Mithraism had reached Rome from Persia in the mid-first century BC, one of several exotic eastern cults that rapidly gained popularity as Rome’s reach extended further across the Mediterranean world. Like Christianity, Mithraism offered salvation through rebirth, a fundamentally different religious concept from paganism, as well as a communal symbolic meal in a congregational setting within the temple, rather than outside it.
In the Persian legend, Mithras was an associate of the spirit of good, Ahuramazda, and an enemy of the spirit of evil, Ahriman. In this role he was regarded as a powerful force for truth and light, and as a saviour from death. By Roman times Mithras had evolved into the central figure of a mystery cult, characterized by secret ceremonies and initiations. Crucially, Mithraism was an exclusive cult open only to men, making it popular with soldiers and and affluent commercial men, and those to whom its essentially Masonic aspects appealed. Various inscriptions and altars show that Mithras was closely associated with the Sun God, along with other deities like Mercury and Bacchus.
In Roman Mithraism, Mithras fights a bull, created at the beginning of the world, in a cave. He kills the bull with a knife, thus releasing the blood containing the essential life force. Two associates, Cautes and Cautopates, stand by holding torches. The mithraeum, based on the basilican architectural form with a nave and aisles, included a tauroctony, a relief or painting depicting the killing of the sacred bull, at the far end, and was intended to recreate the cavelike environment in which Mithras fought the bull. The faithful took part in a celebratory meal that included wine. Painted inscriptions from a subterranean mithraeum found in Rome seem to record lines from hymns that formed part of
The temple of Mithras, just outside the fort at Brocolitia on Hadrian’s Wall. The mithraeum was built in the second century, but went through several phases of alterations to reach this, its final fourth-century form.
Several mithraea have been found in Britain. All except the London mithraeum have been found near forts (Rudchester, Carrawburgh, Housesteads and Caernarvon), while other finds of Mithraic sculpture make it certain that there were more at other forts and fortresses. Mithraea were usually small buildings and their congregations were clearly never large, though at 18 m (59 ft) long, London’s is one of the bigger provincial examples, and finds from here show that its members could afford to commission works of art of the highest quality.
Joining the cult of Mithras was a complex procedure, involving an opening ceremony that resembled baptism. Thereafter it seems to have involved a sequence of grades: raven, bridegroom, soldier, lion, Perseus, Sun-runner and
Father. These are mentioned in a letter written by St Jerome. 39 Passing through each of these stages involved tests of endurance in some form. The Carrawburgh mithraeum [240] seems to have had an ordeal pit in which, presumably, would-be worshippers were sealed for an appropriate period of time. At the climax of initiation, a crown was placed on the head of the disciple, and subsequently
Discarded, whereupon the initiate would announce that ‘Mithras is my crown’.40
The mithraeum at Carrawburgh is the best known. It was constructed in the early third century, but subsequently went through a series of modifications including significant enlargement, and was still in use at the beginning of the fourth century. But before long the temple had been deliberately desecrated and the tauroctony smashed. In London, steps were taken to bury some of the temple sculptures before they too were destroyed, thereby ensuring their survival to the present day [241]. An inscription found in the building is dated to 307-8, showing that destruction took place after this date. In the cases of both
Carrawburgh and London, Christian opposition is the most likely explanation.41 The Mithraic ritual really had no prospect of surviving in the fourth century, not least because the kind of men who had once favoured Mithraism now occupied positions of authority in the Christianized late Roman state. Paganism tended to flourish in Britain’s remoter rural areas, never the preserve of Mithraism.
Marble relief found near the London mithraeum, depicting Mithras killing the sacred bull. It was commissioned for Ulpianus Silvanus, a veteran of II Augusta. (Museum of London).
World History
