This book is the result of the doctoral studies of Roy finished under the supervision of Bricault at the University of Toulouse II Jean Jaurès. The monumental book was published almost concomitantly with the official opening of the Mithras Project, which produced one of the most significant museum exhibitions focusing exclusively on the Roman cult of Mithras. The exhibition was opened in November 2021 in the Musée royal de Mariemont, Belgium, and will continue as an itinerary exhibition in two other sites, the Musée Saint Raymond in Toulouse and the Archaeological Museum of Frankfurt, until November 2023.
The book comes at a time when a new Renaissance of so-called ‘Mithraic studies’ has produced, in the last decade, numerous, often paradigmatic studies and monographs on one of the most researched cults of the Roman Empire. Recent works have focused on the reinterpretation of the Mithraic visual narrative and iconography (C. Faraone, JRS 103 [2013]; P. Adrych et al., Images of Mithra [2017]), the inner structure of sanctuaries (L. Dirven, RRE 1 [2015]), the origins of the cult (A. Mastrocinque, The Mysteries of Mithras [2017]), on the cognitive aspects of religious communication (O. Panagiotidou and R. Beck, The Roman Mithras Cult [2017]), on the archaeology of the mithraea (M. Egri and M. McCarty [edd.], The Archaeology of Mithraism [2020]) and the late antique history of the cult (D. Walsh, The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity [2018]).
In this new, historiographic abundancy Bricault and Roy's volume represents another general synthesis, the most detailed one in French since the works of R. Turcan. The first, introductory part of the volume is a historiographical summary of Mithraic studies: it presents a short history of research from sixteenth-century Renaissance Italy to the latest, twenty-first-century currents. Instead of focusing on the last three decades of research – which have produced numerous paradigmatic studies since D. Ulansey's work (D. Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries [1991]) – Bricault and Roy reproduce some of the well-known historiographical details mentioned in the works of R. Gordon, R. Beck and others (R. Gordon, JMS 1 [1976]; R. Beck, ANRW 17/4 [1984]; N. Belayche and A. Mastrocinque [edd.], Reédition critique à Franz Cumont, Les Mystéres à Mithra [2013]). This deficiency is well balanced by the rich and contemporary literature used by the two authors in the chapters. The abundancy of primary (ancient literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence) and secondary sources (contemporary bibliography) used by the authors shows a classical, almost positivist approach and offers the richest and up-to date collection of sources in French literature.
The book presents five major topics (the Mithras myth; the Mithraeum; the actors/believers; the rites; Mithras in the polytheistic system), which reflects an important methodological innovation in the study of Roman religion. While most books focusing on individual divine agents (gods, genii, divine heroes) follow a classical, chronological and historical approach, Bricault and Roy use a post-structuralist approach, popular in contemporary religious studies and promoted especially by the Lived Ancient Religion project and the school of Erfurt (J. Rüpke and G. Woolf [edd.], Religion in the Roman Empire [2021]). The chapters reflect the major facets of religious communication: the central (visual) narrative, the sacralised space, the human and divine agents participating in the religious dialogue and their ritual manifestations. These elements of religious communication are exemplified by 142 case studies, some of them with several different textual, epigraphic and archaeological sources (550 in total). Although this collection of primary sources cannot replace a painfully missing, new catalogue of all Mithraic finds discovered after M.J. Vermaseren's catalogue, it reflects the current state of research and includes numerous new finds and their interpretation.
Each case study analysed follows a classical, descriptive analysis with few interpretative elements. The case studies are connected by a rich cross-referencing system, although this is often confusing for readers. Each case study is followed by an individualised bibliography and often illustrated with good quality, sometimes new, photos, which are very useful, especially in the case of objects published after Vermaseren. The large number of case studies (142), presented on 2–3 pages each, makes the book a hard read, often leaving the reader in confusion, especially those not initiated in the historiography of Mithraic studies. This confusing aspect can be illustrated with the first chapter. Without presenting a summary of the Mithraic central iconography, the authors present all the iconographic motifs of the Mithraic visual narrative with individual case studies. The examples illustrating the major topics are accidentally following each other, not even pretending to reconstruct a central myth as F. Cumont and many others did after him, creating modern metahistories of ‘Mithraism’. In this sense, the authors follow the eye of the modern viewer: for those not initiated in ancient religious knowledge, the elements of the visual narrative remain a rich and confusing source of historiographical reinterpretations. Bricault and Roy also discuss unusual or less known case studies, such as the ‘non-canonical’ reliefs and miniature Mithraic objects.
Discussing the mithraeum, the sacralised spaces of religious communication, Bricault and Roy deconstruct the space too and present separately the major constitutive elements of a sanctuary. Important aspects, such as founders and charismatic religious leaders of Mithraic communities, topography of sanctuaries, urban and rural examples, the ancient denominations of the sacralised space (μιθραίον, templa, spelea, aedes, sacraria), the temenos of a mithraeum, the inner decorative elements (frescoes, mosaics, statues, opus sectile), the light-effects and sensual impact and the role of religious individuation in the cult are emphasised and exemplified. The book also presents a few examples on the social pluralism of the Mithraic groups in urban contexts, focusing on the late-Roman aristocratic elite from Rome or the variety and cosmopolitism of Mithraic groups from Apulum, Virunum and Dura Europos. Throughout the book, the authors elegantly combine the archaeological, epigraphic and literary sources with rich photographic material. Primary sources of the grades of initiation are also presented in detail, often with the latest results and finds. In this case, again, for uninitiated readers it is hard to understand the role and complexity of mystery cults and their grades in Mithraic context. The large number of case studies presented does not allow the authors to analyse some of the most interesting cases in detail. For example, in the chapter discussing the cult of Mithras in the polytheistic system, Bricault and Roy present a rare, if not unique inscription from the Dolichenum of Dura Europos (cat. nr. 116). On the inscription, a Roman soldier of the XVI Flavia Firma Antoniniana legion mentions Zeus Hélios Mithra and Tourmasgadés (Turmasgades) in the same context. This unique, religious appropriation reflects not only the religious individuation of the solider, but also the close interaction of these small group religions in an urban context. Such case studies need a much more detailed analysis. The book ends with a chapter focusing on the end of the Mithraic cult and the archaeological evidence, a table of concordances for the epigraphic sources, a list of ancient literary sources and authors, a list of figures, a selected bibliography and a general index.
The monumental volume, richly illustrated with photographs, plans and a few maps is undoubtedly the best French synthesis on the cult of Mithras. It also serves as the most updated work on the cult, collecting almost all the relevant bibliography on the subject. Due to the large number of case studies and topics presented, it also serves as a starting point for researchers and the public; however, its confusing abundancy and deconstructivism in content makes it a difficult read for those who are not familiar with the two-century long historiography of Mithraic studies. The volume cannot serve as a new catalogue or supplement of Vermaseren's half-a-century-old work, neither as a new history of the cult of Mithras nor a contextualised part of Roman religion in the Roman Empire, but a good and rich kaleidoscope of primary sources, which reflects the often confusing variety of religious appropriations in the ancient polytheistic systems of religion.
