Mithraea were found all over the Roman Empire. Small, compact underground structures, they were designed to accommodate only a few worshippers. Their designs closely represented the beliefs and mythology of the cult of Mithras.
Locations of Mithraea
Traces of the cult of Mithras have been found in every part of the Roman Empire. Particular points of concentration were along the empire’s frontiers and in cities important to trade. Fifteen Mithraea have been uncovered in the port town of Ostia and there are thirty-five known locations in Rome. In addition, many temples to Mithras have been found on military frontiers, such as along the Rhine and Danube in Germany and Hadrian’s Wall in Britain.
What was a Mithraeum?
Each Mithraeum was designed to represent the cave of Mithras. They were windowless, purpose-built underground chambers, often beneath other structures such as temples or bathhouses. Natural caves were sometimes used, as in the case of the Mithraeum found at Jajce in Bosnia.
The sheer numbers of Mithraea have been used to build a case for Mithraism as a cult to rival Christianity. This is debatable. The all-male membership of the cult made it exclusive rather than inclusive and very few of the small, compact Mithraea could accommodate more than a hundred people. Furthermore, although numerous Mithraea have been discovered, not all of them were in use simultaneously, making the number of active worshippers in any given period relatively few.
The Layout of a Mithraeum
The design of each Mithraeum was intended to represent a microcosm of the universe, incorporating the mythology of Mithras with Greek Neo-Platonist philosophy.
Access to the temples was down stairs, then through a series of passageways leading to the main chamber. These passageways were a key part of cult initiation ceremonies rather than a straightforward means of access.
Each main chamber was of roughly the same design and had various features in common:
· A central aisle flanked on each side by a platform. This was where the cult participants would recline during ceremonies and feasts.
· At one end of the aisle was an apse containing a cult relief or fresco depicting a scene from the mythology of Mithras. Often the relief was reversible, showing Mithras’s sacrifice of the bull on one side and on the other the celebratory feast of Mithras and the sun god.
· In addition to the central relief, temples of Mithras were decorated with frescos, reliefs and statues representing key figures from the cult’s myths. The planets of the solar system were also a feature. They represented Neo-Platonist ideas of the ascent of the soul, a concept that became a crucial part of cult philosophy.
Resources
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Price, Simon and Kearns, Emily (eds) 2003. The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth & Religion. Oxford University Press.
