Basilica of Saint Clement

Two Basilicas and a Mithraeum

Mithraism or the Cult of Mithras was a Roman mystery religion that became very popular throughout the western Roman Empire from the 1st to 4th centuries CE, especially within the Imperial Roman Army.

Mithraism had many parallels to early Christianity, and the two religions became rivals. The popularity and rapid spread of Mithraism through the Empire was at its peak through the second and third centuries. Then, through the mid to late fourth century, Christianity become first officially tolerated, and then was made the state religion. At the same time, the Western Roman Empire was rapidly declining in power. Mithraism rapidly disappeared.

Mithraism was always a mystery cult known as the Mithraic Mysteries. There were no written Mithraic scriptures. All traditions and rituals were passed along verbally to the new members. So, while it left lots of evidence in the form of its distinctive temples, we know very little about its beliefs or rituals.

Today, the Basilica of Saint Clement stands just a few blocks east of the Colosseum, near the center of ancient Rome. What you see of that church today was built in the 12th century CE. However, that church was built on top of a church that had been completed by 392 CE. And that church was built on top of a cluster of structures from the first-century CE, including a Mithraeum, a cave-temple in which the rituals of the Mithraic Mysteries were practiced.

Mithras Originally, and in the Mithraic Mysteries

The original Mithra or Mithras is an ancient Iranian deity who became an exalted figure of Zoroastrianism, one of the three judges at the Chinvat Bridge, the Bridge of Judgement which all souls must cross.

At some time around the 1st century BCE, Roman soldiers came into contact with followers of Zoroastrianism, or at least a form of Zoroastrianism or a practice based on it.

The collection of statues at the sanctuary at the peak of Nemrut Dağı in today's east-central Turkey includes a figure of Mithras, at least as understood by Antiochus I Commagene, who declared himself to be a "Just, Eminent God" and decreed that a sanctuary be built so that his followers could continue to worship him after his death. On a mountain peak, far from the people and close to the gods, of which he was one.

Belief in a variant form of Mithras kept evolving and moving west. It had passed through Antiochus' Commagene long before his rule in 70–38 BCE. It had reached Pergamon, near the western shore of Anatolia, between Troy and Ephesus, by the 2nd century BCE. That's where scholars now believe that it transitioned to what the Romans picked up.

The Romans picked up a very partial understanding of Mithras, already mixed with other traditions, and then blended in aspects of other faiths. That included classic Roman religion, which was based on Greek religion with new Latin names for the deities.

The Romans, to the very limited extent that they said or wrote anything about the Mysteries, attributed them to the Zoroastrian faith from Persia. But what the Roman Mithraists thought and practiced was based on their partial and faulty perceptions of Zoroastrian thought and practice. And, the Roman Mithraists took the concept of "mystery cult" very seriously indeed.

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The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol, the Sun, in a form also partially taken from Zoroastrianism.

One of the very few things we know about Mithraic ritual is that it involved the community regularly gathering for meals in emulation of the feast shared by Mithras and Sol. Yes, that sounds like the Christian tradition of the Last Supper, re-enacted in the ritual of communion. But does that similarity result from some sharing of traditions, or is it simply a coincidence? We don't know.

Another often-cited similarity is that both Christianity and Mithraism were egalitarian. You didn't need to be a member of the uppermost classes to practice them. Soldiers were the largest component of the Mithraic membership, but merchants, minor bureaucrats, and freedmen and slaves were also members. This differed from classic Roman religions where only the elite became fully involved. However, only men could be initiated into the Mysteries and take part in the rituals and worship. Women were key members of early Christianity.

Both Christianity and Mithraism are focused on a sacrifice depicted or referenced by their iconic imagery. However, the central figure of Christianity is the sacrifice, while Mithraism depicts its central figure performing the sacrifice.

Both faiths feature a miraculous birth, although Jesus was born to a virgin while Mithras was born from a rock, and miraculous births appear in many other religions

The partly inspired-by and partly cobbled-together new faith grew rapidly. Researchers have discovered about 420 sites with material related to the Cult of Mithras. Those have yielded about 700 examples of the tauroctony, the iconic bull-killing scene, and about 400 other monuments including depictions of Mithras' birth from a rock.

Since it was largely a faith of military men, Mithraism spread across the empire. There are many Mithraic sites in Rome and the surrounding region of Ostia, but also across the Adriatic in Dalmatia, further east in Dacia (in today's Romania), south across the Mediterranean in Numidia, and north along the Rhine and Danube frontiers. Many Mithraea or Mithraic temples have been discovered in Britain.

However, it spread widely but not evenly. Mithraism was common in Numidia but not in Egypt. It was not common in Greece. And Syria, close to the home of Zoroastrianism, had few Mithraea, only three are known today.

So, the idea was born in the east, but the religion took root in Rome and spread out from there. Statistical analysis has led to estimates that at least 680 Mithraea were active in the city of Rome.

The Multi-Level Temple

The map near the top of this page shows the location of the Basilica of Saint Clement, known as Basilica di Sant Clemente in Italian and therefore on maps. You enter its outer gate and cross a cloister-like courtyard.

Clement was an early Bishop of Rome, believed to have been just the second, third, or fourth man to hold that title. He died around 100 CE, very likely in exile, but the stories vary as to precisely where he died.

Inside, it's a classic basilica design. "Basilica" is a term from architecture, from the Greek βασιλική στοά or just βασιλική, basiliki. That's a public building in a rectangular shape, divided by internal rows of columns supporting roofs of differing heights. The central section, under the highest roof, is the nave. The outer aisles between the column rows and the outer walls tend to be under lower roofs.

Governments in Greek cities used basilicas for multiple purposes. They were like a courthouse in an English speaking country today — the courts operated here, but it was also the mayor's office, where you paid taxes, where you got building permits, where governmental announcements were made, and so on. The Romans simply copied the design and purpose.

The basilica was a familiar and useful design. When Christianity grew beyond small groups meeting in members' homes, it was an obvious design choice for purpose-built church structures. Much later, the Roman Catholic church began to use the word to designate a church that has been given special privileges.

The nave is largely taken up by the choir, which is also an architectural term. It's the space between the part of the nave for people attending the service and the sanctuary area with the altar.

Above you see the row of columns separating the nave from the right aisle. That's the distinguishing feature of the basilica design. As often — but not always — the roof of the nave is significantly higher than the roofs of the aisles, so there is a higher section of wall above the row of columns with clerestory windows bringing in more light.

Below, the altar is beneath a ciborium, from the Greek κιβώριον, a canopy supported by columns. Beyond it, the central apse is decorated with paintings and mosaics.

Constantine moved his capital from Rome to Byzantium, a city he re-named Constantinople. Today it's İstanbul. He legalized Christianity in 313, and then organizing the First Council of Nicaea in 325.

Theodosius I, who ruled 379–395, took things a step further. He declared that Christianity was the official religion of the empire, not just a tolerated one. "Pagan cults" were suppressed. The Oracle of Delphi was shut down after operating at least since 800 BCE.

Also, Theodosius I was the last emperor to rule over the entire Roman Empire before its split into the crumbling Western Empire, ruled from Rome, and the prospering Eastern Empire, ruled from Constantinople. It was only centuries later, after Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, that the Eastern Empire came to be called the "Byzantine Empire".

Rome was declining in the late 300s, but Christianity was favored and the Mithraic Mysteries definitely were not. There already was a basilica-style church on this location. It bought an extension to its property and slightly enlarged the structure. Soon after the year 400 CE, Mithraism completely disappeared.

Cyril and Methodius were brothers, theologians and missionaries from northern Greece, answering to the Patriarch of Constantinople. They are credited with designing the Glagolithic alphabet to transcribe Slavic languages. Cyril's name became the base for "Cyrillic", the name for the modern version of the alphabet. The brothers taught the Slavs in their own languages in the mid to late 800s.

German church figures arriving from far to the west insisted that everything had to be done in Latin, even though the entire Christian New Testament had been written in Greek, and hardly anyone in the east could understand any Latin. Tensions grew, and the brothers traveled to Rome in 867 to talk to the Pope in hopes of getting the Germans off their backs.

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The Pope warmly received Cyril and Methodius and formally authorized their Slavic liturgy and Slavic translations of scripture. This was partly because they had brought relics of Saint Clement to Rome, and partly because supporting their mission could give the Bishop of Rome some leverage over the Bishop of Constantinople. By 1054 CE, the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of Constantinople had mutually excommunicated each other in the Great Schism.

Cyril died in 869 while in Rome, and Methodius returned to the Slavic lands to continue his mission.

By the mid 1800s, much of the history of this site had been forgotten. Yes, Saint Jerome had written a letter in 392 saying that a church in Rome was dedicated to Saint Clement. But it was assumed that he was referring to the church we see above ground today. A history-minded priest began an excavation in 1857, and discovered that there was an entire church of similar design and size underneath!

And then, an entire layer below that came to light. To put things into time order:

In the first century CE, two structures were built here. The first was a large commercial or industrial facility that seems to have been connected with the Roman mint. Adjacent to it was a complex containing multiple dwellings. These structures, at least the one with the dwellings, were partially or completely underground — a basement level with other uses above.

In the late second century, part of the dwelling complex was modified to create a Mithraeum to house rituals along with a Mithraic school for training initiates and members.

During the third century, the industrial complex was abandoned. It was filled with rubble to support a new structure above it, at what was ground level at the time. That new structure was, or eventually became, a church of basilica design, the first Basilica of Saint Clement. This is what Jerome's letter of 392 was discussing.

By the end of the fourth century, Mithraism was almost completely eliminated. Some time after that, the church bought the strip of property above the Mithraeum and slightly enlarged the apse at its front end, extending it further out over the Mithraeum.

In 867–869, Cyril and Methodius traveled to Rome bringing relics of Clement from the Crimean peninsula. Or, possibly, what purported to be his entire body and not just parts.

In the early 12th century, it became obvious that the 3rd century church had structural problems and was unsafe. Eight to nine centuries had passed, soil had accumulated and ground level had risen, and now the 3rd century church was partially buried. So, they filled it with rubble and built a new church on top of it.

From the late 12th through the mid 19th century, the details were forgotten.

In 1857, excavations began.

Here's a view through the nave of the 3rd century church, now fully underground and cleared of rubble, with the needed structural improvements made.

There are several interesting frescos in the 4th century basilica. The English version of the explanation posted near the one shown below reads:

Another fresco was initially thought to be another depiction of Cyril and Methodius, but no.

It was clear that Cyril had died in Rome in 869. He was strongly associated with the church dedicated to Clement, and so he probably was buried there. That led to the conclusion in the 1800s that a specific location in the fourth-century basilica was his tomb. It is now venerated, especially by Eastern Christians, as the tomb of an Apostle to the Slavs.

I think there's a lengthy academic paper to be written analyzing the various memorials, at least a wide-ranging historical review article.

• Ethnic groups outside their homelands during the days of Soviet rule, and showing the perceived loosening of that rule through the 1980s.
• Serbs versus Croats versus others lumped together in the "South Slavica" that was Yugoslavia.
• Is Macedonia a far northwestern Greek province, or is it a splintered Bulgarian ethnicity and dialect? And for whatever you mean by "Macedonian", are those people and that territory properly Greek Orthodox or Bulgarian Orthodox?
• Bickering over Slavs versus Rus' versus Russian.
• And, of course, Glagolithic and thus Cyrillic were useful, but don't we need to have everything in Classical Latin no matter what?

Down to the Mithraeum

The tomb of Cyril is in the apse, the forward end, of the left aisle of the 4th century basilica. A staircase in the point of the apse leads down to the lower level.

The stairs take you down into the basement level of a 1st century complex of structures. You immediately enter a cluster of dwellings and other similarly small structures. This seems to have become the Mithraic complex, with the Mithraeum being built here and some of the other structures supporting it. Further along, you pass into the commercial or industrial facility associated with the Roman mint.

Drains, seen above and below, direct water into a still-operating drainage system located even lower yet. You still hear the sound of running water coming out of these holes in the floor.

The Mithraic Temple

Finally, the Mithraeum.

Temples of Mithras are very distinctive. Each Mithraeum represented the cave to which Mithras carried and then killed a bull. They are below ground and windowless. They might be built within a natural cave. Or, within a city like this example, constructed in a basement beneath a structure. They are usually located close to springs or streams, as fresh water was required for some rituals.

The Mithraea were very different from the temples and shrines of Greek and Roman cults, and the temples of religions native to Roman-controlled territory such as the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

In most religions, the temple building was a house for the deity, who was personified by a statue or other symbolic object within the ναός or naos, the innermost chamber. From the naos, the god would be able to see sacrificial worship being offered on an altar in an open space immediately beyond the temple's entryway. Unless it was enclosed within walls, anyone near the temple could see the sacrificial activity. In some cases, they could possibly see in through the portico and antechamber to the cult image within the naos.

However, in the Mithraic Mysteries, only the properly initiated could see any of the proceedings. Mithraism had to be practiced within a subterranean, windowless, members-only Mithraeum.

Mithraic worship included ritual feasts. The initiates would eat together while reclining on stone benches along the longer sides of the chamber. Similar dining facilities, triclinia, were found in most religious facilities throughout the Roman Empire. Similar rooms were used within the collegia or clubs of the Roman elites. This is another example of Mithraism being egalitarian — only certain upper-class Romans could belong to a collegium, while Mithraism was open to anyone who could keep a secret.

Mithraea usually had a narthex at its entrance, or other auxiliary rooms for storing and preparing the food.

The tauroctony, the depiction of the god Mithras killing the sacred bull, was the defining object of a Mithraeum. It might be a relief, as it is here, or it might be a free-standing object. But each tauroctony contains the same elements in the same arrangement.

You can look into this Mithraeum through a barred iron door, but you can't enter it. You only have this one view. The brown object at center is a tall rectangular altar at the center of the room. Four horns protrude from the corners of its top surface, and the tauroctony is a relief on its near surface.

The small figure of bright white marble is not on top of the altar, but instead stands in a niche in the far wall of the chamber. It depicts Mithras' birth from a rock, and the figure would have originally had a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other.

In the tauroctony, Mithras has chased down and overwhelmed the bull, and carried it to the cave. Mithras is dressed in Anatolian costume including a Phrygian cap. He is kneeling on the exhausted bull, pulling its nostrils with his left hand to pull its head back. While looking back over his shoulder toward the figure of Sol, he is stabbing the bull with his right hand.

A dog and a snake reach toward the blood flowing from the wound. A scorpion moves in to pinch the bull's genitals. A raven either flies overhead or sits on the bull. One or three ears of wheat emerge from the bull, either from its tail or from the wound. Torch-bearing twins, miniature versions of Mithras, usually appear — Cautes with a raised torch at right and Cautopates with a lowered torch of left.

Zoroastrianism includes nothing remotely like this. The Romans probably took the imagery from winged Victoria, originally the Greek Νίκη or Nike, killing a sacrificial bull.

Each Mithraeum had its own officers. However, Mithraism had no "home temple". There was no central authority, no single source of doctrine. Some Mithraea have wall paintings depicting prophet-like figures carrying scrolls, but we have found no names of Mithraic sages, or titles of Mithraic scripture or other teachings.

However, despite its rapid spread without any central authority, Mithraic iconography and architecture is quite consistent.

We do have some descriptions from contemporary writers commenting upon the practitioners. To be initiated into the Mithraic Mysteries, one had to pass a sequence of several tests. There are suggestions that there were seven levels or grades or initiation into the mysteries, and of course a parallel to the seven visible "planets" is suggested — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, plus the Sun and Moon.

The "banquet scene" is the second most important Mithraic image. It depicts Mithras and Sol feasting on the hide of the slaughtered bull.

Most of the Mithraic rituals involved feasting. Eating utensils and food residues, both animal bones and fruit, are commonly found in Mithraea. Burned residues of animal entrails are commonly found on the main altar, which in this example is the tall four-horned altar with the tauroctony.

However, they did not actually bring a bull into a temple chamber like this for ritual slaughter. Just imagine the mess and the danger associated with ritually killing a bull in a small enclosed space down in a basement! The bull or other sacrificial animal would have been ritually killed elsewhere. In Rome, a victimarius had a specialized career, he was a slave or freedman who performed the actual handling and killing of sacrificial animals. The Mithraic Mysteries required a spring or stream along with a drain, but it wasn't for cleaning up after killing an enraged bull in a basement room.

The sacrifice was done elsewhere, and the results brought to the Mithraeum for ritual offering upon the altar and the following feast.

Just beyond the Mithraeum entrance is a room that was used for instruction into the Mithraic Mysteries. It made me think of a Sunday school room just off the sanctuary of a Christian church.

Across from the Mithraeum in the other direction were two rectangular structures that had originally been dwellings. It wasn't clear if they remained dwellings, or if they had become converted for use for some Mithraeum support activity, or maybe both — homes for members who carried out some tasks for the Mithraeum. Mithraic rectories, perhaps.

We know that Mithraea needed springs or streams to provide fresh water for certain rituals. This house had its own spring, which was covered over and more recently had a window installed so visitors wouldn't quickly fill it with coins and other touristic debris.

And of course some people have figured out ways of getting coins into the spring anyway. Here we are in a subterranean temple area, baffled by the Mithraic Mysteries, wondering how these antique people came up with their elaborate beliefs and rituals, while our fellow visitors a few hours before were behaving at least as mysteriously. Why are the strange people of European descent in the early 21st century so obsessed with putting coins into water? There are clear explanations for Buddhist and Shintō latrine deities, but which deities are today's coin-in-water cult members trying to appease, propitiate, or whatever?

Turning around and looking back from the spring, here's the view across that dwelling and out into the passageway to the rest of the Mithraic complex.

This brick arch with a stepped drain was close to the Mithraeum entryway. A steel railing had been added to keep people from tripping and falling. The entire Mithraeum level had murky lighting, which seemed very appropriate. Let's experience this temple as close as possible to the original conditions!

The last room within the former Mithraic complex had a stream running beneath it. The spring seen above was underneath what became the outer walls of the left aisles on the two basilicas above it. This one was under the outer walls of the right aisles, on the opposite side of the structures on all three levels. Both of the streams flowed parallel to those walls. These were two parallel streams, not one stream flowing across the Mithraic area.

Look at all the coins! This is a major 21st century cultic site!

Where Is All That Water Going?

Both of the streams down within the Mithraeum complex were moving a lot of water. If you haven't walked around Rome, all this water just running through and away can seem puzzling or even troubling.

However, Rome seems to have an excessive supply of fresh water. Spigots along the streets flow constantly. These have no valve for you to turn them off after refilling your water bottle. Their constant flows go into the drainage system, which at the lower levels includes Roman-era drains. The abundant supply of flowing clean water must have been a large part of Rome being settled here. The first example here is a short distance down the sidewalk from where I was staying, the second is closer to the Basilica of Saint Clement.

What Happened Next?

The Mithraists faced persecution from Christians through the 4th century, and the religion was suppressed and eliminated by the end of the century. As for the Western Roman Empire...

In 376, a large migration of Goths and other non-Roman people fleeing the Huns entered the Roman Empire from the north. Roman forces were unable to stop or even slow them.

Western Roman Emperor Theodosius I died in 395. He had just won two civil wars, to the extent anyone ever wins such a thing. The civil wars had been quite destructive. The army was collapsing, and the Western Empire was divided between the warring ministers of his two idiot sons. Barbarian groups kept crossing the Rhine and other Empire frontiers, and central control of the army was lost.

By the 470s, the Western Roman Emperor had no effective control, whether military or political or financial, over the remaining scattered domains that might charitably be described as "Roman". In 476 the Germanic king Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last so-called Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The Senate sent the imperial insignia to Constantinople, announcing to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno that the Western Roman Empire was no more.

If anyone wrote anything about the Mithraic Mysteries, it was early Christian writers denouncing it as heresy. Once it was eliminated, there was no reason to write about it, and it was mostly forgotten.

Academic scholarship began with Franz Cumont, who published a two-volume collection of source texts and images in 1894–1900, Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithras. An English translation of part of the work, The Mysteries of Mithras, was published in 1903. The short version is that Cumont saw the Mithraic Mysteries as the Roman form of Zoroastrianism, with this Mithras conflated with the Zoroastrian one along with the Hindu god Mitra from the Vedic hymns. The First International Congress of Mithraic Studies wasn't held until 1971, when Cumont's analysis was severely criticized.

Where Next In Italy?
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In the late 1990s into the early 2000s I worked on a project to scan cuneiform tablets to archive and share 3-D data sets, providing enhanced visualization to assist reading them. I worked on the project with Gordon Young, at the time Purdue University's only professor of archaeology. Gordon was really smart, he could read both Akkadian and Sumerian, and at least some of other ancient languages written in the cuneiform script. He told me to go to Italy, "The further south, the better."

Gordon was right. Yes, you will very likely arrive in Rome, but Italy has domestic flights and a fantastic train system that runs overnight sleepers all the way to Palermo and Siracusa, near the western and southern corners of Sicily.

So, these pages are grouped into a south-first order, as they should be.