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For the position of the Magi cf. App. VIII, § 3. The Median tribes seem to have been originally local; H. uses the same word, γένεα, of the Persian tribes (125. 3) which certainly were so (cf. for the situation of the Παρητακηνοί iii. 92. 1 n.). Ammianus (xxiii. 6. 32 seq.), in the fourth century A. D., gives a full account of the Magi, and speaks of them (§ 35) as ‘inhabiting towns without walls’ in Media, where they live ‘protected by religious awe’. But the local tribe had an especially religious development (cf. the tribe of Levi in Palestine), and the priesthood was confined to its members; so among the Parsees to this day only the son of a Dastur can be a Dastur (Darmstetter, S. B. E. iv. p. xlvii). Perhaps some of the tribes were non-Aryan.

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