Mithras

Tauroctony of Mithras at the British Museum London

Mithras was the nominal object of devotion in a Greco-Roman mystery religion of late antiquity. The cult, which was known as the Mysteries of Mithras and was reserved for male initiates only, developed in the eastern Mediterranean before the 1st century B.C.E. and was practiced throughout the Roman Empire from then until about the 4th century.

Greco-Roman Mithras should not be confused with Mithra or Mitra, which although having similar names and sometimes being thought to be related entities, have their own unique identities.. For these similar names, see *mitra.

Characteristics

The name 'Mithras' nominally derives from the Greek nominative form of Mithra, the Zoroastrian yazata that serves as mediator between Ahura Mazda and the earth, the guarantor of human contracts. Mithras is however a product of Greco-Roman syncretic beliefs, and the name simply reflects the esteem that the Greeks held for the figure of Zoroaster.

Some of Mithras' characteristics appear to originate in Mesopotamia or Anatolia. The religion of those cultures, like the cult surrounding Mithras also, laid an emphasis on astrology and the movements of the astral bodies. An epithet "illustration above right" is attested for Mithras from the 2nd century Dura-Europos. The seal of Enkidu may be related. Neo-Platonists interpreted Mithraic symbols within their own world-schemes.

The mythology surrounding Mithras is not easily reassembled from the enigmatic and complicated iconography. Indeed, the dedicatory inscription on a 2nd-3rd century tauroctony discovered in a mithraeum at Ostia in the 1790s refers to the indeprehensivilis dei, the "incomprehensible god.".

A number of dedications (usually addressed to the invictus, the "unconquerable") have been found in Roman Britain, the Rhine and Danube area and Italy. It appears that the cult was particularly attractive for low-ranking soldiers and slaves, and dedications from higher-ranking soldiers are rare.

Religion and worship

Main articles: Mithraism and Mithraeum

Mithras and the Bull: fresco from the mithraeum at the town of Doura Europos on the Euphrates river.

It is difficult for scholars to reconstruct the daily workings and beliefs of the Mysteries of Mithras, as the rituals were highly secret and limited to initiated men only. Mithras was little more than a name until the massive documentation of Franz Cumont's Texts and Illustrated Monuments Relating to the Mysteries of Mithra was published in 1894-1900, followed by an English translation in 1903. Although Cumont's hypothesis that Mithras was an offshoot of Zoroastrian Mithra has since been established to be untenable, Cumont's legacy was his hitherto unsurpassed collection of raw data on Roman religion.

Members would ascend through seven grades of initiation, each aligned with a symbol, and a god:

Corax: The Raven with Mercury

Nymphus: The Bridegroom, with Venus

Miles: The Soldier, with Mars

Leo: The Lion, with Jupiter

Perses: The Persian, with the Moon

Heliodromus: The Runner of the Sun, or the Messenger with the Sun

Pater: The Father, with Saturn

Archeological evidence suggests that initiations involved three ordeals that the initiate had to endure: heat, cold, and hunger. Since Father was the highest rank it was one frequently mentioned in inscriptions, but becoming a Lion was also seen to be very important and was regarded as a watershed in one's authority and responsibility within the cult. Through their association with Jupiter, Lions were aligned with fire and so it would have been inappropriate for them to have been cleansed at their initiation with water. Instead honey was used; it was also put on their tongue to symbolise their pure and cleansing words.

Tauroctony, Roman, 3rd century (Museo Archaeologico, Palermo)

Worship took place in a mithraeum. Although some of these temples were built specifically for that purpose and then recalled caves, most mithraea were simply rooms inside larger structures originally designed for a different purpose, such as a private home or a bath house.

Other Uses

• "Mithras" was one of the proposed names of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.

• In the Vampire: The Masquerade roleplaying series, "Mithras" is an ancient Ventrue who rules as the Prince of London.

• In the Merlinroute Live Roleplay Campaign, "Mithras" is an Ancestor worshiped in the Lions faction by a group called "The One".

• In the computer game Rome: Total War, "Mithras" is a figure worshipped throughout the Roman Empire.

• "Mithras" is the narrator ("The Prophet") in the computer game Sacrifice.

• Mithras is often cited as the mythic archetype for Jesus Christ.

• A modern-day society of Mithras worshippers is a feature in David Morrell's thriller The covenant of the flame.

• In Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516), Mythras is the god of the island Utopia.

References

• Cumont, Franz (1911). Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism.
• Richard Gordon, "Image and Value in the Graeco-Roman World, studies in Mithraism and religious art", (contains some seminal essays)
• David Ulansey, "The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras"
• Ulansey, David (1991). The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries. Oxford University Press.