Citation with stable link: Philip A. Harland, 'Persian / Hyperborean wisdom: Anonymous author on Gobryas the Magian and the bronze tablets about death and judgment (first century BCE),' Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World, last modified March 30, 2024, https://philipharland.com/Blog/?p=19014.
Ancient author: Anonymous / Pseudo-Plato (perhaps first century BCE), Axiochos 371-372 (link; link to Greek).
Comments: In this anonymous dialogue, Socrates is pictured comforting Axiochos, who is near death and fearful. Among the stories that Socrates tells in order to comfort this Axiochos is one he claims to have heard from a Magian named Gobryas. The story goes that Gobryas’ grandfather had made a trip to Delos on behalf of king Xerxes (i.e. in the early fifth century BCE). There the grandfather had discovered old bronze tablets with information about the underworld.
The content of the tablets does ring of some hint of the Persian Zoroastrian notion of two spirits – of piety and wickedness – and judgement after death but expressed in Greek terms. But the unusual thing is how Persian Magians are, here, only indirectly a source of wisdom. The bronze tablets themselves are said to have come directly from the Hyberboreans in the old days. So the wise barbarians turn out to be this mythical far-northern people, rather than the Persian Magians, who are themselves pictured deriving this idea of judgment from outsiders.
Works consulted: K. Jazdzewska, Greek Dialogue in Antiquity: Post-Platonic Transformations (Oxford: OUP, 2022), pp. 153-156.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
[Story of the Magian grandfather and the bronze tablets about death and judgment]
(371) SOCRATES [addressing Axiochos to reassure him there is no need for fearing death]: Listen, if you will, to an alternative account which was given to me by Gobryas, a Magian. He said that, during Xerxes’ [I, reigning ca. 486-465 BCE] expedition, his grandfather, who bore the same name [Gobryas], was sent to Delos to protect the island in which the two deities [Apollo and Artemis] were born. While there, he learned, from certain tablets of bronze, which Opis and the Hekaerge [daughters of Boreas in Herodotos, Histories 4.33-35] had brought from the Hyperboreans, that after the dissolution of the body the soul goes to the obscure region near the subterranean dwelling which includes a palace of Ploutos that is not inferior to the court of Zeus.
This view is based on the theory that the earth occupies the central point of the universe, and that the firmament is spherical in shape, the celestial gods having obtained one hemisphere as their portion, and the underworld gods the other, the former being brothers, the latter cousins. The gateway on the road leading to Ploutos’ palace is fortified with iron bolts and bars. A man who has opened these is faced by a river called Acheron and after it another river called Kokytos. He must cross and then be led to Minos and Rhadamanthos in a plain which is called the plain of truth. They sit there as judges and ask every newcomer what life he has lived and what habits have become ingrained in his body. And it is impossible to give a false reply.
[Destiny of the pious]
All who in life were inspired by a good lower spirit (daimōn) are settled in the region of the pious, where the seasons teem with growing crops of all kinds, and springs of pure water flow, where there are great tracts of meadows in the full spring-bloom of variegated flowers, where pursuers of wisdom (philosophoi) discuss and where poets perform their plays, where the chorus dances around the altar and music holds her festivals. Here they sing as they drink from their cups, and feast on self-supplied meals. Here there are undefiled pleasure and sweet life. No severity of heat or cold comes there, but there is a temperate atmosphere mingled with soft beams of sunlight. In this realm a certain precedence is given to the initiated, and they perform their sacred rites there. Surely then you being a parent of the gods are first in this honour. And legend says that Herakles, Dionysos and their companions had been initiated on earth for their journey down to Hades and that it was Eleusis which stirred their courage to undertake it.
[Destiny of the wicked]
On the other hand all whose life was passed doing evil things are led by the Erinyes (or: Furies) through Tartaros to darkness and chaos. This is the region of the impious, the futile pitchers of the Danaides, thirsty Tantalos, the viscera of Tityos which are being eternally eaten and eternally renewed, and the stone that is forever rolled by Sisyphos (372) that reaches its goal only to renew his labours. There they are licked by beasts and perpetually burned by the torches of the goddesses of vengeance and, suffering every indignity, they are consumed by everlasting punishments. This, then, is the account I heard from Gobrayas. . . [omitted remainder, but Axiochos was further comforted regarding death as Socrates heals him with wisdom].
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗
Source of translation: W.S. Fox and R. E. K. Pemberton, Passages in Greek and Latin Literature Relating to Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism, K.R. Cama Oriental Institute Publication (Bombay: D.B. Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1929), public domain, adapted by Harland.