The Magi are traditionally portrayed as Persian kings or scholars, presumably non-Jewish Zoroastrians. They also seem like some of the most virtuous non-Jews in Jesus's life, so I wonder, did Jews/early Christians of this time period generally have a positive view of Zoroastrians? Is there any particular significance in the portrayal of a Zoroastrian figure bringing gifts and worshipping the messiah?
I've discussed the historical context of the Biblical Magi and their relationship to Zoroastrianism before in this thread
The Magi are traditionally portrayed as Persian kings or scholars, presumably non-Jewish Zoroastrians.
To be clear, they are portrayed this way because "Magi" is a Zoroastrian priestly title. It is the plural for "Magus" in Latin (equivalent to Magoi in Greek, Magush in Old Persian, and Mobed in the Middle Persian still used by Zoroastrian priests). As I discuss in the link above, "Magi from the east" would have been a fairly well known idea in the ancient Mediterranean.
Nothing about the title "Magus" historically denoted royalty, but the association seems to have originated with Hebrew prophetic verses like Isaiah 60:3 " The Gentiles shall come to your light,And kings to the brightness of your rising. ". When early modern scholars looked for a linguistic basis for this, they did sort of find one in ancient Greek accounts of Darius the Greats rise to power. Most Greek sources explained that Darius dethroned a Magus pretending to be king (a story modern historians doubt).