At Rome’s twilight, amid political upheaval and Christian ascendancy, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus embodied pagan intellect, virtue, and authority across senatorial, military, and mystical spheres.
By reading Orphic theology together with Eleusinian ritual practice, the mysteries emerge as a structured mystagogy of transformation: a disciplined passage from forgetfulness (Lethe) to knowledge (aletheia), from mortality to participation in the divine.
This article revisits the Mithraeum of S. Maria Capua Vetere, one of the most complete and artistically refined Mithraic sanctuaries in the Campanian region, situating it within its archaeological, iconographic, and ritual-historical contexts.
In his first book, Fahim Ennouhi sheds light on the cult of Mithras in Roman Africa. A marginal and elitist phenomenon, confined to restricted circles and largely absent from local religious dynamics, yet revealing.
Archaeologists at Doliche are now excavating houses around the vast Mithras temple to learn how people lived beside the sanctuary.
Restoring the Mysteries: A Conversation with Peter Mark Adams on his new book ‘Ritual & Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mithras’.
Exploring religion, rituals, archaeological insights, and historical impact of the Cult of Mithras in the Danubian provinces.
Tracing the links between the cult of Mithras and the Proud Boys’ quest for identity, power, and belonging. How ancient rituals and brotherhood ideals resurface in radical modern movements.
Over the last century or so, a great deal has been said about the god Mithras and his mysteries, which became known to the European world mainly through his Roman cultus during the Imperial Period.
Ernest Renan suggested that without the rise of Christianity, we might all have embraced the cult of Mithras. Nevertheless, it has had a lasting influence on secret societies, religious movements and popular culture.
