Originally Posted by Kapyong

Gday,

Hmm,
A quick and crude text search shows "magi" mentioned in :

Polybius, 2nd C. BCE, History 34 :
"So the priests of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Magi, being superior to the rest of the world in wisdom, obtained rule and honour in former generations."

Diodorus Siculus, 1st C. BCE, History 16 :
"The latter was a descendant of one of the seven Persians who deposed the Magi."

Cicero, 1st C. BCE, On the Nature of the Gods
"And with the mistaken notions of the poets may be classed the extravagances of the magi, the delusions entertained on the same subject by the Egyptians, and also the beliefs of the common people, which from ignorance of the truth are involved in the greatest inconsistency."

Strabo, 1st C. BCE, Geography 15 :
"The tribes which inhabit the country are the Pateischoreis, as they are called, and the Achaemenidae and the Magi. Now the Magi follow with zeal a kind of august life, whereas the Cyrtii and the Mardi are brigands and others are farmers."

Vitruvius Pollio, 1st C. BCE, Architecture 7 :
"AMONG the Seven Sages, Thales of Miletus pronounced for water as the primordial element in all things; Heraclitus, for fire; the priests of the Magi, for water and fire;"

Philo, 1st C. CE, QA Genesis I :
"The Tigris is a very cruel and mischievous river, as the citizens of Babylon bear witness, and so do the magi, who have found it to be of a character quite different from the nature of other rivers; "

Josephus, 1st C. CE, Antiquities 11 :
"AFTER the slaughter of file Magi, who, upon the death of Cambyses, attained the government of the Persians for a year, those families which were called the seven families of the Persians appointed Darius, the son of Hystaspes, to be
their king. "

Pliny Elder, 1st C. CE, History 21 :
"According to the Magi, the person who crowns himself with a chaplet composed of this flower, and takes his unguents from a box of gold, of the kind generally known as "apyron," will be sure to secure esteem and glory among his fellowmen. Such are the flowers of spring."

Plutarch, 1st C. CE, Isis & Osiris :
"Theopompus says that, according to the Magi, one of the Gods shall conquer, the other be conquered, alternately for 3,000 years; for another 3,000 years they shall fight, war, and undo one the works of the other;"

Followed by later mentions in :
Appian, Justin Martyr, Lucian, Minucius F., Athenaeus, Bardesanes, ClementAlex., Melito, Irenaeus, Tatian; and many many more from 3rd C. on.


(Not sure they all mean the same "magi" though.)


Kapyong