ARIMANES, the evil god of the ancient Persians. According to the doctrine of the magi, there are two supreme principles—a good and an evil; the first the author of all good, and the other of all evil: the former represented by light, and the latter by darkness, as their truest symbols. The good principle they named Yezad or Yesdan, and Ormuzd or Hormizda, which the Greeks wrote Oromasdes; and the evil demon they called Ahriman, and the Greeks Arimanes. Some of the magians held both these principles to have existed from all eternity; but this sect was reputed heterodox, the original doctrine being that the good principle only was eternal, and the other created.
ARIMASPI (Ἀριμασπός), a Scythian people described by Herodotus as Cyclopes, living in the gold districts of the Ural Mountains.—Lib. 4, 13, and 27.