Casa del Mitreo
TNMM 1386
On a field next to the bullring, a house appeared which, because of some of the peculiarities that we will describe and the ancient sculptural findings of the bullring, was called the House of the Mithraeum. This is yet another house built at the end of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd century AC outside the city walls, without any restrictions to its growth. Its size and the decoration of some of its rooms undoubtedly show that its owners were people of Hellenistic culture who were important within the society of Mérida.
The whole building is set up around three courtyards. You enter the first one through a stairway and you arrive onto a tetra style atrium with a pond to collect water, the impluvium. It seems that this area, like other areas in the house, had a second floor because of the steps that are still preserved. Several rooms come out onto this atrium, built like other ones in the house: a masonry base and the rest of the wall in rammed earth. The walls were plastered and decorated with paintings.
One of these rooms preserves the mosaic of the Cosmos. It represents a colourful and realistic mixed group of human figures that represent the different elements of the known universe, going from terrestrial and marine elements until celestial elements, but they all revolve around the essential figure of Eternity (Aeternitas).
Some authors have suggested that the famous cosmological mosaic from the so-called ’Casa del Mitreo’ might be additional evidence of the cult of Mithras. For some time, I too thought that the scene indeed had a connection with Mithraic beliefs. However, I have now distanced myself from this idea, as I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing specifically Mithraic about the mosaic, and that the astral or temporal elements shared by the cult of Mithras and the mosaic are entirely coincidental. It seems strange that a wealthy follower of Mithras, such as the owner of the Casa del Mitreo would presumably have been, did not choose a more explicit scene of their devotion as the central theme of such an extraordinary mosaic, which converges cosmological and theosophical ideas not specifically Mithraic, even if Mithraism partially shared them. The glorification of imperial plenitude based on Roman Aeternitas appears to be a much more fitting explanation than the tenuous connection with the cult of Mithras.
—Jaime Alvar (2019) El culto de Mitra en Hispania
