When Things Don't Fit: Looking at the London Mithraeum

When Things Don’t Fit: Looking at the London Mithraeum by Hugh Bowden he redisplayed London Mithraeum collapsed, and worship of Mithras there of individual initiates, but it had another Tbeneath the Bloomberg building in came to an end. So the triumph of dimension. Whatever the initiates may the City of London, and the material Christianity and the collapse of Mithraism have learned from the Pater of their recovered from excavation of the site, appear to have coincided. But history is Mithraic group, they will have known that now on display in the Museum of rarely so neat, and this article is about a god who was a companion of the London, provide a valuable resource for things not fitting together. Unconquered Sun was close to the centre exploring aspects of religion in Roman Let us go back briefly to Constantine. of divine power. London. And they are well worth the visit, The earliest account of his solar vision What those responsible for the not least because they are free to the actually dates from years before the Battle London Mithraeum in the early fourth public. Inevitably the information of the Milvian Bridge. A panegyric century thought about Mithras we cannot provided with the artifacts and the site delivered in Trier in 310 to celebrate the be certain, but it is clear that they could itself emphasise what we know about fifth year of his reign as Augustus not afford to repair his temple after a them. But there are puzzling features of describes how Apollo had appeared to major collapse. The imminent triumph of this material, and there is a lot that we do Constantine offering him laurel wreaths Christianity was not a factor in this – and not know. I want to discuss some of these and foretelling a long and glorious reign. indeed the coincidence with Constantine’s puzzles, not with the aim of providing Apollo was a sun god, and throughout his triumph was only approximate, as the answers, but to remind us that there is still reign Constantine continued to honour collapse could have happened up to ten plenty to be discovered about ancient the Sun. The panegyric explained the year earlier, or ten years later. The building religion, and also that our perspective on changes he made to what could be done was repaired, and was apparently the ancient world is always affected by on a Sunday not because of its converted into a temple of Pater Liber, or accidents of survival. significance to Christians, but as a way of Bacchus. But what was a disaster for the On 28th October 312 at a crossing of honouring the Sun. And in doing this he Mithraists was a great benefit for the River Tiber just to the north of the was following his predecessors: over the archaeologists and historians of Roman city of Rome, a Roman general, course of the third century, the cult of Sol London. Before they gave up the building Constantine, who six years earlier had Invictus had grown, and was particularly site to its new owners, the last initiates of been hailed as emperor at York, claimed associated with the emperor. As rule of Mithras dug pits in the floor, and carefully victory over a rival claimant to the throne, the empire was transformed from what buried the sculptures that had decorated Maxentius. One of the best-known was nominally a partnership between the it. No doubt anything made of metal was episodes in the story of the battle is told Senate and an emperor, whose powers it taken out and reused, but we can assume in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine and granted, into a military autocracy, so at the that what was buried in the pits elsewhere: sometime before the battle same time the divine sphere was gradually represented everything from the temple Constantine saw a vision of a cross above rethought as the dominion of the that had been made of marble, or had the sun, with the words ‘In this sign, all-seeing, all-controlling Sun. In this some other significance. Building work in conquer’ inscribed on it. Inspired by this, world, divine figures associated with the the nineteenth and twentieth centuries he converted to Christianity, and rode to Sun were particularly worth cultivating, brought these buried marbles to light. victory. At more or less the same time, and these included Mithras. We are They must have contributed to the half an empire away in London, the encouraged to think of the worship of experience of the men who met in the Mithraeum on the banks of the Walbrook Mithras in terms of the private concerns Mithraeum, so are worth examining. The Journal of Classics Teaching 19 (38) p.1-3 © The Classical Association 2018. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Downloaded Creativefrom https://www.cambridge.org/core Commons Attribution licence. IP address: (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), 170.106.35.76, on 24 Sep 2021 at 15:32:51, subject which to permits the Cambridge unrestricted Core terms re-use, of use, distribution, available at and reproduction 1 https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsin any medium, provided. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631018000156the original work is properly cited. In 1889 three items came to light. that is about human scale, and like them there it provided administrative staff for One is described as a ‘Water-deity’, and is intended to be part of a larger the Roman governor in London. A ‘the upper half of an elderly male figure’, composition. All three heads were in reasonably successful military career may 343mm high and 266mm wide, to quote good condition, although the neck of have taken the young Ulpius Silvanus the description in the publication of the Mithras was cut off at the time that the from the olive groves of Provence to the later excavations. He is reclining, and items were buried – both parts were mud of the South East of England. After holding a bullrush. His right arm is found together. Finally a right hand was his retirement, he may have decided to use broken off, and this might have happened found, holding the pommel of a dagger, what money he had to create a at some point after the deposition, but which would have had a metal blade. It is Mithraeum, of which he would, we may otherwise the sculpture seems in good just over life-size. Alongside these assume, have been the leader, the Pater. condition. It is likely that it was carved as marbles was found a further piece of He may have commissioned the relief the top part of a sculpture, the rest of carved stone, a left hand and forearm, that bears his name – but in Orange, which was made of some other, cheaper, somewhat less than life-size, carved in probably, certainly not in London. The stone or stucco – the rest of the figure ‘pisolithic limestone of Jurassic type, rest of the sculpture for the temple he was presumably draped, or submerged, probably from the Cotswolds’. might have been picked up second-hand, and only the bare flesh was made of The excavations of 1954 determined as it were, either in Italy or perhaps in marble. The second sculpture is described that the temple had been constructed some merchant’s shop in London, as a ‘Genius’, and is a statuette missing its around 240–250 CE, and so worship of imported by other people over the years. head – when the head disappeared is not Mithras there had not lasted more than The whole process must have been quite knowable. In its current state it is 585mm about 80 years. But the marble sculptures drawn out: the temple was built several high. The figure is male, and his right came from another time and place. The decades after the relief was carved. And it hand holds a libation dish over an altar, heads of Mithras and Serapis, and the is possible that Silvanus, who presumably with a snake rising behind the altar and Tauroctony, might date to the later second retired in his forties sometime around 200 wrapping around his wrist. His left arm or the early third century. The backs of CE, was already dead by the time the site cradles a cornucopia, and next to him is both heads were remodelled at some point, for the temple became available. However the prow of a ship riding on waves. The which suggests that they were not originally things happened, we can say with some third 1889 discovery is the best known. It intended to end up in the London confidence that, with the possible is a relief, 432mm high and 508mm wide, Mithraeum. The other marbles are earlier, exception of the tauroctony relief, the depicting the Tauroctony, that is Mithras probably from the middle of the second sculptures were not made especially for a Killing the Bull. It is in good condition, century. The stone is the same in all cases, Mithraic temple in London. There is a although the most fragile points, the tail described as ‘fine-grained saccharoidal sculpture of a River God, but it is not of the bull and the raven which would marble, probably from Carrara, Italy’. Father Thames. There is a ‘Genius’ by a have sat above Mithras’ cloak, are missing. There would have been no-one in Britain ship, but it is not the Genius of the Port We will come back to this relief, because it capable of carving of this quality, and it was of London.

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