Mithraeum of Eleusis

TNMM 373 ↔ CIMRM 2349

In 1927 and 1937 excavations along the way leading to the sanctuary of Demeter brought to light a Roman building of the second century A.D. at the south wall of the temenos (AA 1927, 347f). Dr. J. Travlos was so kind to send me information and the lay-out (fig. 652).

The building is divided into an anteroom and a main room in which two benches (aa) and a base (b) (2.80 × 2.00). These podia gave the excavators the impression that the building was a Mithraeum. An inscription from Rome (CIL VI 1779 = CIMRM I No. 420) dating from the end of the fourth century mentions Vettius Agorius Praetextatus who was pontifex Solis and pater patrum and at the same time sanctus Libero et Eleuseniis. Another inscription dating from the period of Augustus and found at Eleusis (Dittenberger, Sylloge³ No. 1125 cf. Weinreich in ARW XIX, 1918, 174ff; Cumont, Rel. Or.⁴, 278 n. 46) mentions Kointos Pompeios, son of Aulos, who together with his brother Aulos and Xestos made an Aion in honour of the force of Rome and of the maintenance of the mysteries. But it is not necessary in this case to accept an Iranian influence. It would moreover be very strange that one should find such early traces of the Mithraic cult in Greece, which was so strongly set against the Mithraic mysteries. To find, however, a testimony of Mithras at Eleusis in a later time is not impossible as the inscription from Rome shows. But the building at Eleusis does not supply sufficient evidence; Grenet and Boulanger, Le génie grec dans la religion, Paris 1932, 461 n. 4 are convinced of the contrary: "j’ai pu constater que rien ne justifie l’identification proposée" (personal note of the late Fr. Cumont). About the Aion from Eleusis, see also C. Koch in Paideuma III, 1949, 228 who dates the inscription in 74 B.C. and J. Festugière, La Révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste IV, Paris 1954, 180ff.

In the Sanctuary of Eleusis, a building of Roman times, one of the buildings has been interpreted as a Mithraeum by the archaeologist K. Kourouniotis. It was built in contact with the polygonal enclosure of the Sacred House, at the southern end of the eastern leg of the precinct, because of its peculiar interior, which refers to the typology of the Mithraic places of worship.

It consists of a rectangular room with two large elongated built-in pedestals on the long sides, to which small staircases led. The worshippers sat or lay down on them. On another built pedestal, at the back of the room, the statue of the god was probably placed.

At the entrance to the Mithraion, on the eastern side, a marble propylon of the Classical period was raised in second use. This Doric propylon with two columns ’en parastasis’ on the façade is identical to the monumental propylon that adorned the Pisistratio North Pillar as early as the 5th century BC, which was demolished in the middle of the 1st century BC. The propylous was kept in a safe place and reused in Mithraeus, probably in the years of Augustus (late 1st century BC - early 1st century AD).

In Roman times, the official religion shows a gradual evolution, the result of the influences it received after the conquest of other peoples with different cultures and religions, which spread easily. In Eleusis, in fact, the last Hierophant from Thespia had the rank of Father in the Mithraic Mysteries.