The mythical theme of the exposed and persecuted hero is found among many peoples. For our purpose, the following motifs are important: (a) the ordeals undergone by Cyrus, beginning with his exposure, are equivalent to an initiation of the military type; (b) symbolically, the future king is—or becomes—the son of the god Mithra (Mithradates, his adoptive father’s name, means “gift of Mithra”); (c) after his victory over the king of the Medes, Cyrus founds an empire and a new dynasty; (d) this is as much as to say that he created a new world and inaugurated a new era—in other words, he
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