The New Mithraeum Database

Sandstone base from Vetera (Xanten), Germania Inferior, with a relief of Cautes in Oriental dress holding a long burning torch.

Fragmentary sandstone relief from Rückingen showing a male figure walking right and holding a kantharos. Traces on the chest may indicate a torques or shoulder-cape.

The Mithraeum of Sutri was built inside a rocky hill that also hosted the Roman theatre of the city.

Currently in the Musei Vaticani, this Tauroctony includes Mithras’s birth restored as Venus anaduomene.

In Letter 107 to Laeta, Jerome combines a pastoral reflection on conversion with an account of the urban prefect Gracchus, who ordered the destruction of a Mithraic cave in Rome, listing the seven grades of initiation associated with the cult.

Founded on the east bank of the Tigris, Sumere is mentioned in Roman sources as a fortified settlement during the Persian campaign of Julian in 363 CE, notably by Ammianus Marcellinus.

Fragment of limestone from Porêts, which was used in the 4th century.

Sandstone relief of Mithras as bull-slayer, found at Petronell in 1932, with dog, serpent and scorpion, traces of polychromy preserved, now in the Museum Carnuntinum.

A series of polemical passages in which a leading fourth-century Christian theologian presents the cult of Mithras as a religion defined by cruelty, bodily suffering, and shameful initiation rites.

Sandstone relief of Mithras killing the bull, broken in two parts and partly restored, with dog, serpent and scorpion preserved; formerly in Vienna, now on loan to the Museum Carnuntinum.

Conglomerate statue of the birth of Mithras, found in a burnt layer, showing the god nude emerging from the rock with raised hands and a snake.

Vicus Baudobriga was a Roman settlement on the left bank of the Rhine, founded during the conquest of Gaul. Its development reflects the Rhine’s shifting role as frontier, trade route, and fortified border before Roman withdrawal.

The article examines two recently discovered Mithraic representations of Cautes from Alba Iulia, focusing on a rare iconographic type showing the torchbearer with a bucranium.

Statue of Cautes from Bodobrica, discovered around 1940, depicting the torchbearer standing before a tree or rock and associated with a bucranium.

This tauroctony relief is distinguished by the rare depiction of Tellus reclining beneath the bull.

Small limestone stele, discovered at Apt in 1903. It depicts a standing torchbearer in the conventional Mithraic posture and dress, accompanied by a cock placed at his feet.

In polemical passages from the late second and early third centuries, Tertullian portrays the cult of Mithras as a demonic imitation of Christian rites and provides rare early references to Mithraic initiation and ritual symbolism.

An anonymous late-antique Christian poem, traditionally attributed to Pseudo-Paulinus of Nola (Poema 32, vv. 109–111), that ridicules pagan cults and presents Mithras, Isis, and Serapis as gods of concealment, contradiction, and unstable forms rather than light…

Mithras, also called Mitra or Mithra depending on the historical period, region or language, is one of the oldest known Indo-European gods.

Trabzon is a historic city on the Black Sea coast of northeastern Turkey, founded in 756 BC as Trapezous by Greek colonists from Miletus. It passed from Achaemenid control to the Kingdom of Pontus, then became part of the Roman and Byzantine empires.