The Prophet of the Wise Lord

Before Cyrus, before the Greeks, a prophet rose among the herdsmen of ancient Iran — Zarathustra, whom the Greeks called Zoroaster and counted five thousand years before the fall of Troy. Plutarch preserved his doctrine; the scholars still argue over his century. What survives is his reform: a working people's faith of truth spoken and land tilled, the refusal to worship the old daeva gods, and the revelation that the world is a choice between Asha, the truth, and Druj, the Lie.