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W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus
BOOK I
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Commentary on Herodotus, Histories . book 1, chapter 131:section 3.
"Mithra" occurs 3 times on this page.
CXXXI.[3] têi Ouraniêi. This passage is important in three ways :
(1) It illustrates Persian borrowing from foreigners (135. 1); they had mixed with their dualistic creed many alien elements. The worship of the Oriental love-goddess Anaitis was combined with the old Iranian worship of Ardvî Sûra by Artaxerxes Longimanus (465-425) (Berosus, fr. 16, F. H. G. ii. 508; he calls him tou Dareiou tou Ôchou , but this must be a mistake). The king set up her statues for worship in Ecbatana and Susa, though previously the Persians agalmata theôn ou xula kai lithous hupeilêphasin hôsper Hellênes , oude mên ibidas kai ichneumonas , kathaper Aiguptioi , alla pur te kai hudôr hôs philosophoi. For the worship of Anaitis, which was especially established in Armenia, cf. Strabo, 532. For the quaint story of her worship in Skye cf. Boswell's Johnson, v. 218 (B. Hill's edition). For Ardvî Sûra , originally ?the holy water spring?, cf. Yast 5; xxiii. 52 seq.
(2) H. makes a strange mistake in confusing this worship with that of Mithra , the god of heavenly light, ?who foremost in golden array takes hold of the beautiful summits? (Yast 10. 4; xxiii. 123). Mithra , at first only closely connected with the sun, was later [p. 113] identified with him (cf. the frequent inscription ?Deo invicto Soli Mithrae?). His worship became most important in the later developments of the Persian religion; Artaxerxes II is the first to invoke him and Anaitis, along with Orrnazd. His feast was a solemn festival, at which the Persian king was expected to get drunk (Duris, fr. 13, F. H. G. ii. 473). For Mithraism in Roman times, when it was a formidable rival to Christianity, cf. Dill, Roman Society from Nero, pp. 585 seq.; it was the special religion of the legions (cf. R. Kipling's fine poem in Puck of Pook's Hill). H. seems to have been misled by the likeness of the names ?Mylitta? and ? Mithra ?, and perhaps by the fact that they were both heavenly divinities (v. i. for Mylitta).
(3) The passage shows the close connexion of Aphrodite with the Babylonian Mylitta, the Assyrian Ishtar, the Phoenician Astarte; whether there was actual borrowing, or whether independent cults were assimilated, it is impossible to say; probably both were the case (v. i.). Ishtar was the queen of the gods, at once warrior goddess and goddess of generation, the destroyer of life and its renewer. From Assyria her worship spread to Phoenicia (cf. 105. 2 n. for her temple at Ashkelon), and thence to Cyprus (for her temple at Paphos cf. Tac. Hist. ii. 2-3; 105. 3 n.). Her shrine at Cythera was founded by Phoenicians (105. 2 n.), and was the oldest in Greece (cf. her epithet Kuthereia in Od. viii. 288). For the rites at her temple in Babylon cf. c. 199 n.; for impure ritual in Greece (at Corinth only) Strabo, 378, and Athen. 573. She was identified at once with the evening star, ?the star of love,? and with the moon (cf. Milton, P. L. i. 439, ?Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns?); this later identification was probably due to a confusion with Isis and Hathor, who are represented as supporting on their horned heads the solar disk ; these symbols were mistakenly interpreted as the crescent and the full moon. That the Greeks were conscious of the partially foreign origin of Aphrodite is shown by her epithets Kupris (Il. v. 330), Kuprogenês (Hesiod), &c.; for these cf. Od. viii. 362.
There may have been an original native goddess in Greece who was identified with the Oriental goddess; so at Mycenae are found naked female figures with hands on breasts, and in some cases with a dove (cf. Schuchhardt's Schliemann, figs. 180-2), which may well be independent of direct Oriental influence. The Greeks took over from the East her title of Ourania without understanding it: hence they attempted to distinguish Aphrodite O., the goddess of pure love, from A. pandêmos (Paus. ix. 16. 4; cf. Xen. Symp. 8. 9-10 for the supposed contrast in their worships); but this is a later and artificial explanation. (For the evidence cf. Driver, Hastings' Dict., s. v. Ashtoreth, and more fully Farnell, C. G. S. ii. 618 seq.)
The name Mylitta is probably the ?bilit? or ?belit? of the Assyrian inscriptions = ?lady?, i. e. the feminine of Baal or Bel = ?lord?. [p. 114]
Aliat (cf. iii. 8. 3) = Al Ilât, ?the goddess.? What was originally a common noun became a proper name ; so ?Astarte?, properly an epithet signifying fruitfulness (Deut. vii. 13), became the name of a goddess.
