You’re being downvoted because there is contemporaneous historical evidence for their existence as people who existed and had a large following at the time, and in fact, as much or more evidence exists for them as exists for a lot of other historical figures. You can disbelieve claims about them, but it isn’t particularly rational to disbelieve they were actual people that attracted crowds. Likewise, it would be irrational to call Uri Geller a fictional character, even if its rational to disbelieve he had psychic powers.