This page presents recent news and bibliography on the Mithraic Mysteries.

EJMS Site Updates

10-08-2004 - Added FAQ section

10-08-2004 - Updated Notices Section

10-08-2004 - Added Dr. Michael Schütz's article that answers a previous article by Dr. David Ulansey

31-05-2004 - Updated Notices section.

31-05-2004 - Added Dr. R. Gordon's paper to Volume IV (2004)

31-05-2004 - Added Dr. M. Volken's paper to Volume IV (2004)

30-01-2004 - Added Archaeological Notes for Volume III (2003)

05-10-2003: - Corrected Dr. Andreas Hensen publication list.
- Updated Notices section.

25-02-2003: - Added Dr. Ulansey's response to Dr. Schütz' article. (English, Word 2000)
- Updated Notices section.

Upcoming Conferences

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The Mithraeum of Crypta Balbi

This section on the Mithraeum in the Crypta Balbi at Rome presents a set of pictures of the site (courtesy of Dssa Laura Vendittelli) with a short introduction by Dr. Richard Gordon.

News

10-08-2004: The Tienen Acta has already been published: the ISBN is 90-75230-14-1, ISSN 1370 5768; distributor Oxbow Books, Oxford.

10-08-2004: As of 24-06-2004, Dr. Richard Gordon has kindly been informed by Dr. Joaquín Gómez-Pantoja of the University of Alcalá that the inscription was published about a year ago in a newspaper article by I.G. Araújo, "Una joya di piedra, diario *El Progreso di Lugo*, 11-VI-2003, corrected by E.G. Souto, "El ara romana hallada en Pío XII es de la epoca de Caracalla," diario *La Voz de Galicia* 11-VI-2003, on the basis of a reading provided by the excavator, A. Rodríguez Colmenero. It is in fact best to refer to the newly published isue of *Hispania Epigraphica* 9 (2003) p.138f. no. 418. The text reads:

Invic(to) Mithrae
C. Victorius Vic-
torinus (centurio) l(egionis) VII G(eminae)
Antoninianae P(iae) F(elicis)
in honorem sta-
tionis Lucensis
et Victoriorum Secundi et Vic-
toris lib(ertorum) suo-
rum aram po-
suit libente
animo.

To Mithras Invincible, C. Victorius Victorinus, centurion of the VII Legion Gemina Antoniniana p.f., has set up (this) altar gladly in honour of the statio of Lucus Augusti and of Victorius Secundus and Victorius Victor, his freedmen.

This is not the place for a long discussion of this interesting text, but the following points can be briefly made:
1) It can be dated from the legionary epithet Antoniniana to the sole reign of Caracalla (Dec. 212 - 8 April 218).
2) "Invictus Mithras" is not a particularly common title for the god, being found mainly in Rome, Pannonia and Dacia. It seems to have been used as the title of Mithras in the domus Augustana in Rome (V. 511). It is not surprising that it occurs several times in the army (V. 1918, praef. alae), 1781 (actarius leg.), 2314 (military engineer), 1931, AE 1990: 820 (Aur. Aliphus for L. Aurelius Gallus trib. laticlavius of Leg. II Adiutrix in Aquincum, probably his libertus: Gallus became cos. ord. in AD 198, so this must date to the early 180s); also the leading title in a list of divinities dedicated by Q. Axius Aelianus VE, financial procurator in Dacia under Maximinus Thrax ca AD 236-8: AE 1998: 1100). Perhaps more so, however, that it is used by three centurions other than Victorinus (2273, 2286), including the very early votive of C. Sacidius Barbarus (1718, Carnuntum, certainly prior to ca. 120). More specifically, it occurs three times among the very small number of
Spanish votives to the god, once at Emerita (793), on a fragment at Tarraco (V.806, V.'s reading unreliable), and Benifayó nr. Valencia in Tarraconensis (V. 807bis).
3) The identity of the "statio" is uncertain. Alicia Canto ap. HEp 1999: 418 argues that this must be a military statio, but it is quite unclear what Victorinus' freedmen might be doing there. It seems to me more likely that the statio was attached to the customs zone responsible for the mining area to the East of Lucus Augusti, and that Victorinus' freedmen were responsible for levying the tolls. At this period it is not implausible that a centurion should be put in charge of such a post, though it is surprising that the personnel are not imperial slaves/freedmen. This point needs further discussion.

10-08-2004: The publication of the Proceedings of the Tienen conference on small finds in Roman Mithraism (November 2001), reported in an earlier News Bulletin (see below), was marked by a press conference held in Tienen on 8 June 2004. The volume, "Roman Mithraism: the evidence of the small finds. Acta of the International Conference, 7-8 November 2001," edited by Marleen Martens & Guy de Boe (Peeters: Brussels) is to be distributed by Oxbow Books, Park End Place, Oxford OX1 1HN, UK, e-mail: oxbow@oxbowbooks.com; website: www.oxbowbooks.com; tel. +44 (0)1865-241249; fax: .... 794449. The volume contains numerous reports of recent excavations in the North-Western Provinces focussing on the small finds, and a number of more general discussions. One of the highlights is Marleen Martens' account of the late third-century Tienen Mithraeum, soon to be completed by her important study "The ritual deposits of the temple of Mithras at Tienen (Belgium)" in the next issue of the "Journal of Roman Archaeology" 17 (2004), due to appear in November.

31-05-2004: Dr. Ingeborg Huld-Zetsche reports that a new Mithraic relief has turned up in Köln/Cologne, and is shortly to be published.

31-05-2004: Prof. Jaime Alvar reports that a mithraeum has been found at Lucus Augusti in the far west of the Roman province of Tarraconensis, (what later under Diocletian became the province of Gallaecia), now Lugo in Galicia, still celebrated for its remains of the Diocletianic city-walls. An
inscription of the third century AD indicates that the mithraeum was at least partly patronised by the military. The Cantabrian town on the River Min~o that was re-named Lucus Augusti was captured by the elderly C. Antistius Vetus (RE no. 47) during the main Augustan campaign of 26-24 BC, and was evidently of importance as an indigenous sacred site, possibly dedicated to the Lugoves (hence
"Lucus"), traces of whose cult are known from the area. Its position to the west of the great gold-mining area of Asturias and León also made it strategically important. The city was one of the seven capita conventus of Tarraconensis (and therefore regularly visited by the governor for the assizes), and the headquarters of an important collegium of the imperial cult (CIL II 2573). The city's prosperity always rested on its administrative role in what remained a strongly Celtiberian
area, that continued to be organised into "centuriae" (clans). The late-antique cohort in the city was the *coh. III Lucensium* attested in the late third-cent. funerary CIL II. 2584 and in the Notitia Dignitatum, Occid. XLII.29, but the inscription in the mithraeum is by a legionary centurion of the Leg. VII Gemina, the garrison of Legio (León) . The find is to be published by Prof. Antonio Rodriguez Colmenero.

05-10-2003: For some time now, Dr. Ingeborg Huld-Zetsche, at the request of Frau Monika Witteyer of the Rheinland-Pfälzisches Amt für archäologische Denkmalpflege in Mainz, has been piecing together the widely-scattered finds which professional and amateur archaeologists managed to save from the destruction in 1976 of the Ballplatz Mithraeum in Mainz (which is the provenance of the now famous Mainz Schlangengefäß, published by H.-G. Horn, ‘Das Mainzer Mithrasgefäß’, Mainzer Archäologische Zeitschrift 1 (1994), 21-66, without any attempt at recovering the context, and of the two altars now in the Landesmuseum Mainz and published by Peter Herz, Mainzer Zeitschrift 73/4 (1978/9), 277f. nos. 5-6; idem, ‘Permittente Primulo patre’, JMS 2.2 (1978), 184-87 = AE 1979: 425-6).
She has followed up the contemporary reports in the local press and located valuable material relating to the brick-work, internal wall-decoration, coins, lamps, storage-jars of various kinds including amphorae, cooking utensils, bowls and jugs, shallow vesels and beakers for drinking wine, plates, a few bones and oyster-shells, vessels apparently for washing hands and feet, incense-burners, several more Wetterauer vessels, votive figures, a fragmentary altar, and a considerable mass of still smaller finds, such as a bone needle, a bone ink-well and decorative bronze finials. Her provisional results, after seven or eight months’ work, were presented at the Tienen conference. Since then, she has made more discoveries and the project has grown to book-length, though much remains to be done. It is however already certain that this was one of the most important, and probably one of the earliest, mithraea ever found North of the Alps,and we await publication of her results with impatience.

05-10-2003: Forthcoming publication of the proceedings of the Mithraic Small Finds Conference, Tienen, Belgium, 7-8 Nov. 2001. The manuscript is now complete and is due to be published within the next six months:
Marleen Martens & Guy de Boe (eds.), Roman Mithraism: the evidence of the small finds, Archeologie in Vlanderen, Monogr. 5, to be published by Rudolf Habelt, Bonn As a particular bonus, the volume contains a fairly complete bibliography of Mithraic studies between 1984 and 2001. (click for preview)

27-02-2002: Dr. David Ulansey has added a new webpage to his personal site. This page discusses the meaning of the Lion-headed deity:
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/eighthgate.html

Bibliography

Clauss, Manfred. The Roman Cult of Mithras: the god and his mysteries, revised edition, translated by Richard Gordon. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press (in USA, Routledge), 2000. ISBN 0 7486 1230 0 (hb), 0 7486 1396 X (pb). Price: £45/$63 (hb); £17.32/$24.95 (pb). Download summary (English, Word 2000).

Beck, Roger. "Ritual, myth, doctrine, and initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New evidence from a cult vessel", Journal of Mithraic Studies 90 (2000), 145-80. It concerns the representation of two previously unknown Mithraic rituals on a pottery vessel of the early 2nd cent. AD from Mainz.

Jong, A. "A new Syrian Mithraic tauroctony", Bulletin of the Asia Institute N.S. 11 (1997) [2000], 53-63. The relief has previously unknown side-scenes and details (e.g., torchbearers carry spears as well). Download summary of Dr. Richard Gordon (English, Zipped Word 2000).

Beck, Roger. "The astronomical design of Karakush, a royal burial site in ancient Commagene: an hypothesis." Culture and Cosmos 3, no. 1 (1999), 10-34. Abstract: The explicit astronomical content of the great monument of Antiochus I of Commagene on the summit of Nemrud Dagh warrants the search for astronomical significance in the design of other monuments of this ancient Near Eastern kingdom of the first century BCE. The article advances the hypothesis that the nearby monument of Karakush, built by Antiochus' son, Mithradates II, as a burial site for the royal women, was astronomically oriented, its three sets of peripheral columns being so positioned that during June Leo would be observed setting behind the lion columns after sunset, Aquila culminating over the eagle columns around midnight, and Taurus rising behind the bull columns before dawn. It is suggested, furthermore, that the astronomical occasion for the foundation of this second monument was a recurrence of significant planetary conjunctions in Leo. The 'lion horoscope' of Nemrud Dagh records the conjunctions of 62 BCE; the Karakush site may be related to the conjunctions of 27-26 BCE.

Mastrocinque, A. "Studi sul Mitraismo (il Mitraismo e la Magia)". Pp. x + 168, 21 figs. Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider, 1998. Paper. Lit. 270,000. ISBN: 88 7689 000 00. Download summary of Dr. Richard Gordon (English, Word 2000).

Beck, Roger. "Qui mortalitatis causa convenerunt: the meeting of the Virunum Mithraists on June 26, A.D. 184." Phoenix 52, nos 3-4 (1998), 335-44. Abstract: The meeting mortalitatis causa, recorded in the mithraeum's recently discovered album, was held within a day of the summer solstice (nominally June 25). Mithraic doctrine held that souls entered and left the world through the solstices. Arguably, this commemoration of deceased colleagues (marked as such on the album) was timed so as to align, through liturgy, their individual mortalities with the "mortality" taught by the cult as the complement of immortality.