8 Chapter I want to come back and learn about its roots. The legends are curious and fun, but don’t take them too seriously!
The Six Lawgivers You may be surprised to see that the Golden Chain begins with six lawgivers (Grk., νομοθέται, nomothetai), but in the ancient world it was common for religious leaders and philosophers to found and to reform social institutions based on divine law, which is also Plethon’s intention with his Book of Laws.6 What better authority on how to live and organize society than those who are inspired by the gods? The first of the six lawgivers, and the most ancient sage in Plethon’s lineage whose name is known, is Zoroaster. Plethon observes, however, that because this ancient theology is timeless, it predates even Zoroaster, arising in the depths of the past, and has been known in other times and places.7 Zoroaster was the ancient religious reformer of the Medes and Persians, who, according to Plethon, lived five thousand years before either the Trojan War or the Return of the Heracleidae (descendants of Heracles).8 According to his chronology, the Return was in 1103 BCE, and the end of the Trojan War was traditionally dated to 1184 BCE, which puts Zoroaster in the seventh millennium BCE.9 Based on linguistic and other evidence, many modern scholars date him to the second millennium BCE, but others as late as the seventh or sixth centuries BCE.10 Even in the ancient world there were widely divergent opinions on when he lived. Indeed, long ago Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE)
6. Plethon, Laws, preface. 7. Plethon, Laws III.43.7. 8. Plethon, Laws III.43.7. 9. This chronology is presented in Plethon’s “A Method of Fixing the Sun, Moon, Conjunctions, Full Moons and Period of the Planets with Tables Established by Himself ” in Tihon and Mercier, George Gemistus Plethon: Manuel d’astronomie. See also Tihon, “Astronomy of George Gemistos Plethon,” 113; Hladký, Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon, 249, n. 42. 10. Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. (2012), s.v. “Zoroaster.”
