Origin from 62 BCE
Two hundred and sixty eight years after Alexander the Great burned Persepolis and scattered the Avesta in 330 BCE, and about a century before the Parthian king Vologases I ordered its scattered texts collected in the middle of the first century CE, both already recorded here, one of the most physically monumental expressions of Zoroastrian religious ideas from antiquity rose in the mountains of eastern Anatolia. Antiochus I Theos of Commagene, a Hellenistic king who ruled from roughly 69 to 36 BCE and claimed descent from both the Persian Achaemenid and Greek Seleucid royal houses, built a hierothesion, a combined tomb and sanctuary, atop the 2,150 meter summit of Nemrud Dagi. There he flanked colossal seated statues of himself with a syncretic pantheon uniting Greek and Iranian gods: Zeus fused with the Zoroastrian creator Ahura Mazda as Zeus-Oromasdes, Apollo fused with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares. An inscribed nomos, sacred law, running around the terraces set out the perpetual maintenance of the king's own cult. The site's astronomically depicted Lion Horoscope relief is conventionally dated by scholars to around 62 BCE, though the precise year remains debated. Nemrud Dagi stands today as physical testimony that Zoroastrian religious concepts continued shaping royal ideology in the Hellenistic world for centuries after the Achaemenid empire that had once made them a state religion had fallen.
Facts
Dates
StatusEstablished marks Antiochus I of Commagene building his hierothesion atop Nemrud Dagi, with its syncretic Zeus-Oromasdes cult conventionally dated to around 62 BCE, a milestone between Alexander the Great burning Persepolis and scattering the Avesta in 330 BCE, already recorded here, and the Parthian king Vologases I ordering the Avesta's scattered texts collected in the middle of the first century CE, also recorded here. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Apollo directly: "creator Ahura Mazda as Zeus-Oromasdes, Apollo fused with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
This source names Apollo directly: "creator Ahura Mazda as Zeus-Oromasdes, Apollo fused with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
Ares, Deities This source names Ares directly: "Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
Ares, Figures This source names Ares directly: "Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
This source names Helios directly: "fused with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
This source names Hermes directly: "with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
This source names Hermes directly: "with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
This source names Mithra directly: "as Zeus-Oromasdes, Apollo fused with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
This source names Mithras directly: "Apollo fused with Mithra as Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes, and Herakles fused with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
This source names Verethragna directly: "with the Zoroastrian god of victory Verethragna as Artagnes-Herakles-Ares."
Occurred In
Spread Event Of
Adds a milestone in Zoroastrianism's history under Hellenistic rule between Alexander the Great burning Persepolis and scattering the Avesta in 330 BCE and the Parthian king Vologases I ordering the Avesta's scattered texts collected in the middle of the first century CE, both already recorded here: Antiochus I of Commagene building his hierothesion atop Nemrud Dagi, with its syncretic cult of Zeus fused with Ahura Mazda, conventionally dated to around 62 BCE.
Sources
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