ANĀHITĀ. Along with Mithra and Ahura Mazdā, Anāhitā is one of the major divinities of ancient Iran. Her cult grew from the Achaemenid to the Parthian period and extended beyond Iran during the rule of the Sasanids. In Armenia and in Asia Minor it flourished near Persian communities and was spread through the syncretic and eclectic activities of the Magi. As the Iranian great goddess, Anāhitā has multivalent characteristics: she is the divinity of royalty, of war, and of fertility, with which she is especially associated (Dumézil, 1947).

As Herodotos testifies, Anāhitā was of foreign origin, Assyrian and Arab. This is confirmed by the fact that her cult was not aniconic: according to Berossus, Artaxerxes II (404–359 BCE) proclaimed the cult of the goddess throughout the empire, erecting statues of her. The Mesopotamian Ishtar, the divinity of the planet...