CHAPTER ONE THE BACKGROUND Retrospect: the date of Zoroaster In the first volume of this history evidence was assembled which suggested that Zoroaster had lived in the turbulent times of the Iranian Heroic Age, when his people were one of numerous Iranian tribes in­ habiting the South Russian steppes. This period coincided broadly with the Iranian Bronze Age, held to extend from about IJOo-rooo B.C. Further reflection has led the writer to conclude that Zoroaster's own tribe must have been one which during this epoch still maintained a largely Stone-Age culture, at least during the prophet's formative years; for there is no suggestion in his Gathas that he himself recognised the existence of the characteristic tripartite society of the Bronze Age, with its division into herdsmen, priests and warriors 1-the last-named being the chariot-riders (rathaestar-) of the Younger Avesta, who were the 'heroes', devoting themselves to the pursuit of glory through fighting and raiding, hunting and drinking deep in rivalry with their peers. The society which emerges from the Gathas as the one which the prophet himself knew has an older, more stable pattern, that of a bi­ partite society with only the broad divisions of warrior-herdsmen and priests; 2 a pastoral society which looked upon itself as 'the collectivity of men and cattle together',3 pasu vira in the Avestan phrase, with every lay man expected to bear his part in caring for and protecting the herds; a society moreover which was ruled by laws formulated by its wise men, the priests, and which had no marked distinctions of rank among its members, since all men still went on foot about their daily affairs, and all could equip themselves, at expense only of skill and labour, with what weapons they needed-clubs and slingstones, stone-tipped arrows and spears, stone knives and axes. Every grown lay man was a 'warrior', every 'warrior' at some time a 'herdsman' .4 1 See Boyce, Zoroastrians, 24; and in more detail 'The bipartite society of the ancient Iranians', Festschrift I. M. Diakonoff, ed. M. A. Dandamaev eta!., London, in press. The characteristically lucid study by E. Benveniste, 'Les classes sociales dans Ia tradition avestique', J A 1932, II7·34, is admirable in so far as it treats of the Younger Avesta, but its findings in relation to the Gathas do not bear scrutiny. In his articles Benveniste confined his analysis of a tripartite society strictly to the Indo· Iranians. 2 I.e. vastrya and nar are synonyms, see Boyce, art. cit. 3 B. Lincoln, 'Indo-Iranian *gautra', J. of Indo-European Studies III, 1975, r6r-7r. 4 This is to speak of course in broad generalisation, overlooking such special groups as, e.g., minstrels and story-tellers. 2 THE BACKGROUND This traditional society, in which the high priest would have had his leading role in the council of elders, 5 and in which accepted laws would have been generally observed, evidently suffered assault in the prophet's own lifetime from tribes which had already acquired bronze weaponry and had learnt to make regular use of the horse-drawn chariot. In such tribes a division was bound to develop between the herdsman, whose life was still bound up with his slow-moving cattle, and the mobile chariot­ riding warrior, who no longer accepted his share of such tribal duties, and who was apt to seek wealth and fame for himself elsewhere, often with some noted warrior-chie£. 6 In Zoroaster's own terminology these ruthless and acquisitive men were ajsuyanti5 'non-herdsmen' (Y 49.4); and they are not likely to have had much regard for the laws which he himself upheld so ardently,7 preferring 'the rule of tyrants and deceit rather than truth' (Y 32.12), and worshipping doubtless the Daevas, gods of war, rather than the ever-just Ahuras. So the tribal council gave place generally to the arbitrary rule of warrior-princes, and right yielded reluctantly to might. It was this pattern of a violently changing society, and the relative helplessness of his own people amid the turbulence and brutality of the Iranian Heroic Age, 8 which, it seems, made of Zoroaster 'the first apo­ calypt',9 a prophet who called in the perfect equity of a future time to redress the evils of his own day. 5 On the leading role of the priest in ancient Indo-European and Indo-Iranian society see E. Benveniste, Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-europeennes, II 9-15. On rule by councils of elders, which in general preceded the military rule of a Heroic Age, see H. M. Chadwick, The Heroic Age, Ch. I7. 6 The general analysis of heroic ages given by Chadwick, op. cit., 348 ff., is shown by the Avestan yasts and the Persian Shahname (see HZ I 105ft.) to be applicable also to Iran. 7 The importance of law for the prophet, exemplified by the recurrent use of legal terms and imagery in the Gathas, is rightly stressed by S. Insler, The Gathas, 182 et passim. [This important translation of Zoroaster's great hymns by a Vedic scholar appeared simultaneously with HZ I. It is a mine of philological learning, and treats admirably many problems of vocabulary and syntax. There are also numerous illuminating ad hoc observations, such as that just cited; but unfortunately the author freed himself to concentrate mainly on philological problems by deliberately ignoring Zoroastrian tradition as exemplified in the Younger Avesta and the Pahlavi literature, and in the living faith. This he justified by reverting to the position adopted by Martin Haug in the mid 19th century (see Boyce, Zoroastrians, 202 ff.) that this tradition represents a radical distortion of the prophet's own teachings. These teachings Haug, like Insler after him, understood to be a pure and noble theism with little in the way of distinctive doctrines and unsupported by observances. Such an interpretation was understandable in Haug's day; but it is puzzling that it should now be adopt­ ed again, anachronistic as it is, when so much careful work has since been done by other Gathic scholars to disprove it. See the remarks on p. 89 of his review-article by H.-P. Schmidt, 'Old and new perspectives in the study of the Gathas of Zarathustra', IIJ XXI, 1979, 83-II5.] 8 On the lawlessness and viciousness of heroic ages in general, as they affected ordinary members of society, see with a wealth of illustration Chadwick, op. cit., passim, but especially Ch. 16, 19. 9 ]. Duchesne-Guillemin, The Hymns of Zarathustra (trans!. M. Henning), London 1952, 18. For parallel backgrounds to other, later gospels of hope seeN. Cohn, 'Medieval Millenarism ... ', in Millenia! Dreams in Action, ed. S. L. Thrupp, The Hague 1962, 31-43. .