his mother, his sons, the sister whom he had married; to prevent his harem from falling to his enemies he murdered all his concubines, and his most faithful followers were never safe. For eighteen years he showed himself no unworthy adversary of Sulla, Lucullus and Pompey.
See T. Reinach, Mithridate Eupator (1890; Ger. trans. by A. Goetz, 1895, with the author’s corrections and additions); also E. Meyer, Geschichte des Königreichs Pontos (1879).
MITHRAS, a Persian god of light, whose worship, the latest one of importance to be brought from the Orient to Rome, spread throughout the empire and became the greatest antagonist of Christianity.
I. History and Distribution.—The cult goes back to a period before the separation of the Persians from the Hindus, as is shown by references in the literatures of both stocks, the Avesta and the Vedas. Though but faintly pictured in the Vedic hymns, he is there invoked with Ormazd, or Ahuramazda, the god of the sky, and is clearly a divinity of light, the protector of truth and the enemy of error and falsehood. In the Avesta, after the separation of the Iranian stock from the Hindu and the rise of Zoroastrianism, which elevated Ormazd to the summit of the Persian theological system, his rôle was more distinct, though less important; between Ormazd, who reigned in eternal brightness, and Ahriman, whose realm was eternal darkness, he occupied an intermediate position as the greatest of the yazatas, beings created by Ormazd to aid in the destruction of evil and the administration of the world. He was thus a deity of the realms of air and light, and, by transfer to the moral realm, the god of truth and loyalty. Because light is accompanied by heat, he was the god of vegetation and increase; he sent prosperity to the good, and annihilated the bad; he was the god of armies and the champion of heroes; as the enemy of darkness and of all evil spirits, he protected souls, accompanying them on the way to paradise, and was thus a redeemer. Animals and birds were sacrificed and libations poured to him, and prayers were addressed to him by devotees who had purified themselves by ablution and repeated flagellation. As a god who gave victory, he was prominent in the official cult of Persia, the seventh month and the sixteenth day of other months being sacred to him. His worship spread with the empire of the Persians throughout Asia Minor, and Babylon was an important centre. Its popularity remained unimpaired after the fall of Persia, and it was during the ferment following the conquests of Alexander that the characteristics which mark it during the Roman period were firmly fixed. Mithraism was at full maturity on its arrival at Rome, the only modifications it ever suffered having been experienced during its younger days in Asia.
Modified though never essentially changed, (1) by contact with the star-worship of the Chaldaeans, who identified Mithras with Shamash, god of the sun, (2) by the indigenous Armenian religion and other local Asiatic faiths and (3) by the Greeks of Asia Minor, who identified Mithras with Helios, and contributed to the success of his cult by equipping it for the first time with artistic representations (the famous Mithras relief originated in the Pergamene school towards the 2nd century B.C.), Mithraism was first transmitted to the Roman world during the 1st century B.C. by the Cilician pirates captured by Pompey. It attained no importance, however, for nearly two centuries. The lateness of its arrival in the West was due to the fact that its centres of influence were not in immediate contact with Greek and Roman civilization. It never became popular in Greek lands, and was regarded by Hellenized nations as a barbarous worship. It was at rivalry with the Egyptian religion. As late as the time of Augustus it was but little known in Roman territory, and gained a firm foothold in Italy only gradually, as a result of the intercourse between Rome and Asia consequent upon the erection of the Eastern provinces and the submission and colonization of Mesopotamia. It seems at first to have had relations with the cult of the Great Mother of the Gods at Rome, whose influence served to protect it and facilitate its growth. The cult of Mithras began to attract attention at Rome about the end of the 1st century A.D. Statius (c. A.D. 80) mentions the typical Mithraic relief in his Thebaid (i. 719, 720); from Plutarch’s (A.D. 46–125) Vita Pompei (24) it is apparent that the worship was well known; and the first Roman reliefs show the characteristics of about the same time.
Towards the close of the 2nd century the cult had begun to spread rapidly through the army, the mercantile class, slaves and actual propagandists, all of which classes were largely composed of Asiatics. It throve especially among military posts, and in the track of trade, where its monuments have been discovered in greatest abundance. The German frontiers afford most evidence of its prosperity. Rome itself was a favourite seat of the religion. From the end of the 2nd century the emperors encouraged Mithraism, because of the support which it afforded to the divine right of monarchs. The Persian belief that the legitimate sovereign reigned by the grace of Ormazd, whose favour was made manifest by the sending of the Hvarenō, a kind of celestial aureole of fire, resulted in the doctrine that the sun was the giver of the Hvarenō. Mithras, identified with Sol Invictus at Rome, thus became the giver of authority and victory to the imperial house. From the time of Commodus, who participated in its mysteries, its supporters were to be found in all classes. Its importance at Rome may be judged from the abundance of monumental remains—more than 75 pieces of sculpture, 100 inscriptions, and ruins of temples and chapels in all parts of the city and suburbs.
Finally, philosophy as well as politics contributed to the success of Mithraism, for the outcome of the attempt to recognize in the Graeco-Roman gods only forces of nature was to make the Sun the most important of deities; and it was the Sun with whom Mithras was identified.
The beginning of the downfall of Mithraism dates from A.D. 275, when Dacia was lost to the empire, and the invasions of the northern peoples resulted in the destruction of temples along a great stretch of frontier, the natural stronghold of the cult. The aggression of Christianity also was now more effective. The emperors, however, favoured the cult, which was the army’s favourite until Constantine destroyed its hopes. The reign of Julian and the usurpation of Eugenius renewed the hopes of its devotees, but the victory of Theodosius (394) may be considered the end of its existence. It still survived in certain cantons of the Alps in the 5th century, and clung to life with more tenacity in its Eastern home. Its legitimate successor was Manichaeism, which afforded a refuge to those mystics who had been shaken in faith, but not converted, by the polemics of the Church against their religion.
II. Sources, Remains, Ritual.—The sources of present knowledge regarding Mithraism consist of the Vedas, the Avesta, the Pahlevi writings, Greek and Latin literature and inscriptions, and the cult monuments. The monuments comprise the remains of nearly a score of temples and about 400 statues and bas reliefs. The Mithraic temples of Roman times were artificial grottoes (spelaea) wholly or partially underground, in imitation of the original secluded mountain caverns of Asia. The Mithraeum hewn in the tufa quarries of the Capitoline Hill at Rome, still in existence during the Renaissance, is an example. The main room of the ordinary temple was rectangular, with an elevated apsidal arrangement, like a choir, containing the sacred relief on its wall, at the end opposite the entrance, and with continuous benches (podia) of masonry, about 5 ft. wide and inclining slightly towards the floor, built against the wall on its long sides. The ceiling was made to symbolize the firmament. There were arrangements for the brilliant illumination of the choir and its relief, which was sometimes sculptured on both sides and reversible, while the podia were intentionally more obscure. The choir and the long space between the podia were for ministrants, the podia themselves for kneeling worshippers. Two altars, to the Sun and the Moon, stood before the former, and cult statues along the latter. The approach to the grotto lay through a portico on the level with and fronting the street, and a pronaos, in communication with which was a kind of sacristy. Steps led to the lower level of the sanctuary. The
