Untitled

26 ARMENIAN MYTHOLOGY
daughter of Aramazd,
a sister of the Persian Mihr and of the
cosmopolitan Nane. As in the Anahit Yashts of the Avesta, so also in Armenia,
"
"
golden is her fairest epithet. She was
often called
"
born
"
in gold or
"
"
the golden mother prob
ably because usually her statue was of solid gold.
In the light of what has just been said we are not surprised
to find that this goddess exhibited two distinct types of woman
hood in Armenia, according to our extant sources. Most of
the early Christian writers, specially Agathangelos, who would
have eagerly seized upon anything derogatory to her good
name, report nothing about her depraved tastes or unchaste
rites.
If not as a bit of subtle sarcasm, then at least as an echo of
the old pagan language, King Tiridates is made to call her
"
the mother of all sobriety," i.e. orderliness, as over against a
lewd and ribald mode of life. 24 The whole expression may also
be taken as meaning
"
the sober, chaste mother." No sugges
tion of impure rites is to be found in Agathangelos or Moses in
connection with her cultus.
On the other hand no less an authority than the geographer
Strabo (63 B.C.-25A.D.) reports that the great sanctuary of
Anahit at Erez (or Eriza), in Akilisene (a district called also
Anahitian 25
owing to the widely spread fame of this temple)
was the centre of an obscene form of worship. Here there
were hierodules of both sexes, and what is more, here daugh
ters of the noble families gave themselves up to prostitu
tion for a considerable time, before they were married. Nor
was this an obstacle to their being afterwards sought in
marriage. 26
Strabo is not alone in representing Anahit in this particularly
sad light.
She was identified with the Ephesian Artemis by
the Armenians themselves. Faustus of Byzantium, writing in
the fifth century, says of the imperfectly Christianized Arme
nians of the preceding century, that they continued
"
in secret