Iulius Firmicus Maternus was a Latin writer who lived in the fourth century a.d. In the 340s, following his conversion to Christianity, he wrote the De errore profanarum religionum,Footnote ² which has been preserved only in the tenth-century manuscript Vaticanus Palatinus Latinus 165.Footnote ³ In this work he argues against the pagan cults, calling for the emperors to suppress them. The first sections are dedicated to the pagan worship of the natural elements: objects of a cult are water among the Egyptians, earth among the Phrygians, air among the Assyrians. The chapter we are dealing with, the fifth, is dedicated to fire, a central element of the Zoroastrian religion.Footnote ⁴ Greek and Roman writers, pagans and Christians alike, were aware of this, and references to some sort of fire-cult among Persians are numerous in literature and are found as early as Herodotus (1.131, 3.16).Footnote ⁵ Just like Firmicus Maternus, some authors also state that the Magi worship fire as a god or divine elementFootnote ⁶ and that they conduct fire-related rituals.Footnote ⁷ In Greek and Latin authors there is a view that the Magi, these specialists of the rituals of the Persian religion, were originally a Median tribe.Footnote ⁸ As shown by the passages of Ammianus and Basil, such knowledge was also available to Firmicus Maternus’ contemporaries, and there do not appear to be particular differences in the way in which Greek and Latin authors viewed the Magi in Achaemenid and Sassanid times.Footnote ⁹ Regrettably, one cannot know for certain which of these sources Firmicus Maternus knew.

Now, in the opening of Firmicus Maternus’ chapter on the Persian cult of fire, the sentence Magi omnes qui Persicae regionis incolunt fines does not appear to make much sense. The information conveyed by the adjective omnes is superfluous, and there seems to be no reason why Firmicus Maternus should point to the Magi inhabiting Persia in particular as worshippers of fire: in fact, we learn from Strabo and Basil that there were also worshippers of fire living within the Roman Empire in Cappadocia who were called the Magi.Footnote ¹⁰ Moreover, Pausanias says the same about the Lydian Magi.Footnote ¹¹ On a slightly different note, the fifth-century Byzantine historian Priscus reports that the Persians living in the Roman Empire wished to preserve their religion and to keep worshipping fire (fr. 31 Dindorf).

How can we make sense of Firmicus Maternus’ passage? A fragment from the historian Diogenes’ Persica (FHG IV 392.4 = FGrHist III 692 F 1), cited by the second/third-century theologian Clement of Alexandria (Protr. 5.65.1), is illuminating in this respect: Περσῶν δὲ οἱ μάγοι τὸ πῦρ τετιμήκασι καὶ τῶν τὴν Ἀσίαν κατοικούντων πολλοί, πρὸς δὲ καὶ Μακεδόνες, ὥς φησι Διογένης ἐν πρώτῃ Περσικῶν ‘The Persian Magi and many of the inhabitants of Asia have assigned honour to fire; so have the Macedonians, as Diogenes says in the first volume of his Persian History’ (transl. Butterworth). The phrasing of this passage, which is quoted by commentators on Firmicus Maternus as one of his sources,Footnote ¹² is very close to that of ours (cf. incolunt and κατοικούντων): the author clearly refers to the Magi and the dwellers of Asia as two separate entities. This suggests that we get rid of the difficulty posed by Magi omnes qui Persicae regionis incolunt fines by inserting an enclitic que after omnes:

With this small correction, omnes<que> qui Persicae regionis incolunt fines closely matches Diogenes’ καὶ τῶν τὴν Ἀσίαν κατοικούντων πολλοί. A similar phrasing, with the names of some people coordinated by et and followed by omnesque qui, is found for example in Cicero (Rab. Perd. 21, cum L. Metellus, Ser. Galba, C. Serranus, P. Rutilius, C. Fimbria, Q. Catulus omnesque, qui tum erant consulares) and in Dictys Cretensis (1.4, eo iam Agamemnon et Nestor omnesque, qui ex origine Pelopis in Graecia regnabant). On top of this, the omission of enclitic que before qui is a very easy corruption, whether que was abbreviated or not.Footnote ¹³

The question now arises as to whether it was likely for Firmicus Maternus to refer to other dwellers of the Persian Empire as worshippers of fire. The answer is yes, for there are several testimonies that attribute to other peoples the same religious customs as those of the Persians, especially as far as fire is concerned: see for example Dinon's fragment (FGrHist III 690 F 28), which follows Diogenes’ fragment in Clem. Al. Protr. 5.65.1: τί μοι Σαυρομάτας καταλέγειν, οὓς Νυμφόδωρος ἐν Νομίμοις βαρβαρικοῖς τὸ πῦρ σέβειν ἱστορεῖ, ἢ τοὺς Πέρσας καὶ τοὺς Μήδους καὶ τοὺς Μάγους; θύειν ἐν ὑπαίθρῳ τούτους ὁ Δίνων λέγει, θεῶν ἀγάλματα μόνα τὸ πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ νομίζοντας ‘Why need I instance Sauromatians, whom Nymphodorus in Barbarian Customs reports as worshipping fire; or the Persians, Medes and Magi? Dinon says that these Magi sacrifice under the open sky, believing that fire and water are the sole emblems of divinity’ (transl. Butterworth).Footnote ¹⁴

This emendation could prompt the objection that in what follows on the topic Firmicus Maternus refers to Persians and Magi only, not to other peoples of the Persian Empire: uos itaque qui dicitis in his templis rite <sacra fieri> Magorum ritu Persico, cur haec Persarum sola laudatis? si hoc Romano nomine dignum putatis ut Persarum sacris, ut Persarum legibus seruiatis … (Err. prof. rel. 5.2). However, this is no insurmountable obstacle: in the later passage, Persarum might include both the Persians proper and the other peoples who live in Persia, and it is also conceivable that Firmicus Maternus preferred to mention only the more famous and obvious ethnic group in a discourse where the stress is more on the traditional hostility between Persians and Romans than on careful ethnographic description.

In conclusion, all the available evidence shows that the enclitic <que> is a necessary supplement after omnes. With this correction, the tripartite distinction in Firmicus Maternus’ passage might point to Persians as the main ethnic group of the region, the Magi as the sacerdotal caste, and the other ethnic groups of the region such as (for example) Medians, Armenians, Chaldeans and Babylonians. The information that other peoples in the Persian Empire worshipped fire just like the Persians is perfectly in line with the testimonies of other ancient authors.