Historical conditions of the formation and origin of the Roman cult of the god Mithra

The subject of this study is the historical circumstances of the emergence of the cult of the god Mithras during the Roman Empire. A considerable number of scholarly works have been devoted to the study of the cult of Mithras, yet the question of the cult's origins and the historical circumstances of its formation remain definitively unresolved and have generated numerous debates in modern classical studies. This article examines the earliest stage of the cult's emergence during the Indo-European period. Based on an analysis of epigraphic and archaeological data, the author examines various aspects of the scholarly problem of the origin of the cult of the god Mithras and the routes of its penetration into the Roman Empire. Particular attention is given to the controversial issues of the origins of the cult of Mithras in its early stages. The scientific novelty of this study lies in its raising the question of the formation of the cult of the deity Mithras during the era of the Indo-European community, and the fact that Mithraism quite likely penetrated Rome from the Bosporan Kingdom, as it appeared in the Bosporus much earlier than in Rome. To analyze the material, the author used comparative historical, historical genetic, and typological methods. Terminological and lexical analysis of historical sources, along with traditional historiographical research methods, were also used: interdisciplinary analysis, periodization, retrospective and prospective analysis, and problem-chronological analysis. The article's main conclusion is that the cult of Mithra originated during the Indo-European era (5th-3rd millennia BC) and evolved during the Indo-Iranian period. It then penetrated the Roman Empire via the Bosporan Kingdom, becoming one of the main religions of antiquity. The author concludes that one of the routes by which Mithraism entered Rome was through the Bosporan Kingdom. The author offers her interpretation of the accumulated experience in modern Russian and foreign historical discourse in understanding the historiographic and specific historical components of studying the phenomenon of Mithraism and the history of its origins.