as for the past. And in fact we know that according to the eschatological teaching of Zoroastrianism the ultimate triumph of Ahura-Mazda over Ahriman will be heralded by the reappearance of the divine Bull, followed by the descent of Mithras to the earth and the resurrection of the dead. Once more the bull will be sacrificed, and the worshippers of Mithras will partake of a sacrament the enjoyment of which will secure to them endless bliss, whilst the enemies of Ahura-Mazda will be consumed in the final conflagration. We cannot doubt that some such doctrine as this was recalled to the mind of the Mithraist when he looked upon the familiar scene; and the well-known rite of the Taurobolium,' belonging properly to the cult of the Great Mother of Hither Asia, but adopted by Mithraism when this divinity was identified with the Persian Anahita,t easily found a place in the same order of ideas, and conferred upon those who submitted to its baptism of blood the coveted re-birth to eternal life.'

·

Of the moral injunctions laid upon the Mithraist we know but little, except in so far as we may use the evidence of Zoroastrian writings. In the religion of ancient Persia Mithras was the guardian of truth, purity and justice; and these virtues were doubtless enjoined by the commandments of Mithras' of which Julian speaks. Ceremonial ablutions and ascetic practices are ascribed to the Mithraists both by Christian and pagan writers; but they were common features of the group of religions to which Mithraism belonged. What gave it a power of its own and contributed largely to its success was the conception of morality as a conflict, derived from the Zoroastrian dualism. The contemplative might indeed find that which his soul desired in the glorious vision of future union with the Godhead held before his eyes in the mysteries; but, even in an

Loisy (op. cit.) believes that the sacrifice of the bull was offered in the sanctuaries of Mithras with its original intention, i.e. as a rite for the promotion of fertility; and also that, as primitive man conceived of the animal as embodying the God, the act of Mithras was in some sort a self-sacrifice, which would account for the pathetic expression he wears in the more artistic reliefs. These are somewhat doubtful conjectures.

This at least is the opinion of Cumont, which carries great weight; and there is certainly no direct evidence that the 'taurobolium' originally belonged to Mithraism.

·

age of other-worldliness,' a religion which makes its appeal to the contemplative alone cannot become a conquering force. The soldiery of Mithras was recruited from the world's workers and fighters, who were inspired by the lofty conception of a struggle between Light and Darkness in which they were led to victory by Mithras the Unconquered,' and played their part in securing the final triumph of Good. Small wonder that Mithraism was pre-eminently the creed of the soldier, and that its monuments are found wherever the legions pitched their camp. It must have needed little to convince the Roman soldier at his frontier post on the Rhine or in Northern Britain that his constant warfare with the barbarian was but a phase of a more tremendous conflict. Few indeed were the breasts in which the Stoic ideals could kindle such a fervour as that which breathes in the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, as compared with the multitudes whom the bracing doctrines of Mithraism nerved for their daily warfare with the power of evil.

We have now seen how the religion of Mithras, by means of its sacramental mysticism, its speculative theology and its moral code, made its triple appeal to the emotions, the intellect and the consciences of men. One thing it yet lacked in order to attain the rank of a universal religion-the support of a powerful State. It has already been shown how the doctrine of the Hrareno lent itself to the purposes of legitimate monarchy. A fresh illustration of this feature of Mithraism has been recently furnished by the researches of Rostowzew in connexion with the archæological material found in Southern Russia.* We find in the East a type of Mithras unknown on Western monuments -the horseman whose steed tramples beneath its feet a prostrate foe. † Rostowzew has shown that the gold and silver ornaments found in such profusion in the tumuli of Southern Russia ‡ furnish evidence that this

* Представленіе о монархической власти въ Скиѳіп и на Боспорѣ, St Petersburg, 1913. A summary of these researches was read by Prof. Rostowzew to the International Historical Congress in London.

A unique coin of Trapezus (Trebizond) shows Mithras on horseback between Cautes and Cautopates (pl. III, 2), and establishes the identity of the God, who was formerly thought to be Mên, on such coins as those shown on pl. III, 3, 4.

See Mr E. H. Minns' 'Scythians and Greeks.' Cambridge, 1913.

divinity was regarded as the protector of the Scythian princes who ruled in this half-Greek, half-Iranian region. The barrow of Karagodeuashch in the Northern Caucasus contained a silver rhyton or drinking-horn (pl. III, 1) adorned with the figures of two horsemen in Scythian costume trampling upon prostrate enemies. The one uplifts his hand in the gesture of adoration; the other -the God-holds the sceptre and drinking-horn, the symbols of kingly power. An almost identical subject occurs on Persian rock-sculptures, representing the investiture of Sassanid Kings with the insignia of sovereignty. The date of the interment is perhaps as early as the third century B.C.; and it can be shown that, as time went on, the influence of Iranian ideas of kingship grew stronger, transforming the Greek βασιλεύς οι τύραννος of the Cimmerian Bosphorus into an orientalised monarch ruling by the grace of his God.

A time was to come when the Roman Emperors would claim a like position as vicegerents on earth of the Unconquered Sun-god; but the progress of Mithraism in the West was at first slow. In the Greek world it made few converts. Even in later days a fastidious rationalist like Lucian would sneer at the God who could not even talk Greek'; and scarcely a monument of his cult has been found in purely Greek lands. Hellas formed a barrier between East and West which Mithras only crossed when the establishment of a cosmopolitan empire brought an influx of Oriental slaves, soldiers and traders to Rome and the West. Plutarch tells us that Mithraism was introduced into Rome by the Cilician pirates made captive by Pompey; but, if this be true, it remained for more than a century a sect as obscure and despised as the primitive Christian community. The monuments, in fact, tell no uncertain tale. The earliest dated inscription from Rome was set up by a freedman of the Flavian house; next comes a sculptured group of Mithras the Bull-slayer, now in the British Museum, dedicated by a slave of one of Trajan's prætorian prefects. In the second century, when the Syrian Orontes poured its waters into the Tiber,' the spread of Mithras-worship in Rome and the West was rapid. Legions and 'auxiliary' regiments recruited in Pontus and Cappadocia,