© G. AlbertiniIn this reconstruction of the "Mithraeum of Colored Marbles" the spelaeum, the most important room in the mithraeum, is shown on the bottom level.
Artifacts and inscriptions found in the mithraeum suggest that the worshippers venerated both Mithras, a popular god in the Roman Empire, and other gods.
The mithraeum's "spelaeum," its most important room, has a stone marble floor decorated with a dazzling array of colors. Also in this room, archaeologists found a bench, a ritual well and a flower bed for some sort of sacred plant, wrote the research team leader Max Victor David, a professor of history and cultures at the University of Bologna in Italy, in a paper published in the journal Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae.
The mithraeum would have seen plenty of rituals in its heyday, including banquets, initiation ceremonies and animal sacrifices, David told Live Science. People who took part in the rituals "were perhaps in a state of altered consciousness," David said. In the ancient world altered consciousness was often achieved through the use of psychotropic plants.
© D. AbateThis laser scanning shows the "spelaeum,"the most important room in the Mithraeum of Colored Marbles has a marble floor decorated in a variety of colors. A ritual well can also be seen in the room.
Persians were the first to worship Mithras, also known as Mithra, who is associated with the light and sun. His cult spread to the Roman Empire and became widely popular.
According to legend, Mithras was an excellent archer who often traveled with his torchbearers, Cautes and Cautopates. Art found in one of the mithraeum's rooms alludes to this, with paintings depicting tridents and arrows. These images probably have "a particular meaning in the Mithraic theology," wrote David, noting that the trident (with three prongs) could be a reference to Mithras and his two torchbearers, while the arrows may represent Mithras' skill with archery.
The people who visited the mithraeum in ancient Rome may have also worshipped Kronos, a Greek god associated with the harvest and time itself. For instance, one inscription found in the mithraeum says, "to the unconquered god Mithras and to the great god Kronos."
The Egyptian goddess Isis may also have been venerated in this mithraeum, as researchers found an Egyptian ivory handle, likely used as a ritual instrument, that "seems to serve as a bridge between the followers of Mithras and those of Isis," David wrote in the journal article.
Changing times
Archaeologists found that much of the structure used to be a "caupona," a tavern or restaurant, before it was fully converted to a mithraeum.
The building's time as a mithraeum appears to have been short. By the early fifth century, Christianity had spread widely in Ostia, and Roman authorities were becoming less tolerant of the worship of Mithras and other gods. At some point in the fifth century, the mithraeum's ritual well was shut down and the mithraeum closed its doors.
The name "Mithraeum of Colored Marbles" is a name that modern day archaeologists gave to the structure.
Reader Comments
PS Happy Christmas everyone
prof John G. Jackson provided some details on them when he was describing all gods as Ethiopians.
His words were 'Ethiopic origin".
Shalom
Danke gleichfalls
B.C. you remember talking about Mithra? Funny... i recall it being xmas time too, 2017?
Doesn't it let you down sometimes? Like they're making it all up.
How many would you have to gather where the odds would be 75%? 95%?
R.C.
RC
"Some 1,600 years ago, ancient Romans..."
No. A very small number of Romans over several centuries in late antiquity practiced a form of Mithraism, a mystery (ceremonial, initiatory, theurgical) cult whose practice was brought in from Persia by Roman military men. It did not "spread" to Roman society. It did not become "widely popular" in Rome. It wasn't normally practiced or even known about among the various strata of Roman society โ educated, uneducated, what have you.
It was practiced by some Romans, a scant few, and it endured for centuries. Like other pagan practices and cults, domestic or imported, there is no evidence of it suffering official or unofficial proscription or persecution under the (Christian) Roman state.
Its adherents were mostly military men of some stature, the military being a segment of the society where one could certainly advance socially (by merit, it should be noted, Constantine himself was born a Balkan semi-nobody). Hence, in Mithraic practice โ like in freemasonry โ the pleb and patrician could and did practice as equals, within a mystic hierarchy, while maintaining the outward social / military order and rank. And it was almost exclusively through military service that one might expect to travel widely and come into contact with Parthian (Persian) priests of Mithra.
"Artifacts and inscriptions found in the mithraeum suggest that the worshippers venerated both Mithras, a popular god in the Roman Empire, and other gods."
Again, Mithras was certainly not a popular god.
And this sentence is in bold type! Why? It's called polytheism, and that "bombshell" concerning Romans dropped long, long ago.
The "Egyptian goddess Isis" was Egyptian only prior to Alexander. What followed his conquests and his premature death is known as the Hellenistic Period, a very broad, sweeping and enduring social, religious and cultural nexus, of Roman, Greek and Egyptian components. There were syncretic religious and philosophical formations, for example the thoroughly Romanized cult of Isis. (The apparently controversial instrument the article mentions is likely a sistrum, which the Roman Isis was often depicted holding.)
As for the inscription bearing the names of both Mithras and Kronos, this is standard practice, and says nothing new or unknown about the worship ("invocation" is the better term) of these or any other gods. Pagan Romans, again, by definition, were polytheistic, and one invokes gods appropriate to the place, the occasion, the intent and the practice.
The author and his quoted source (and the average commenter) seem blissfully ignorant of near-eastern polytheistic cultures, of esoteric practices, of theurgy, symbol, myth, ritual, etc. Our author โ possibly a teenager โ uses the word "legend" when referring to some mythologem or other. No crime in that, but it's the tell: he glaringly confuses some hoped-for popularity with religious or historical significance.
I have to say ditto on the stupidity of those who gloat โ as if a conclusive verdict has been reached โ over a virgin birth, a eucharistic wafer, a cross symbol, a trinity, or any other feature of Christian tradition which echoes a pre-Christian provenance. A mystery (a sacrament) is a mystery.
There is no closure in mysticism.
Mithra (Avestan: ๐ฌจ๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฌญ๐ฌโ Miฮธra, Old Persian: ๐ท๐ฐ๐ผ Miรงa) is the Zoroastrian Divinity (yazata) of Covenant, Light, and Oath. In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-seeing protector of Truth, and the guardian of cattle, the harvest, and of the Waters.
The Romans attributed their Mithraic mysteries (the mystery religion known as Mithraism) to "Persian" (i.e. Zoroastrian) sources relating to Mithra.
- Wikipedia