MITHRAS AND ROME

Two basic questions often arise with respect to Mithras and the Romans: 1)What were the origins of Mithras? 2) Did the Romans strike coins with the image of Mithras on them?

The following responses to the questions have been taken from the literature cited below.

ORIGINS ...

Mithras is associated in the literature with Anaita, goddess of fertility and the earth. Most sources state that much earlier the primary deity was a Mother Goddess - known by many names - associated with agriculture when that became the dominant mode of human life. Almost every where on the earth was the Great Mother ...Ishtar & Cybele, Demeter & Ceres, Aphrodite & Venus & Freya - all of these being later forms of the ancient goddesses of earth. Durant suggests that: "...these deities reveal by their gender the primitive association of agriculture with woman. When agriculture became the dominant mode of human life, the vegetation goddesses reigned supreme...most early gods were of the gentler sex..." (1)

Paleolithic remains of female figurines, red ocher in burials, & vagina-shaped cowrie shells appear to be early manifestations of what was later to develop into a complex religion centering on the worship of a Mother Goddess as the source and regeneratrix of all forms of life. (2)

This Goddess worship, as James and other scholars note, survived well into historic times "in the composite figure of the Magna Mater of the Near East and the Greco-Roman world". (3) We clearly see this religious continuity in such well-known deities as Isis, Nut, and Maat in Egypt; Ishtar, Astarte, and Lilith in the Fertile Crescent; Demeter, Kore, and Hera in Greece; and Atargatis, Ceres, and Cybele in Rome. Even later, in our own Judeo-Christian heritage, we can still see it in the Queen of Heaven, whose groves are burned in the Bible, the Shekhina of Hebrew kabalistic tradition, and in the Catholic Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God.

To the question of why these connections are now supposedly so obvious and why they have for so long been downplayed, or simply ignored, in the conventional archaeological literature, Eisler argues that they do not fit the proto-and prehistoric model of a male centered and male dominated form of social organization. Another reason is that it was not until after World War II that some of the most important new evidence was unearthed of this religious tradition extending over thousands of years in to the period that followed the Paleolithic. This was the long period in our cultural evolution that came between the first crucial developments for human culture during the Paleolithic and the later civilizations of the Bronze Age: the time when our forebears settled down into the first agrarian communities of the Neolithic. (4)

Worship of the Goddess was both polytheistic and monotheistic. It was polytheistic in the sense that she was worshipped under different names and in different forms. But it was also monotheistic in the sense that we can properly speak of faith in the goddess in the same way we speak of faith in God as a transcending entity . We find evidence of the deification of the female- who in her biological character gives birth and nourishment just as the earth does - in the 3 main centers for the origins of agriculature: Asia Minor & South Eastern Europe, Thailand in South Eastern Asia, and later on also Middle America. (5)

Mellaart adds that the cultures of 9000 to 7000 BCE did indeed have as the principal deity a goddess but also statuettes of the supreme deity, (the Mother Goddess) together with a male occuring only in a subsidiary role as child or paramour. (6) Arthur Evans concluded "It is certain, that, however much the male element had asserted itself ... by the great days of the Minoan civilization, the religion still continued to reflect the older matriarchal stage of social development. Clearly the Goddess was supreme.." (7).

All of this showing a progression through time of a similar pattern. One which focused upon the Sun as the giver of life.

In Persia, perhaps 3000 years ago or more, came the Prophet Zarathustra. He found the chief divinities before him were Mithra, god of the sun, Anaita, goddess of fertility & the earth, & Haoma the bull-god who, dying, rose again & gave mankind his blood as a drink that would confer immortality ... Zarathustra rebelled against these gods and announced to the world the One God, Ahura-Mazda, Lord of Light & heaven, of whom all other gods were but manifestations . It appears that Darius I, who accepted the new doctrine, saw in it a faith that would both inspire his people & strengthen his government. From the moment of his accession, he declared war on the old cults and the Magian priesthood & made Zoroastrianism the religion of the state.The god of Zarathustra was first of all "the whole circle of the heavens themselves, his body being the light and sovereign glory, the sun and the moon are his eyes ..."

The achievment of Zarathustra is that he conceived his One God as supreme over all things ! (8)

As it often happens, this great religion passed from prophets to politicians until the great deity was pictured as a gigantic king of imposing majesty. . For a while,under Darius I, this became the spiritual expression of a nation at its height. But gradually the belief system eroded. Under the official worship of Ahura-Mazda, the cult of Mithra and Anaita - god of the sun and goddess of vegetation & fertility, generation & sex - continued to find devotees; and in the days of Artaxerxes II their names began to appear again in royal inscriptions. Thereafter Mithra grew powerfully in favor and Ahura-Mazda faded away until, in the first centuries of our era, the cult of Mithra as a divine youth of beautiful countenance, with a radiant halo over his head as a symbol of his ancient identity with the sun ... spread throughout the Roman Empire, giving (among other things) Christmas to Christianity ... Christmas being originally a solar festival, celebrating, at the winter solstice, the lengthening of the day and the triumph of the sun over his enemies. It became a Mithraic, and finally a Christian, holy day . Statues of Anaita, the Persian Aphrodite, were set up in many cities of the empire within a few centuries of Zarathustra's death . (9)

And so the Persian God Mithras was alive and well in the days of ancient Rome. His worship spread throughout the empire, especially in the Legions. We know little about this religion because our knowledge is limited to what its opponents tell us and the doubtful interpretation of symbols never meant to be intelligible to outsiders. We do know that Mithras after various adventures is said to have caught and tamed a supernatural beast represented in sculpture as a large bull, which he afterwards sacrificed. This act was evidently as central to Mithraism as the Crucifixion is to Christianity. One of his commonist titles was sol invictus - the unconquered sun. In a meeting place found under the Church of St. Clement in Rome, devotees of Mithras underwent a series of seven grades of initiations which tested their courage and determination. A life of purity was the aim because Mithras stood for the triumph of good over evil. (10)

COINS

As to the second question, given the symbol of the Sun was also a manifestation of the God Mithras, there were many coins struck by Imperial Rome and its provinces.

The Romans paid divine honors to the Sun/Mithras and his figure is represented on a medal of the Manlia family exhibited in quadriga. Stevenson identifies various Roman coin issues such as a denarius of Coelius Caldus, with the radiate head of the Sun, & AE 's presenting the naked head of the god with the inscription DOMINUS IMPERII ROMANI. There are numerous types representing the Sun seen without any other inscription than that of the letters PM TRP (etc) as in Alexander Severus or in conjunction with the words CONSERVAT.AUG. as in Probus and ORIENS AUG. OR AUGUST - SOLI INVICTO - SOLI INVICTO COMITI - INVICTUS as found on many Imperial coins from the time of Hadrian to Constantine. Later, in one of his orations, the Emperor Julian says : "...Ultimo mense, qui Saturni est, splendidissimos ludos Soli facimus, festum illud Soli Invicto numcupantes ..." Then, too, Strabo alludes to the bull Mnevis consecrated to the Sun at Heliopolis in Egypt. Inscriptions on marble are addressed to; DEO SOLI INVICTO MITHRAE ... (11)

We know that Tarsus struck coins with Mithras sacrificing a bull - as did Trapezus, both as provinces of the Roman Empire. The latter represented Mithras on horseback. Certain other medallions were also issued. Prior to Roman conquest, Istrus struck Mithraitic coins, along with Panticipaeum and likely Amastris and alsoCius in Bithynia during the period B.C.E. 300-200.(12)

As we think through the information we've been provided here and elsewhere, one final thought occurs with respect to the coinage of ancient Rome: For hundreds of years, the Roman emperors have issued certain coins (the dupondius, for example) imprinted with their own image with a radiate crown. This seems to argue quite clearly a connection to Mithras ~ and the gods and goddesses that have gone before. It can be further argued that these ancient deities are with us still, albeit in a form more understandable to us.