Theophoric names as a matter of faith: the case of Mithras

Israel Campos Mndez, Ph.D.

University of Las Palmas of Gran Canaria, Spain

The use of theophoric names, embedding the name of a god in the personal name of
individuals, is well-documented since ancient times in all Near East civilizations.
However, the religious intention behind this tradition could also provide interesting
information about everyday religious practices that are seldom taken into account. There
are two possible explanations regarding the religious meaning of the usage of
theophoric names: either, it represents an act of religious devotion by the individuals
progenitors or it is a personal option of the person, who chooses this name in a certain
moment of his adult life. The premeditation in the election of this sort of names could
be a relevant aspect that we cannot always disdain in this action, in part by the difficulty
of obtaining complete information about the name-choice procedure in each case.
Therefore the literature has frequently appealed to the "literal" meaning of the names, in
order to suggest the reason of the election. Among the theophoric names of the ancient
Persian area that we are going to study, there exist many references to the protection,
the strength, the divine gift given by the divinity that appears in the name; nevertheless,
it could be a mistake to attribute a correspondence between meaning and intention. It is
very frequent in the compilation of mithraphoric names to find the presence of names
ending in -dates (gift); -pata (protection); -tauman (forces). This line of research has
been favored by many of the scholars who had adopted theoretical positions closer to
the philology. However, we must clarify that in this study we want to focus on the
aspects of religious-historical character derived of the presence of these mithraphoric
names, leaving aside the philological implications present in their composition. This
decision is justified by the fact that after a time many of these names have turned into
stereotyped formulae, with only a remote relation (if any) with its original meaning.
This idea is supported by the conclusion of R. Schmitt (1991, 128) about this subject:
the religious value of theophorical names can be only granted to the first individuals
who carried them; afterwards, the successive bearers of such names can be affected not
only for some religious feeling, but for the tradition, the customs or many others
motives. Therefore, there remain some questions around the presence of these names
that cannot find an easy response: up to what point can we affirm that existed a relation
between the persons who were carrying a theophoric name and the worship of this god?
What links can be established between the devout references that are present in the own
name and his carrier? In what measure does the election of a theophoric name reflect the
devotion of the individual or of his parents who have chosen it?

One of the aspects that draw the attention in relation with the theophoric names of
Mithra is the verification of the wide variety of channels in which they have left track.
In this respect, we find three principal sources wherefrom extracting the evidence of
these names: the administrative tablets found in Persepolis; the mentions written by the
classic authors who devoted themselves to report some events of the Persian history (for
example the Greek-Roman contacts with Ancient Persia); and the testimonies provided
by the inscriptions and the coins found in different regions of the Achaemenid Empire.

Two points are particularly relevant in this study about the presence of the god Mithra
in the conformation of personal names. First, the evidence of an exclusive repertoire of
names of masculine genre. We do not ignore all the methodological preventions that
have to be applied at the study of the information provided both by epigraphic and
III International Online Conference on the Study of Religions, "Religion
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written sources in relation with to feminine protagonists, especially in relation with the
consideration of the genres. We cannot forget that when the classic sources transmit the
events in relation with the Achaemenid Empire, they give an exclusive protagonist role
to the men as the actor in political matters, the administration, the religion and the war.
Public inscriptions are witness of the acts not only of a minority of the population, but
also only of the masculine sector of these groups. This lack of information about female
mithraphoric names should be interpreted within these circumstances about the sources.
Nevertheless, this absence is also better understood if we look in detail to some aspects
of Mithra's worship based in the avestic texts: since pre-Zoroastrians times, it is possible
to verify the particular relation that this god has had with the men. Therefore, if the
devout practices directed to this divinity are led by them, it is logical to assume that the
desire to choose a mithraic theophoric name arises from the genre that is linked in a
particular way with him. Secondly, there also issues related to the social extraction of
the prominent figures that carried the above mentioned names. The variety reflected by
the sources is really significant, since together with the geographical dispersion, we can
find a wide range of socio-political sectors. Stand out in number the mentions of those
individuals who come from the top strata of the Persian aristocracy. In this respect,
there exist links with the Achaemenid royal family (Mithraya, grandson of Darius II:
Xen. Hell. I.1.8), with the government of the satrapies (Mithrapates, satrap of Phrygian:
Her. III.126; Siamithras, satrap in Bactriana: Plut. Alex. 58) and with the control of the
Persian troops in the successive battles that mark the history of the Empire (Mithraustes
and Mithrobarzanes, personal assistants of Darius III against Alexander: Diod. Sic. XV,
91; Arr. Anab. I, 12.8; Q. Curt. III, 10.11). In addition, there are frequent references to
individuals of different degree, civil servants who were playing different functions
inside the administrative device of the Empire: the treasurer of Cyrus (Mithradates, Esd.
1.8) and to the treasurer of Aracosia in times of Xerxes (Datamithra, Bow. 1); magicians
(Mithrasar, Cow. 55, 58), eunuches (Mithrafernes, Nic. Dam. Fr. 10) or officials of the
Persian army (Mithrapata: ARTP 1,6; Mithrayazna, Cow. 56). Below this group, we had
to place the rest of mentions, in which one refers to individuals who seem to play some
type of economic labour without a direct links with the device of the state. In
Persepolis's tablets there appears a Mithranka (PF 43, 141) assessor entrusted to guard
the grain, Mithrabada (PF 333) rancher who contributes a sheep or Mithraparzana (PF
1954) entrusted to transport a quantity of wine. Also there is the shepherd who mentions
Herodotus (I, 110) that took care of Cyrus when he was a child or a Mithradates, slave
in Sardis. Across this summary we can obtain a clear idea of the wide reception that we
can link to Mithra's worship, or, at least, to the diffusion that the mithraphoric names
could have among the Iranian society of the Achaemenid period. The temporary
continuity, the wide geographical dispersion and the presence in the opposite poles of
the social studding allow us to suppose that the popularity of the above mentioned god
did not seem turn affected in a significant way, so at least in the moment in which the
above mentioned god could be paragraph of the official spheres of the power.

Through the ascertainment of these theophoric names, we could have verified how
abundant was the presence and variety of the appellative ones that were referring to the
god Mithra during the whole Achaemenid empire; though, from this information it is
not possible to secure the level and depth of the worship that could have this divinity at
this moment. Nevertheless, only his presence already supposes an important testimony
to reject the different interpretations that have tried to overvalue the supposed
monotheism of the Achaemenid period. But in addition, these mithraphoric references
can be put in relation by the information appeared in the royal inscriptions of Artaxerxes
II and Artaxerxes III, who at the end of c. V B.C. and beginning of the IVth B.C., they
do express reference to Mithra as protective divinity of the monarchy. In this context,
we consider that the use of mithraphoric names in the area of the Persian aristocracy, it
should have exercised a considerable role with a view to Mithra's official rehabilitation,
since with his presence in the personal names, we have verified, as a matter of fact, that
this god was never absent of the collective ideology of the Persian people during the
Achaemenid period.


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