Zoroaster prophecy that saw a return of Sassanid emperor Bahram: Shoghi Effendi also stated that Zoroaster lived roughly 1000 years before Jesus. The Greeks—in the Hellenistic sense of the term—had an understanding of Zoroaster as expressed by Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Agathias that saw him, at the core, to be the "prophet and founder of the religion of the Iranian peoples," Beck notes that "the rest was mostly fantasy". Zoroaster was set in the ancient past, six to seven millennia before the Common Era, and was described as a king of Bactria or a Babylonian (or teacher of Babylonians), and with
Thus Spoke Zarathustra of Silvaplana (close to Surlej); he was inspired by the sight of a gigantic, towering, pyramidal rock. Before "Zarathustra", Nietzsche had mentioned the concept in the fourth book of "The Gay Science" (e.g., sect. 341); this was the first public proclamation of the notion by him. Apart from its salient presence in "Zarathustra", it is also echoed throughout Nietzsche's work. At any rate, it is by Zarathustra's transfiguration that he embraces eternity, that he at last ascertains "the supreme will to power". This inspiration finds its expression with Zarathustra's roundelay, featured twice in the book, once near the story's close: