The Book of DieselThe Light Before the Gospel“Mehrasp of the Magi visited the archive to compare calendars. He did not wear the costume Greek storytellers would later give eastern sages. His sleeves were stained with ash and medicine. Pythagoras asked whether he practiced magic. ‘Only the magic by which an honest measurement embarrasses a confident man,’ Mehrasp said.”
The Book of Diesel · Gospel Threshold Edition v4.5
Later biographical traditionAncient or late-antique tradition supplies the premise; the private scenes are reconstructed.
Later biographies say Pythagoras was taken from Egypt to Babylon after Cambyses’s conquest and studied with Magi and Babylonian scholars. These detailed traditions were written centuries later and cannot be treated as secure biography.
The captivity, teacher Mehrasp, and all private scenes are historical fiction built from later traditions.