El dios Mithra en los nombres personales durante la dinastía persa aqueménida

Abstract

The use of divinities to construct personal names is a practice recorded since the beginnings of history. Its verification has been considered to be a sign of expression of the direct nature of the devotion to certain divinities at particular moments and in particular places. Nevertheless, certain provisos should be borne in mind regarding the reliability of the information offered by theophoric names for reconstructing the worship or implantation of a certain divinity. In this paper, we attest to the abundance of mithraphoric names recorded in various written sources from the Achaemenid period, and attempt to relate them to the place taht the worship of Mithra might have occupied in Persia in a period in which this divinity was traditionally believed to have been excluded from the official pantheon.