title: Mapping Mithras: A Multifocal Approach to Mithraic Experience, Innovation, and Regional Diversity
Creators: name: Stoba, Kevin
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2026

description: This thesis is an interdisciplinary and digitally based analysis of the Roman worship of Mithras. It signifies a paradigm shift in our understanding of both Mithraic cults specifically and the mechanics of small-group religions in the Roman Empire more broadly. Moving beyond recent research in Mithraic scholarship which foregrounds variation across the hundreds of Mithraic groups around the Roman world, this project presents empire-wide representations of complex and large Mithraic datasets which chart the innovation and transmission of variants of Mithras-worship through professional, social, and religious networks. Much Mithraic evidence is varied and fragmentary. I argue that this fact, as well as the complexity of Mithraic phenomena, necessitates a ‘multifocal approach’. This means that I have synthesised an extremely wide, interdisciplinary range of theoretical frameworks from social anthropology, the history of religion, psychophysiology, entrepreneurial studies, art history and beyond, building upon the premise that meaningful theoretical frameworks should bend to accommodate the evidence and not vice versa. This task has required the careful analysis of large numbers of epigraphic, literary and iconographic sources. I have produced several up-to-date databases of material, new photographs of Mithraic artefacts, and translations of epigraphic texts throughout the project. My thesis presents multiple models which describe, explain, and map the emergence and diffusion of local/regional diversity within Mithraic cults. The flexibility of a multifocal approach allows me to explore Mithraic phenomena at the level of individuals, groups, associations, institutions, networks, societies, and cultures. A holistic account also requires the integration of both ‘bottom up’ processes (e.g. perception, sensory stimulation, attention, memory) and ‘top down’ processes (e.g. cognition, cultural context, symbolism, tradition). I have approached Mithraic individuals aiming to understand their relationships with their deity and with other Mithraic group members, since much Mithraic evidence indicates group activities. These relationships varied in many important aspects, but variety occurred alongside the stabilisation provided by some shared sacred concepts and religious imperatives which were more widespread (although never uniform) under the umbrella phenomena of Mithras-worship around the Roman world. I highlight the lived religious experience of Mithraic individuals, studying comprehensively their ritual embodiment and sensorimotor experiences, cognitive processes, emotionality, performativity, reflexivity, and individualisation. Aspects of an individual’s experience of Mithras-worship were outwardly oriented through the activation of psychophysiological triggers towards prosociality, social cohesion, synchronisation, and other collective behaviour. I examine social interaction between Mithras-worshippers (in ritual and other contexts) through extensive case studies taking structural, functional, economic, entrepreneurial and neoinstitutionalist perspectives insofar as they elucidate the religious experience of these individuals or the mechanisms of innovation and the development of diverse forms and norms. Additionally, I explore competition between Mithraic and non-Mithraic religious groups and institutional and organisational ties affecting Mithras-worshippers related to their professional and other religious affiliations, again focusing on their roles in the creation, legitimisation, and diffusion of innovations. I have also utilised multiple unique applications of statistical and network-based analysis to the diffusion of Mithras-worship. My quantitative analysis of Mithraic phenomena is firmly rooted in the qualitative and theoretical analyses outlined above. It identifies multiple mechanisms through which variant forms of Mithras-worship developed and spread. These mechanisms are robustly tied to what we can deduce about the lived experience of individual Mithras-worshippers and the multi-level organisational factors influencing Mithraic groups. As such, this project represents a comprehensive and wholly original holistic model of Roman Mithras-worship which fully accommodates the massive variation seen within the evidence.