster with the celebrated Median king Kudur-Nakhunta, and says: "A king of Elam, whose court was held at Susa, led in the year B. C. 2286 (or a little earlier) an expedition against the cities of Chaldæa, succeeded in carrying all before him, ravaged the country, took the towns, plundered the temples, and bore off the images of the deities which the Babylonians especially reverenced. This king's name, which was Kudur-Nakhunta, is thought to be the exact equivalent of one which has a worldwide celebrity—to wit, Zoroaster. Now, according to Polyhistor, who certainly repeats Berosus, Zoroaster was the first of those eight Median kings who composed the second dynasty in Chaldæa and occupied the throne from about B. C. 2286 to 2052. The Medes are represented by him as capturing Babylon at this time, and imposing themselves as rulers upon the country. Eight kings reign in the space of 234 or 224 years, after which we hear no more of Medes, the sovereignty being (as it would seem) recovered by the natives. The coincidences of the conquest, the date, the foreign sovereignty, and the name Zoroaster, tend to identify the Median dynasty of Berosus with a period of Susanian supremacy which the monuments show to have been established in Chaldæa at a date not long subsequent to the reigns of Urukh and Ilgi, and to have lasted for a considerable period."