Hindu sage Iarchas as well acquainted with the Homeric poems, but
nowhere does his hero Apollonius of Tyana show the slightest knowledge
of Sanskrit literature.[4]

Nor do the classic authors give us any more information about the
literature of Persia, though the Iranian religion received some
attention. Aristotle and Theopompus were more or less familiar with
Zoroastrian tenets,[5] and allusions to the prophet of ancient Iran are
not infrequent in classic writers. But their information concerning him
is very scanty and inaccurate. To them Zoroaster is simply the great
Magian, more renowned for his magic art than for his religious system.
Of the national Iranian legends, glimpses of which we catch in the
Avesta (esp. Yt. 19), and which must have existed long before the
Sassanian period and the time of Firdausī, the Greek and Roman authors
have recorded nothing.

* * * * *

But Europe was not limited to the classic and patristic writers for
information about the Orient. The points of contact between the Eastern
and Western world were numerous even before the Portuguese showed the
way to India. Alexandria was the seat of a lively commerce between the
Roman Empire and India during the first six centuries of the Christian
era; the Byzantine Empire was always in close relations, hostile or
friendly, with Persia; the Arabs had settled in Spain, Southern Italy
and Sicily; and the Mongols ruled for almost two centuries in Russia.
All these were factors in the transmission of Oriental influence.[6]
And, as far as Germany is concerned, we must remember that in the tenth
century, owing to the marriage of the emperor Otto II to the Greek
princess Theophano, the relations between the German and Byzantine