The Roman imperial court continued its official practice of Mithraism for 300 years. All the emperors were most likely adherents of the cult, but we learn of particulars only when they surface as anecdotal events. Thus Commodus (180–192) commissioned a bust of himself with a Persian cap in the likeness of Mithras,8 and we are told that he performed the Mithraic initiation with an actual human sacrifice, whereas the rite was intended only to intensely intimidate the candidate.9 Pliny was aware of this requirement of the initiation in asserting that Nero wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same in order to become a full Magus. Septimius Severus (193–211) and his Syrian empress Julia Domna, who also promoted the divinity of Apollonius of Tyana (a Cappadocian Greek contemporary of Christ) added a Mithraeum to the house of Trajan (98–117). The famous Roman baths of their son Caracalla (211–217) included a subterranean Mithraeum. Each in the succession of caesars who were created by the support of their armies in the third century was bound to support the Mithraic religion of their soldiers.
Valerian (253–260) mercilessly purged the empire of Christians and declared December 25 the festival of the Unconquered Sun, as the days begin perceptibly to lengthen after the winter solstice. The Christians would eventually adopt this date for the birth of their god. Valerian’s son and coregent Gallienus had himself depicted as that Sol Invictus (Invincible Sun) on his coinage. Diocletian (284–305) after his retirement dedicated a great altar to Mithras at the Carnutum Mithraeum on the Danube in the year 307, and he placed the entire empire under the god’s divine protectorate. Diocletian court was commonly seen as an imitation of the Sassanid dynasty that had replaced the Parthians and was seen as the second Persian Empire (226–651). Mithraic clergy in his court were suspected of instigating his persecution of the Christians in 303 under his son-in-law Galerius Maximianus.
Julian the Apostate (361–363), in his attempt to reverse the Conversion to Christianity and revive the old pagan religions, was himself initiated by the philosopher Maximus of Ephesus, perhaps also with a human sacrifice (at least according to his detractors.) He had a Mithraeum erected in his palace in Constantinople. Like Nero, he saw himself as the incarnation of the god Mithras. Ever since childhood, he had cherished a secret devotion to the god Helios as his spiritual father. He died during his expedition against the Persians, apparently desiring to conquer the land that had given him his religion, assured that his tutelary deity would grant him victory.
In 361, adherents of the briefly restored pagan religions lynched George the Arian, bishop of Alexandria (later to become Saint George) when he attempted to build a Christian church above one of their underground sanctuaries. According to the legend, the Mithracists tied him to a camel, tore him to pieces, and then burnt him with the beast.
An adytum of vast depth was discovered which unveiled the nature of their heathenish rites: for there were found there skulls of many persons of all ages, who were said to have been immolated for the purpose of divination by the inspection of entrails, when the pagans performed these and such magic arts whereby they enchanted the souls of men.
—Socrates Scolasticus-Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 3.210
By 312 the conversion of Constantine, who as a soldier and a worshiper of the Sun was likely a Mithraic initiate, had dealt the cult a serious blow. The vision that precipitated his conversion indicated the superiority of Christ, for he saw a cross shining above his former god, the Sun. However, the interpretation of his imperial standard is ambiguous and can easily be seen as Mithraic, and he styled himself as an avatar of Mithras. He did, however, institute a policy of religious tolerance, which set the groundwork for the freedom usurped in the cause of radical intolerance.11
He said that about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS.
—Eusebius, Conversion of Constantine, 28
Subsequently, the dominating Christians attempted to eradicate the religion with all the fervor of persecution that they themselves had recently suffered, desecrating the sanctuaries and even murdering Mithraic priests. In the Saarburg Mithraeum the skeleton of a man was found lying face downward with his wrists bound with an iron chain behind his back, probably a priest murdered and ritually cursed. His burial in the sanctuary was meant to desecrate it for all eternity.
Mithraeum Banqueting Chamber
The rectangular or oblong chambers, called Mithraea, typically measured about twenty-five by seventy feet and were divided by a broad aisle on either side of which was a wide raised stone platform, which was not so much for sitting but to be spread with pallets for reclining while the members witnessed the various pageantries enacted in the central space. These rituals prepared them for the ascending grades of initiation, and the Mithraea was the “set and setting” for the Mystery. As with the original Christian Eucharist of the early agape halls,12 the Mithraea were not banquet rooms and the Mithraic sacrament was not ordinary food, but, as the Elder Pliny called it, magical, i.e., entheogenic.
The initiate became deified (entheoi) in the Eleusinian Mysteries by partaking in a meal which represented the body of the god. In the mysteries of Attis, a meal of bread and liquid, representing the body of the god, enabled the initiate to participate in his passion and resurrection…. Such ideas were pervasive in the pagan world.
—Hyam MacCoby, Paul and Hellenism.13
Although other elements of Mithraic ritual may have varied over the long history of the religion in its different locales, the sacramental meal was always essential and the design of the Mithraea invariably was intended to accommodate it.
The Mithraea were kept intentionally small14 and when the membership exceeded their modest capacity, rather than enlarge the chamber, additional halls were often constructed in the near vicinity. This tradition of maintaining small communities for the ritual persists among the Kurds today in their version of the Mithraic banquet, which they celebrate by drinking an ecstasy-inducing wine on rooftops.
Although the slaughtered bull was a mythological rep resentation of a Eucharist meal, it is inconceivable that such a menacing and dangerous creature could be butchered in so confined a space. The flood of blood has made the chamber entirely intolerable, especially since there were no provisions for draining it or cleansing the chamber.
Mithraic Eucharist. Bas-relief fragment, Konjica, Bosnia, Muzej grada, Sarajevo. The two initiates of the highest grade recline in the center, with members of the five other orders—Raven, Persian, and Lion on the left, and Soldier and Bride on the right. A tripod with four circular loaves of bread marked with a cross, representing the four quarters of the universe, is in front of the banquet table, draped with a bull hide. The Persian (Perses) presents the drinking horn, whose intoxicating potion conferred immortality. Limestone, 37x27 cm. Museo Civito Archeologico Bologna.
In fact, the actual slaughter of a bull upon a grating above an initiate who would be washed in its blood was a rite in the religion of Attis and Cybele, and it sensibly took place outside. The Vatican is built above the remains of such a site. And the bull sacrifice occurs today in the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha), when the streets literally run with torrents of blood. The mystical symbolism of this bull slaughter persists in the Spanish tradition of the bullfight, whose inner significance inspired Picasso with his series of depictions of the Minotaur.
Banqueting chamber, reconstruction, Ostia Mithraeum.
Nor do the subterranean Mithraea, even with their vestibules, provide facilities for the roasting of the animal’s flesh, which certainly could not take place without suffocation in an enclosed and cramped subterranean chamber. The slaughter and cooking could, of course, have taken place aboveground outside, but perhaps most significant, a slaughtered bull would provide food