The Personalities of Mithra in Archaeology and Literature

摘要

In today's political climate, there does not seem to be much interest for studies that document Iranian contributions to western civilisation. Victor Davis Hanson, an historian of Greece at California State University, Fresno, writing, astonishingly in my view, of the film 300, claims that the digitalised action-adventure preserves the spirit of Thermopylae, although it makes "allowance for popular tastes".1 Unfortunately, this allowance includes a profound demonisation of all Persians, well beyond any perspective of Herodotus. After all, Thermopylae is but one section in Herodotus' long history; there certainly are other sections in which Persians are portrayed more positively.rnProfessor David Bivar's broad study of Mithraism is a small corrective to the dissection of Iran and the West so prevalent in popular culture today. It challenges the conventional wisdom in Mithraic studies that there is little of Iranian culture in the Mithraism of Rome and Greece. I use the word "small" only with regard to the size of audience; many more will, of course, see 300 and more read the works of Hanson, who has had various personal interactions with members of the Bush administration.2 Nonetheless, Bivar's choice of topic is a fitting one for the Yarshater Lecture Series at UCLA, whose objective is to "foster greater mutual cultural enrichment between UCLA and the Iranian community". (P- v)