page_title: Mithraism
section_title: Mithras before the Roman Mysteries
hierarchical_section_title: Mithraism / History and development / Mithras before the Roman Mysteries
caption_attribution_description: English: KING ANTIOCHUS AND MITHRA. Bas-relief of the temple built by Antiochus I of Commagene, 69-31 BCE, on the Nemrood Dagh, in the Taurus Mountains
context_page_description: Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. The religion was inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity Mithra, although the Greek Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice is debated. The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from about the 1st to the 4th century CE.
  Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake". They met in underground temples, now called mithraea, which survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome, and was popular throughout the western half of the empire, as far south as Roman Africa and Numidia, as far north as Roman Britain, and to a lesser extent in Roman Syria in the east.
  Mithraism is viewed as a rival of early Christianity. In the 4th century, Mithraists faced persecution from Christians and the religion was subsequently suppressed and eliminated in the empire by the end of the century.
context_section_description: According to the archaeologist Maarten Vermaseren, 1st century BCE evidence from Commagene demonstrates the "reverence paid to Mithras" but does not refer to "the mysteries". In the colossal statuary erected by King Antiochus I (69–34 BCE) at Mount Nemrut, Mithras is shown beardless, wearing a Phrygian cap (or the similar headdress, Persian tiara), in Iranian (Parthian) clothing, and was originally seated on a throne alongside other deities and the king himself. On the back of the thrones there is an inscription in Greek, which includes the name Apollo Mithras Helios in the genitive case (Ἀπόλλωνος Μίθρου Ἡλίου). Vermaseren also reports about a Mithras cult in 3rd century BCE. Fayum. R. D. Barnett has argued that the royal seal of King Saussatar of Mitanni from c. 1450 BCE. depicts a tauroctonous Mithras.
caption: Mithras-Helios, with solar rays and in Iranian dress,[88] with Antiochus I of Commagene. (Mt. Nemrut, 1st Century BCE)
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