1 Religion in the Later Roman Empire

Roman state religion and imperial cults - The cult of the standards - Private religious devotion and cults - The mysteries of Mithras

The historical magnitude of Constantine’s life is explained by one fact: he was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. But Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion of the Roman state, nor was his conversion the reason for the rapid growth of Christianity in the fourth century AD. The remarkable rise of a minority cult to majority faith in the eastern portion of the Roman Empire was driven by other factors, with which Constantine’s life happened to coincide. His task was to handle the religious tumult and to harness its energy to his own interests. In doing so, he made the Christian faith acceptable and accessible to those whom it would have had greatest difficulty reaching, far from the urbanized provinces of the east. Constantine identified aspects of Christianity that correlated best with his own expectations of a religion. In particular, he saw the god of the Christians as the bringer of victory, the ‘greatest god’ (in Latin, the summus deus^*) who had hitherto been misidentified as Zeus or Jupiter, or as the Sun. Constantine’s militant interpretation of Christianity was founded on the Roman understanding of the interactions between faith and power. In order to understand the profound changes this brought about for the later Roman world, and for Christianity, we must first understand a little more about both.

We may best start by looking at the official cult practices of the Roman state. These were not what we now unthinkingly call pagan, which is a pejorative term invented by Christians, most likely contrasting their urban religion with the rustic beliefs of the countryside. The ‘pagan’ was a pagus, not merely of the countryside, but a ‘bumpkin’ or ‘redneck’. Alternatively, he was a ‘civilian’ (another meaning of pagus), not a miles Christi, ‘a soldier of Christ’. This latter distinction would have struck a soldier of the second century as quite ironic, for it was within the ranks of the army that Christianity spread most slowly, while the diverse cults embraced and tolerated by the Roman state flourished. It is also when dealing with the army that records are clearest.

The army was the most powerful instrument of state during Constantine’s lifetime, and it was at its head that he forged his new empire. The Roman army was held to be the Roman people at war, although of course it embraced only one part of the people: men. We shall turn more fully to women in the next chapter, for they were the driving force behind the rise of Christianity. The religious life in the Roman army may best be understood in three categories, all of which together comprise religio, a Latin term that cannot, alas, simply be translated as ‘religion’. The first category is the official religious life of the army as a whole, which was distinct from the religious beliefs of individual soldiers. It was prescribed by the state and intended to sustain the link between the Roman people at peace, civilians, and the Roman people at war, the army. Over time it evolved into a means to guarantee the link between the army and the emperors through cultivation of imperial cults, as is reflected in the official calendar distributed by every new emperor to every unit in every part of the empire. The second category comprises religious practices prescribed within each unit, with the state’s sanction, which were intended to build morale and ensure unity. Rituals were concentrated on the military standards and took place within army camps. The third category, by far the largest, embraces the private religious devotion of the soldiers, which generally took place beyond the limits of the camp. Soldiers recognized a multitude of gods and worshipped in a multitude of fashions, from private prayers to individual divinities to participation in the rites of hierarchical cults which mirrored the structure of the army itself. The latter, for example the cult of Mithras, reinforced elements of unit solidarity and thus were actively encouraged by the state. At certain times, moreover, the veneration of particular gods was prescribed to serve the ends of the state as a whole, for example the worship of the Syrian Sun god by the emperor Elagabalus (AD 218-22). However, thousands of surviving inscriptions suggest that individual worship was devoted primarily to private prayer and to the consequent fulfilment of particular vows. That is to say, beyond participation in ritual at the behest of the state and the unit, a soldier would seek divine patronage for specific endeavours and give an offering of thanks if the prayer was answered. All three elements were linked, and each in turn requires further elaboration.

Roman state religio and imperial cults

As Cicero had observed in the century before the birth of Christ, the Romans ‘excel all other peoples in religiosity and in that unique wisdom that has brought us to the realization that everything is subordinate to the rule and direction of the gods’. Religion and politics were inextricably entwined, and performing the rituals prescribed by the state was essential as it ensured the public weal and protected all families, all communities, from harm. Consequently, refusal to honour the gods was to be punished severely. As Rome’s power expanded, so it absorbed local cults, integrating rituals or allowing them to continue as supplements, not alternatives, to state rituals.

The calendar of state ritual was, at core, a product of the Augustan age, which coincided with the lifetime of Christ. It was intended to regularize public religious practices in both civilian and military spheres. However, it was revised and updated regularly to reflect imperial succession and apotheosis, and dynastic and ideological imperatives. It was circulated to every magistrate in every city and to every commander of every army camp. The camp is an instructive place to observe the state aspect of religio, as a third-century army calendar has survived. Discovered in 1931-2 within the Temple of Artemis Azzanathkona at Dura Europos, Syria (see map 1), the so-called Feriale Duranum can be dated by its entries to the reign of Severus Alexander (AD 222-35). It was one of several Latin papyri, all dated AD 200-50, which must have belonged to the Twentieth Cohort of Palmyrenes. The extant papyrus shows clear signs of hard usage, including repairs, for example backing pieces with other fragments of papyri, used and blank. While buried, the Feriale was partially eaten by worms, creating many lacunae. However, a fairly full calendar has survived for 19 March to 5 August, with modest fragments for early January, early March and later September. Many familiar Roman celebrations are, therefore, missing, including Saturnalia and Lupercalia, which took place in December and February. But others are present, including the Quinquatria, a festival to Minerva (19 March) and the birthday of the City of Rome (21 April).

Two celebrations in January had particular significance for the army. The honourable discharge (honesta missio) was celebrated on 7 January, if one trusts the heavily reconstructed text. And on 3 January the annual oath, the sacramentum, was sworn to the emperor, and a new altar to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, ‘the best and greatest’ god, was dedicated by each unit. Consequently, the old altar, which had been used the previous year for all prescribed ritual, would be buried. To demonstrate that this did indeed take place, we may travel from Dura in Syria to the opposite end of the empire, to Maryport (Alaunum) in Cumberland, in northern Britain (see map 1). There, twenty-one altars dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus have been found buried in a series of pits 350 yards north-east of the fort, surely on the edge of the parade ground. Although some date from as late as the Severan period, sixteen altars date from the arrival at the site of the First Cohort of Spaniards (cohors I Hispanorum) in C.AD 122-5, to their departure in c.139-40. Dedications were evidently annual over a period of around fifteen years.

The core ritual was public sacrifice of cattle. Indeed, cattle alone are sacrificed in the Feriale Duranum, and the pouring of libations, offerings of wine to the deity in question, was plentiful, ensuring a regular distribution of beef and booze to the troops. However, this is not to suggest that prescribed ritual was mere artifice, any more than observing a weekly Sabbath indicates a preference for rest over worship. Furthermore, the spacing of holidays is hardly regular, demonstrating that tradition outweighed convenience. No soldier was permitted to absent himself from the ritual, nor from participating in communal elements, for example vows offered to the emperors. And the third-century Feriale demonstrates a predominant concern for the imperial cult, particularly celebration of the birthdays of deified emperors (divi). Twenty-three of forty-one extant entries concern divi (seventeen) and deified empresses (divae, six). One might detect a preference for military emperors, including Trajan, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla, plus the deified Julius Caesar and the mortal Germanicus, who were never emperors.

The ubiquity of rituals commemorating Rome’s most successful generals in the Feriale is not because we are dealing with the army, but because the vir militaris, the leader who was successful in war, was remembered most fondly by all Romans. But the imperial cult is better regarded as a series of related imperial cults, for it took distinct forms throughout the empire. Cults appear to have emerged spontaneously in the eastern provinces, where ruler cults were long established, and more frequently to have been transplanted to the western provinces from Rome. In the words of G. W. Bowersock, the imperial cult ‘provided an unparalleled guarantee of loyalty throughout a vast and varied empire, and it served to engage the more affluent and better educated provincials in the ceremonies of devotion to the ruling power’.

In addition to veneration of the divi, due honour was accorded to images of the reigning emperor and his family members, which were to be found in every camp and municipality throughout the empire. Formally, it was not the man who was worshipped but his divine quality (numen). However, there was a fine line between the veneration of the emperor’s numen and the valorization of the man. Inscriptions to the divine qualities (numina) of the emperors abound in military contexts in Britain. For example, a small slate dedication tablet ‘to the numen of the Augustus’ found near the watergate of the legionary fortress at Chester was most likely set up by a common soldier who could not afford more elaborate monuments. One who could erected a sandstone altar. Temples proliferated to facilitate the veneration of the numen of the living emperor. Among the first monuments to the Roman conquest was the erection in Colchester of a temple to the living emperor Claudius. It was here that the earliest colonists were burnt alive by Boudicca, queen of the Iceni.

The veneration of the divine qualities of the living emperor is evident as early as the reign of Augustus, when Tiberius dedicated an altar to his numen. Such veneration had proliferated to include emperors living and dead by the reign of Caligula, when, according to Suetonius, Artabanus, king of the Parthians, made peace with Rome and ‘venerated the Roman eagles and standards and images of the Caesars’. The Praetorian Guard, the imperial bodyguard based in Rome, regularly incorporated imperial portraits onto their standards. However, the cult took off in the provinces in the mid-second century and flourished into the third, promoted by the Antonine and Severan dynasties. In Britannia and Asia Minor some intriguing miniature busts of emperors have been discovered at cult sites, which might have baffled historians were it not for the fact that they can be read together. The bronze heads found at Willingham Fen in Cambridgeshire have small pegs at their bases. A rod discovered at Ephesus has two small holes in its top, for the insertion of the head of a relevant emperor, perhaps on the appropriate imperial birthday. It thus becomes a sacred sceptre. An inscription from Ephesus attests to ‘icons’ of Trajan, Plotina and Augustus being carried in processions for the Artemis cult.

Observing the rapid escalation in veneration of the emperors, the eminent classicist Arthur Darby Nock was inspired to ask himself, ‘do the emperors, at least in the third century, overshadow the gods?’ Although he believed not, he drew attention to the portrayal of gods as divine ‘companions’ (comites), affording protective companionship to emperors. The title comes, commonly employed on coins, implied equality, not subordination. Moreover, gods were at this time, as art historian Ernst Kantorowicz demonstrated in a classic study, increasingly portrayed like emperors, wearing military uniforms and carrying arms. The imitation by gods of emperors inverted the established practice of emperors being portrayed in the guise of gods.

By the age of Constantine, cults of the living emperor had stood at the heart of the state’s religious ceremonial for two centuries, albeit in diverse forms throughout the empire. Full participation in prescribed imperial cults by soldiers and civilians was essential, because divine support for the head of state was guaranteed only by correct and universal observance of ritual. Soldiers could more easily be obliged to participate, and any recalcitrance more readily punished. It is in this area that we shall dwell in the next chapter, when we meet Christians serving in the Roman army, who evince for the first time, and under pressure from certain writers, an unwillingness to swear oaths to two masters, the emperor and their god. They wish to separate politics from religion and to obey Christ’s command to ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s’ (Luke 20:25). But the loyalty of each soldier had to be beyond question, to the emperor, to the state and to his unit. To that end, the army calendar incorporated two dates of especial importance, replicating festivals enjoyed in both urban and rustic settings, but placing at the centre of the celebration the objects most revered by the army - the military standards.

The cult of the standards

On 10 May, and again on 31 May, were held the rosaliae signorum, rose festivals where the military standards, which will have played a role in all other camp rituals, themselves became the objects of veneration. It is important to note that the rosaliae did not originate in the camps, but rather were universal festivals marking the transition from spring to summer. Since the occasion called for the decking of something with roses, what could be more appropriate in a military context than the standards? This act appears to be depicted on a decorative carving found in three fragments of a pilaster discovered at Corbridge (Corstopitum), a fort at Hadrian’s Wall.

The genius, or guardian spirit, of each unit or division resided in its standard. Genii have been identified for most divisions of the army, from the entire army (exercitus) down through the legion or auxiliary unit, vexillation or specialist cohort, to the smallest constituent unit, the infantry centuria or cavalry turma. Troops appear to have venerated most fervently the genius of their century; for example, at the legionary fortress of Chester (Deva) in Britannia, numerous altars inscribed in dedication to the genii of centuries have been found. According to Roman military historian Michael Speidel, ‘by far the largest number of chapels, altars and statues are dedicated to the Genius centuriae … because the soldiers attached to their centuriae the strongest feeling of identity and belonging’. This is an observation of the utmost importance, supported as it is by an abundance of epigraphic evidence, for it goes to the heart of a very modern concern in war studies. It has frequently been observed that the modern soldier feels the greatest loyalty to his or her immediate peers and comrades in an infantry company or squadron (60-250 personnel, 2-6 platoons), a platoon or troop (25-40 personnel), and more particularly a squad (8-10). This insight, based on sociological studies of ‘primary group’ dynamics, was offered in a seminal study of German Wehrmacht morale published shortly after the Second World War by Edward A. Shils and Morris Janowitz. It was developed by Janowitz in his sociological studies of the professional soldier through the period of the Vietnam War. Where small unit or ‘primary group’ relationships were characterized by daily intimate association and co-operation, the group cohered and remained effective, even as loyalty to a higher cause was increasingly absent.^*

The Roman century would have had a nominal strength of eighty men and thus was the equivalent of a small company, at least twice as large as a modern infantry platoon. So one might posit that the Roman methods of fighting, employing larger units than are standard in modern warfare, led to variations in notions of group solidarity. Still, it is hard to dismiss the notion that men also felt close, perhaps the closest, bonds with members of their contubernium, i.e. men with whom they shared a tent or billet. While such proximity might have led to tensions that would have hindered rather than helped on the battlefield, one can imagine just as easily that competition between contubernia within the century and competition between centuriae in the cohort might lead to demonstrations of battlefield valour. The genii represented the spirit of the century and thus personified a very real common feeling.

Genii, either carved on altars or portrayed in statues, were usually shown as young, nude, beardless men holding a cornucopia and a bowl for the wine libation. These might be venerated individually, but when the unit wished to call upon its genius, it turned to its standards. The standards were housed in the aedes, a building at the centre of the camp that served both as a chapel and as a treasury. The standard-bearers (signiferi) were also charged with overseeing the unit’s coffers. Numerous inscriptions have survived recording corporate vows and offerings to the standards. Two fine examples have survived from the fortress of High Rochester (Bremenium) in Northumbria, Britain, north of Hadrian’s Wall, where an auxiliary cohort from northern Spain was stationed in the first half of the third century.

To the genius of our Lord and of the standards of the First Cohort of Vardulli and of the unit of scouts of Bremenium styled Gordianus, Egnatius Lucilianus, emperor’s Propraetorian Prefect [set up this altar] under the charge of Cassius Sabinianus, tribune. (RIB^* 1262)

This first inscribed altar was discovered where one would have hoped, within the treasury of the fortress. It is dated quite precisely by the mention of Egnatius Lucilianus, who governed Britannia Inferior from AD 238 to 241. A second altar was found in a bath house, where it appears to have been transferred after a fire, for it is heavily burnt and split in two.

To the genius and standards of the First Loyal Cohort of the Vardulli, Roman citizens, part mounted, one thousand strong, Titus Licinius Valerianus set this up. (RIB 1263)

This cannot be dated so precisely, but one might posit that the altar of c.238 took this one’s place when it was replaced according to the prescriptions of the Feriale that the altar be broken, buried and replaced each year as an act of renewal and rededication.

At the legionary fortress of Caerleon (Isca Silurum), Britannia, the following inscription was unearthed in 1800:

To the numina of the Augusti and the genius of the Second Legion Augusta in honour of the [eagle standard?]… the senior centurion gave this gift; dedicated 23 September in the consulship of Peregrinus and Aemilianus [AD 244], under the charge of Ursus, actarius [military clerk] of the same legion. (RIB 327)

The date of the dedication, 23 September 244, corresponds with that given in the Feriale as the birthday of the deified Augustus, when an ox would be sacrificed. This would have had especial significance for an Augustan legion, since it would also be the legion’s birthday, and hence that of its eagle.

These were official dedications as prescribed in the Feriale. A more personal offering can be identified by a statue base found in 1925 at Chester, in what would have been a barrack block, which is dedicated to the ‘Genius of the standard-bearers of the Twentieth Legion Valeria Victrix, Titus Flavius Valerianus gave this gift to his colleagues’. The dedicant was evidently a signifer, and the genius he venerated that of the standards he and his colleagues protected. A legionary fortress such as Chester would have housed one of the most sacred and enduring standards, the eagle standard of the legions. These were awarded at first in silver and later in gold, at the inception of the legion. Divisions and units also had standards, most commonly incorporating a flag called a vexillum. In addition, regimental emblems and images of the emperors would be carried into battle, and in the third century one might see also cruciform trophies and dragon standards.

Standards were taken into battle, as depicted on the monuments raised by the emperor Trajan in Rome and at Adamklissi (near Tomis, now in modern Romania). They transmitted the soterial power of the genii to those fighting under them. So diverse and numerous were the standards that additional, mundane functions might be served. Standards demonstrated to troops where each unit was stationed before battle, and in battle they showed that the line was being held. Narratives, for example those of Caesar, relate where soldiers fought before or behind the standards. They identified the position of unit commanders and hence facilitated the relay of battle orders. They served as points of muster for units when an order to reform was given. At all costs the standard was to be defended, for its loss generally meant the end of the unit, if one remained to be disbanded. Soldiers knew this, and thus could be motivated to follow the standards into the most treacherous conditions. Caesar records that the eagle-bearer of the tenth legion leapt into the sea off the coast of Britain, obliging his comrades to follow. Still more precariously, both Plutarch (Aemilius Paulus, 20) and Livy (34.46) record that the standards might be thrown among the enemy to spur legionaries to advance further into the mêlée. Few standards were lost, despite this practice, but most famously the general Varus lost three eagles in AD 9 when three legions were annihilated. These were recovered over the following decades and deposited in Rome’s temple of Mars Ultor, ‘the Avenger’.

Military eagles (aquilae) appear never to have been replaced, and many were heavily restored. The latest known representation of an eagle is found on the gravestone of Titus Flavius Surillio, eagle-standard-bearer (aquilifer) of the Second Legion Adiutrix (fig. 2). The carved stone, which was set up in Byzantium, the future Constantinople, in C.AD 213, shows the aquilifer holding the standard in his right hand as it rests in a cup supported by a strap suspended from his shoulder. Surillio’s eagle sits on a base atop a shaft, peering to its right with lowered wings. It is quite distinct from the regular style of raised wings and head turned forward, and this suggests that it may be the same eagle depicted on Trajan’s Column in Rome. Immediately below the eagle’s base, on the shaft of the standard, one can see the head of an indeterminate animal. Far clearer is a ram’s head at the base of the shaft, which consequently has been added to the list of legionary emblems of the Second Legion Adiutrix.

Surillio’s eagle was surely that presented to the legion upon its foundation in AD 69, and the gravestone suggests that it had acquired few accretions. In contrast, the standards of smaller divisions acquired numerous wreaths or crowns, which commemorated particular victories, as well as disks, moon sickles, images of men or animals, and even ships’ prows. We have several depictions of flag standards, vexilla, for example on the columns of Trajan (fig. 3) and Marcus Aurelius, and on the monument at Adamklissi. Third-century flag standards associated with known units can be seen in carved reliefs from Benwell (Condercum) and Corbridge in Britain, and on a bronze roundel depicting men from two British legions. The Corbridge relief which depicts the rose ceremony also shows the vexillum between two more pilasters. The standard is fairly simple, being a shaft planted in the ground. Upon the shaft, one quarter of the height to the flag, one sees a horizontal S-shaped device. The flag has a broad border on the top and sides, perhaps of embroidered brocade or embossed metal, and a narrower fringe of tassels below. Above the flag is the bottom of a disk or crescent, mostly lost, which perhaps was surmounted by a lance point. On the body of the banner one reads in two lines ‘the flag standard of the Second Augustan Legion’. The only surviving vexillum, in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, bears no such inscription. Nor does the flag standard depicted in a fresco in the Temple of Bel at Dura Europos, where a tribune named Terentius is shown performing a camp ritual (fig. 4).

The cult of the standards, therefore, was an additional element in the elaborate body of camp ritual which ensured that the Roman soldier expressed openly, regularly and ceremoniously his loyalty to the emperor, to the gods who protected the Roman state and people, and to his unit. It was held that through these common actions the Roman army, as the Roman people at war, would secure victories in war and the benefits of peace. None of the rites, however, addressed in their entirety the spiritual needs of the individual. These were met by prayers to any number of gods and by membership in various cults.

Private religious devotion and cults

The Roman was generally free to worship any and all deities according to his or her own conscience. And the first thing one must observe is that the place of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, ‘the best and greatest’, at the head of the pantheon of gods worshipped in state religio did not diminish his appeal to individuals. By far the greatest number of inscriptions, the clearest surviving evidence for patterns of private devotion, attest to the veneration of Jupiter in western parts of the empire and North Africa. A chart of fifteen cults produced by the classicist Ramsay MacMullen from analysis of the indices of catalogues of Latin inscriptions shows how all other deities paled in comparison, with Jupiter’s closest peers being his traditional companions, notably Mercury, and his sons Dionysus (Bacchus) and Heracles (Hercules). Of female gods Diana (Artemis) and Venus (Aphrodite) have fewer attested adherents than Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, but that can easily be explained by the nature of individual prayer, since good luck in any sphere could be attributed to fortune. Apollo, Mars and Silvanus were as popular overall as Asclepius and Mithras, and more so than other cults of personal salvation, including those of the Great Mother (Cybele), Isis and Serapis, and Jupiter Dolichenus (a distinct variant of ‘the best and greatest’ god, to whom we shall turn shortly).

Inscriptions provide indications of relative rather than absolute popularity. Exclusivity of worship was rare, as almost everything was held to be protected by a specific deity or genius. Shrines devoted to the veneration of ancestral spirits, Lares, who preserved families and their memories, were maintained in private households. And tens of thousands of surviving inscriptions suggest that individual worship was devoted primarily to private prayer and to the consequent fulfilment of particular vows to all manifestations of supernatural power. Men, women and children prayed for health and safety for themselves and for their families. They sought divine patronage for specific endeavours and gave an offering of thanks if the prayer was answered.

Military inscriptions have survived abundantly, revealing that men prayed to particular gods or genii with specific entreaties and requests, vowing in return to erect an altar, statue or plaque. Such prayers were frequently answered, and when the lucky recipient fulfilled his vow, he left behind a record that often reveals the nature of his prayer. Vows to gods were made to ensure that a soldier would not embarrass himself before his comrades, or allow his comrades to die or be injured, or sustain injury or die himself. Colleagues who were left behind might erect dedications to their colleagues, in fulfilment of vows for their safe return. For example, ‘the soldiers on garrison duty’ at Corbridge erected an altar ‘To Jupiter Optimus Maximus, for the welfare of the detachments of the Twentieth Legion Valeria Victrix, and of the Sixth Legion Victrix’. They also swore vows to abstract concepts, which the Romans deified and of which the most popular was fortune, the goddess Fortuna. In military contexts, concord and discipline were also venerated, since both would serve units well in battle. We find three such dedication slabs at Corbridge, including one to concord between the same legions, the Sixth Victrix and the Twentieth Valeria Victrix. More commonly, vows were to a warrior god or goddess, and of the many thousands we cite only two from Benwell, on Hadrian’s Wall, to Mars, who bears the epithets ‘preserver’ (conservator) and victor; and two inscriptions from the Rhine frontier fortress of Castellum Matiacorum (modern Mainz-Kastel in Germany), which attest to the erection of an altar in AD 224 and to the reconstruction of a temple in 236, both dedicated to the warrior goddess Bellona.

Vows were fulfilled upon returning to camp having undertaken duties and obligations; upon returning to find friends and family in safety and good health; and, ultimately, upon returning home. Those stationed far from home, and who campaigned in various lands, took few chances in spreading their prayers around, as the following inscription found at York makes plain: ‘To the African, Italian and Gallic Mother Goddesses, Marcus Minicius Audens, soldier of the Sixth Legion Victrix and a river pilot (gubernator) of the Sixth Legion, willingly, gladly and deservedly fulfilled his vow.’ This is the only dedication to the African ‘Mother Goddesses’ in Britain and was likely erected by a recruit from Africa who fought in both Gaul and Italy. Another African officer stationed far from home, at Maryport, erected an altar of red sandstone, dedicated ‘To the genius of the place, to Fortune the Home-bringer, to Eternal Rome, and to Good Fate, Gaius Cornelius Peregrinus, tribune of the cohort, decurion of his hometown of Saldae in the province Mauretania Caesariensis, gladly, willingly and deservedly fulfilled his vow.’ Devotion ‘to Fortune the Home-bringer’ suggests a desire not merely to return safely to camp, but ultimately to a native land, to settle in a veterans’ canton. In the event that one did not return home, one’s prayer to die swiftly and painlessly may have been answered, and colleagues might erect a gravestone, like that to Titus Flavius Surillio, the ‘eagle-bearer’ (aquilifer), and undertake the necessary rites to ensure passage to an afterlife.

Private prayers and the fulfilment of vows were far more significant considerations for individuals than those prescribed by the state. It is here that we approach most clearly rituals that today are considered religious, rather than rites which appear political and were intended to promote loyalty to the state and its symbols, jingoism, community spirit and unit solidarity. Again, one must avoid the temptation to separate the political from the religious, but more than singing a national anthem or pledging allegiance to a flag, these inscriptions attest that the traditional gods could attend to the spiritual needs of individuals. However, as Rome expanded, they were joined by new deities with great appeal from beyond the traditional pantheon. Most notably, cults promising personal salvation became remarkably popular in the second and third centuries AD. MacMullen attributes this, somewhat oddly, to the expense of maintaining the traditional religion. When and where the task of supplying the most splendid temples to house the gods or of staging the most splendid festivals in their honour was too great, many would turn to other deities, whose demands were less aristocratic. But this, to an extent, ignores the fact that membership of certain cults, including Christianity, offered members things that state religion did not: a sense of belonging to an elect group; the promise of health and victuals; and the certainty of eternal life.

A series of seven sarcophagi from the tomb of the Calpurnii, now housed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, provide a host of symbols associated with the worship of Dionysus, also known as Bacchus and Liber Pater. Most famous is the triumphal procession of Bacchus in a chariot pulled by two panthers (but elsewhere by leopards, tigers, centaurs or elephants), carved in C.AD 180. A slightly later sarcophagus of equal artistry depicts Victories holding a shield of valour, the clipeus virtutis, on which is a bust of Bacchus (fig. 5). In their other hands they hold slim cruciform trophies, which have been misidentified as vexilla, flag standards without flags. They are, however, clearly precursors to the Christian crucifix, symbols of victory over death, which guarantee the eternal life of the faithful, in this case devotees of Dionysus. An extremely early example of this can be seen in the so-called House of Dionysus at Paphos, Cyprus, where in a Hellenistic pebble mosaic dating from the fourth century BC a sea monster, Scylla, is depicted holding a long, thin cross. Within the same complex, far later mosaics depict the luxuries enjoyed by a prosperous merchant who was a devotee of Bacchus. One (fig. 6), dated C.AD 150-75, shows Dionysus atop his triumphal chariot, pulled by two leopards (or perhaps panthers) led by Silenus, the god of the dance of the wine-press. A satyr bearing a large jug, a krater, and wine-skins is stepping onto the chariot. Dionysus is holding a long, thin staff rather similar to Scylla’s but without the cross-bar: it is his pinecone-topped thyrsos. In the nearby House of Aion, a mosaic dating from Constantine’s reign, c.325-50, shows Dionysus’ chariot pulled by centaurs. This is the type we shall meet again later, in examining Constantine’s Great Cameo (see p. 217), which is entirely contemporary with it. Its message is quite different to that of its second-century neighbour. No longer the god of wine and excess, Dionysus is virtuous, the world’s saviour, offering his initiates secret knowledge of immortality and rebirth. Where his chariot rolls grow flowers, and he is attended not by a wine-bearing satyr but by a girl carrying a liknon, a basket bearing the secret of rebirth, a phallus (fig. 7).

Many cults offered a vision of paradise after death, but those that offered specific earthly benefits, like Dionysus’, grew most rapidly. Of some popularity was the cult of Asclepius, to whom healing shrines and temples were dedicated throughout the Mediterranean world. Once a man and now a god, Asclepius was worshipped as both healer and saviour, a channel between divinity and humanity, as a prayer reveals:

Asclepius, child of Apollo, these words come from your devoted servant. Blessed one, god for whom I yearn, how shall I enter your golden house unless your heart incline towards me and you will heal me and restore me to your shrine again, so that I may look on my god, who is brighter than the earth in springtime? Divine blessed one, you alone have power. With your loving kindness you are a great gift from the supreme gods to mankind, a refuge from trouble.

The sacred stories of Aelius Aristides, written in the AD 140s, praise Asclepius for healing his toothache, earache, asthma and fever, all suffered by the author before he visited the god’s sanctuary at Pergamon (modern Bergama in Turkey). The cult of Asclepius remained popular even after Constantine’s reign, when the healing miracles of scripture saw Christ enter into direct competition with Asclepius. Indeed, in early Christian art Christ is portrayed most commonly in miracle scenes, and where Asclepius carried his staff wrapped with a snake, Christ is commonly shown holding a magician’s wand.

Cybele was venerated in the state calendar each year, on 4 April, when patricians held banquets to mark the day of her arrival in Rome. This became the start of a week-long festival aimed at the plebeians, the Megalesia, during which plays (including four of those extant by Terence) were performed, and later chariot races were held. From before her arrival in Rome, the goddess had been tended by priests, called Galli, who were self-castrates, given to drenching themselves in perfumes and sporting extravagant wigs and colourful robes. The Galli and their ecstatic rites, involving a procession with flutes and drums, made Cybele somewhat peripheral to regular Roman state religio. Only Phrygians were allowed to become priests and take part in the Megalesian procession. Nevertheless, additional rituals later adhered to the cult, including the day of blood on 24 May, when worshippers were washed in blood. The following day, 25 May, marked the rebirth of Attis, Cybele’s castrated consort, three days after his demise. This was also the day that Christians had taken as the date of Christ’s death. Death, blood sacrifice and resurrection emerged at the core of the worship of the Great Mother in the first centuries AD, which made it particularly distasteful to Christians. St Jerome changed her title from Mother of the Gods (mater deorum) to Mother of Demons (mater daemoniorum). She was also equated with the whore of Babylon (Revelation 17:3-6), ‘the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus’.

Cybele was quite markedly a civilian goddess, and both relative to other cults and absolutely on the basis of her own adherents, she appealed to women. Inscriptions attesting vows to her come from the interior lands of the empire, not from the frontiers. Where she was worshipped in army camps, it was as Bellona. Cybele featured on the coins of the emperor Antoninus Pius (AD 138-61), and it is late in his reign that we first hear of the taurobolium, a ritual which was carried out by others for the benefit of the emperor, apparently another accretion to the imperial cults. In this rite, a bull was slaughtered on a platform, below which initiates would lie, to be baptized by its blood. That at least is according to the lurid description, probably reflecting a Christian disgust for and pastiche of the practice, provided by Prudentius in his Crowns of the Martyrs. It is possible that the first performance of the rite was merely the regular sacrifice of oxen prescribed in the religious calendar (feriale).

The popularity of Cybele cleared the path to Rome for a still more powerful goddess, Isis, who arrived from Egypt claiming to be the supreme divinity, head of the whole pantheon. Designated the consort of Serapis by Manetho and Timotheus, two men charged in c.300 BC by Ptolemy I with establishing a hierarchy for the multitude of Egyptian gods, she swiftly reigned supreme. Supreme was not, of course, unique, for the Ptolemies practised not monotheism but henotheism, the belief in a greatest god, who surpassed in power all other deities. Isis’ arrival in Rome was not uneventful, for she did not, like Cybele, bring in her wake a longed-for victory. The senate banned her worship in 58 BC, and both Augustus and Tiberius considered the cult incompatible with traditional beliefs, seeing to the destruction of altars and temples and to the crucifixion of some priests. But a festival to Isis was granted by Caligula (d. AD 41), who took part in her mysteries, and thereafter she remained a fixture in Rome.

Isis gave birth to her son Horus without prior intercourse, and thus she was an archetype for the virgin mother. Her greater appeal, like that of Cybele and Dionysus, was to promise triumph over death to her followers. Just as she had resurrected her twin brother Osiris to dwell eternally with her, so she might offer that reward to her devotees. In the later second century, a famous hymn to Isis was offered in the only Roman novel to survive in its entirety, Apuleius’ The Golden Ass. The novel’s hero, Lucius, has a rare bond with the goddess, who visits him in his dreams (as Christ will later visit Constantine, more than once). Entering the priesthood of Isis, Lucius undergoes an initiation, during which time he suffers a ritual death, a vision and its illumination. He emerges to set himself on a platform before the people, at one with the goddess. This rare literary record of a Roman’s conversion has a great deal in common with the story of Constantine’s epiphany, as we shall see in later chapters.

Isis proved to be rather popular in Italy, and MacMullen advances the notion that here adherents of Isis were predominantly slaves and freedmen from the east. This cannot be proven and seems rather similar to outdated explanations for the rise of Christianity, which held that it was most popular among the poor and downtrodden, to whom its message would most appeal and who had most to gain in the next world. Lucius’ particular bond with the goddess notwithstanding, Isis, like Cybele, appealed especially to women. Since women did not so frequently inscribe their names and vows on stone, the extent to which Isis was venerated may be under-represented in the historical record. Moreover, soldiers, who inscribed more than most, do not feature much in Isiac lists. Only two temples to Isis have been found in military contexts in the west. This does not hold for the east, but the presence of soldiers in or near towns and cities with temples to Isis is a likely explanation for this. Nevertheless, according to the relative survivals of inscriptions, worship of Isis reached a peak under the soldier emperors Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla, in the first third of the third century AD. This peak may, in fact, merely represent the height of the habit of inscribing, as it was exactly contemporary with the epigraphic apogee of the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus (Jupiter of Doliche).

The earliest inscription attesting to the presence of the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus is from Lambaestis in Africa, dating from AD 125-6. The cult of Jupiter Dolichenus first appears in the west in the later 120s, attaining a peak of popularity around 200 and fading after the death of Septimius Severus. In that one hundred years there are enough inscriptions to earn the cult a place in MacMullen’s league table of fifteen, which covers a far longer period. Almost all are associated with the army. The cult was relatively unpopular to the east of its point of origin, Doliche (modern Dülük in Turkey). Recently, however, a fine relief of the god standing atop a bull, his familiar pose, within a temple dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus has been uncovered at Balaklava, near Sebastopol (modern Ukraine). A magnificent bronze from Mauer-an-der-Url, in the province of Noricum, similarly depicts Jupiter standing on the back of a bull. The god holds in his lowered right hand a thunderbolt and in his raised left hand a double-headed axe (although the axe-head is lost). He sports a Phrygian cap, but also an imperial cuirass and a sword with an eagle-headed hilt, suggesting an instance of imitatio imperatorum that was so popular in the third century.

Since no literature pertaining to the rites of Jupiter Dolichenus has survived, interpretation must dwell on such imagery, as well as on some important reliefs discovered at Rome and Corbridge, the fort on Hadrian’s Wall. Both of these show an image of the sun, a god with a solar crown. He is paired on one relief with the moon, a goddess, suggesting their centrality to the cult’s doctrines. The Roman inscription was set up by a priest of Jupiter Dolichenus, one Marcus Ulpius Chresimus, ‘to the Unconquered Sun for the salvation of the emperors and to the genius of their [unit of bodyguards]’. It seems likely that Ulpius was a member of that unit, as well as a priest in the cult.

An association of Sol Invictus with Jupiter Dolichenus appears to be confirmed by the discovery at Corbridge of the first known dedication by a provincial army unit to the Unconquered Sun, set up in AD 162-8.

To the Invincible Sun, a detachment of the Sixth Legion Victrix Pia Fidelis set this up under the charge of Sextus Calpurnius Agricola, the emperor’s propraetorian prefect. (RIB 1137)

At Corbridge one finds also an altar dedicated ‘To eternal Jupiter Dolichenus and to Caelestis Brigantia and to Salus, Gaius Julius Apolinaris, centurion of the Sixth Legion, at the command of god [set this up]’. Thus, the oriental god was set beside a very local goddess, of the Brigantes, who dominated what is now Yorkshire.

That the cult was well established among soldiers in Britannia by the mid-second century is demonstrated not only at Corbridge but at many other sites, including Caerleon, where a sandstone altar (now lost) was found in 1653. It was dedicated: ‘To Jupiter Best and Greatest, of Doliche … Fronto Aemilianus … Calpurnius … Rufilianus, legate of the emperors [set this up] at the bidding [of ?].’ Continued interest in the cult is attested by part of a dedication slab found in 1811 in the river Ribble at Ribchester, which can be dated quite certainly to AD 225-35. Here a temple had been dedicated by legionary centurion Titus Floridius Natalis ‘according to the reply (ex responsu) of the god’ Jupiter Dolichenus. However, shortly afterwards, one finds systematic destruction of temples along the Rhine and Danube frontiers, apparently instigated by the emperor Maximinus Thrax (AD 235-8). The cult may have been fairly wealthy - finds of bronze and silver support this - and perhaps the emperor was hoping to fill his coffers. This may not have been a wise policy, as Maximinus died at the hands of his own troops shortly afterwards.

A particular feature of the cult, surely associated with its popularity with the army, was an attachment to cultic standards. Impressions of some of these suggest close parallels with military standards, although others end in a crescent, perhaps alluding to the moon goddess. Standards are portrayed on four of the six bronze votive tablets dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus that have been discovered at sites bordering the Danube. These tablets are all triangular, resembling a spear tip, and two indeed have sockets welded to the bottom which would have been attached to rods, perhaps to be carried during rites alongside the standards they depict.

The mysteries of Mithras

Only slightly more is known about the rites of the greatest military cult, that of Mithras, alternatively Mithra, which reached the peak of its popularity in the later second to early third century. The cult offered personal salvation to its initiates, who proceeded to that goal through seven grades, each a new level of understanding. These levels represented the seven planetary spheres, through which one passed to reach the door to the eighth sphere, where Mithras dwelt in his solar invincibility. Born on 25 December, according to some accounts from a virgin (but in others sprung from a rock, a tree or an egg), Mithras was the intermediary between the god of light and the god of darkness. He slaughtered the first-born, a bull, from whose blood living creatures were created and wherein lay their salvation. Having defended mankind against evil, Mithras ascended to heaven in a solar chariot, not unlike Elijah’s chariot of fire (2 Kings 2:11). He became one with the Sun, as deus Sol invictus Mithras, ‘the God, the Unconquered Sun, Mithras’, or perhaps better, ‘the Unconquered Sun God Mithras’. The notion of a god descending to save mankind and ascending to rejoin the godhead is common with Christianity, of course, but the tension between descent and ascent are omnipresent in Mithraic art. Mithras’ solar chariot ascends, pulled by four horses, while its pair, the moon’s chariot, descends yoked to two. These are evidently akin to motifs employed by those who worshipped Jupiter Dolichenus.

The principal iconography of Mithraism is a scene of sacrifice and redemption, the iconological equivalent of the crucifixion in later Christian churches. It is widely known from archaeological excavations, and one might cite as examples the relief discovered during excavations of the temple of Mithras, a Mithraeum, at Walbrook in the City of London, now displayed in the Museum of London, or the sculpture now in the Vatican Pio Clementine Museum (fig. 8). Here, in a scene called the tauroctony (‘bull-slaying’), Mithras is shown cutting the bull’s throat so that the blood may flow onto the earth. Mithras looks away from the bull, his eyes gazing towards the heavens. Many other elements are omnipresent, others only frequently or occasionally visible. The sun and moon usually appear, and one must imagine that the Vatican Pio Clementine Museum sculpture was displayed before a relief or fresco showing them. Other symbols represent stellar constellations. The snake represents Hydra, the dog Canis Minor, the crab Cancer. One might also expect to see a lion representing the constellation Leo, and the twins Gemini, and a raven for Corvus. The tauroctony displayed in every Mithraeum was, therefore, a view of the heavens, extending from Taurus, the bull, in the west, usually to Scorpio in the east. It is unlikely that the sacrifice of a bull actually took place within the Mithraeum. It was simply too small and was underground. One cannot easily imagine initiates coaxing a bull into a tunnel at night, still less holding it still for sacrifice. More certain to have taken place is the common meal, the second iconographical scene universally displayed in Mithraea: a banquet of initiates feasting and servants (or the lower-ranked?) wearing animal masks waiting on them. Equivalent to the Christian Eucharist, this was where initiates drank sacrificial wine, symbolizing blood, and ate together of the flesh. Benches on which initiates reclined have been excavated.

The cult of Mithras was open only to men, and it had many civilian adherents. About one third of those who inscribed vows to Mithras did so in Italy, with almost half of them in Rome itself and many at Rome’s port of Ostia, where fifteen separate small Mithraea have been excavated. But as the cult spread, it appealed particularly to soldiers. The cultic hierarchy reflected that of the army, and one proceeded through the ranks by undergoing real and symbolic feats of endurance, some involving heat and cold, perhaps including branding (or the threat of it) with white-hot steel, another the rejection of a crown at sword-point (to which we shall return in the following chapter, with Tertullian’s account). One can imagine a rite where the initiate expects to be run through with a sword and submits to this, finding himself blindfold and apparently transfixed. Thus we might explain a trick sword discovered in a German Mithraeum, which comprised a hilt and blade tip, joined by a large metal loop designed to fit around the upper body.

Mithraea were found throughout the empire in the vicinity of military camps, for example at Prutting, south-east of Munich near the river Inn, at the German border with Austria, which continued in use until the end of the fourth century. We find another at Dura Europos in Syria, base of the Twentieth Palmyrene Cohort. Britain, as a heavily militarized part of the empire, provides copious evidence for Mithraism. In the bath building outside the legionary fortress of Caerleon was found an inscription: ‘To the invincible Mithras, the well-deserving […]s Iustus […] of the Second Legion Augusta, set this up.’ We know that the same cavalry unit of Vardulli that honoured the genius of their standards erected a temple to Mithras at High Rochester, for which we have the dedication slab:

Sacred to the invincible god, the sun and companion, for the welfare and safety of the emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius Felix Augustus: Lucius Caecilius Optatus, tribune of the first cohort of Vardulli, with his fellow devotees [erected this building], vowed to the god, built from the ground. (RIB 1272)

The same tribune was responsible for a dedication in AD 213 to the Celtic bear god Matunus, for the welfare of the emperor Caracalla, found seven miles from High Rochester. Evidently, devotion to Mithras need not be exclusive, and indeed one suspects that many initiates were also adherents of Jupiter Dolichenus.

The absence of a Mithraeum does not demonstrate absence of worshippers of Mithras. It is known that adherents were satisfied worshipping their god in the temples of others, for example those of Hermes, Dionysus and Isis. Until recently, there was an absence of evidence for the worship of Mithras in the vast province of Egypt. But now we have a lacunose text on papyrus which appears to be a catechism for new initiates to Mithraism. The editor of the papyrus, Brashear, identifies the text largely on the basis of the term ‘little lion’, known elsewhere only from a Latin inscription which employs the term to designate a junior grade in the Mithraic hierarchy. Other words and phrases thus fall into place, such as ‘father’, and ‘night … you are called … becoming fiery … in a trench … being girdled … death … very sharp … hot and cold’. Mithraic rites are known to have been nocturnal and subterranean, and these terms all suggest an initiation ritual.

The papyrus, which dates from the fourth century AD, preserves fragments of a conversation in question-and-answer form, although not a single complete pair of question and answer survives. It is a theoretical dialogue to take place according to prescription, between a highly ranked initiate and an initiand. The papyrus was found at Hermupolis (Damanhur), just outside Alexandria, most likely during excavations in 1906, and is now in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Sources for a Roman army presence at Hermupolis begin to turn up only in the mid-fourth century, just as Mithraism was on the decline elsewhere. Moreover, since the text is written in Greek not Latin, it is clearly not a product of the military establishment. Perhaps, therefore, it was an ad hoc local production translated from a Latin version, which may have been introduced slightly earlier by the army. Little more can be said, except that Constantine, brought up in army camps, was perhaps an initiate of the mysteries of Mithras.