The Mithraeum of Santa Prisca in Rome is of great importance to Mithraic studies because it contains striking wall paintings, with text against the images. The scenes depict a procession of the seven grades of initiate, and other interesting items. Among the verses is a statement that “you have saved us after the shedding of the eternal blood”, which has attracted attention. The mithraeum will be open to visitors at 4pm on Sunday 24th August, and I intend to be in Rome and go and see it. Apparently it stands on the Aventine Hill, just south of the Circus Maximus.
This week I have been collecting the literature about the place. I have visited Cambridge University Library and stood over their photocopiers, not once but twice!
One item gave me especial difficulty: Krautheimer’s Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae. This contains an English-language article on the church of Santa Prisca, and a fine piece of work it is too. But, quite unnecessarily, the series has been printed in double-size volumes, nearly impossible to handle or photocopy. Each page requires an A3 photocopy; although, thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I was able to photocopy it down onto A4. It’s worth being aware of this series, if you want solid scholarly material, oriented on primary data and with copious bibliography, on the churches of Rome.
The church stands 3 metres above ground level, because it stands atop a platform of Roman brick walls and arches. This is, in fact, the basement level of a Roman house of imposing dimensions, dated by brick stamps to 95 AD. It was possibly the private house of Trajan, but perhaps more likely that of his close friend L. Licinius Sura, whose baths stand immediately to the north of the church (as a fragment of the ancient map of Rome shows) and whose house was adjacent to this. The mithraeum was erected ca. 190 AD in one of the cellars, and destroyed some time at the end of the 4th century (supposedly – it is hard to know exactly when).
I was going to photocopy the archaeological report also, which runs to 520+ pages, with more than a 100 plates, until I realised that this would cost me around $80! Fortunately an interlibrary loan is promised, and my little scanner at home will do the deed.
One reason why I read Krautheimer was that I wanted to know about supposed Christian archaeology in the area. There is a tremendous amount of false information on this point in circulation. Web-pages confidently assert that an early Christian church was also based in the cellars! Others say that a small building next door was “church-like”. All these claims go unreferenced, of course. Apparently the excavation report has a couple of pages making some claim of this sort, but I don’t know on what basis. One writer, in a review of the archaeological report in 1965, went so far as to say:
Why, as stated by the authors, is the same physical proximity between Christians and devotees of Mithras found under San Clemente and at least once in Ostia? How or why did they live side by side rather peacefully for nearly 150 years? Are the similarities between the two cults in the early third century strong enough to postulate that the masculine worshipers of Mithras someway encouraged the female members of their families to attend the neighboring Christian mysteries? These questions might be partially answered if further excavations could be carried out under Santa Prisca
This perhaps tells us rather more about the cultural assumptions of an American man in the 1960’s, that churchgoing was “womens’ stuff”, than anything about the history of the site or the cult of Mithras. Here, as ever, Mithraic studies is bedevilled by too much sheer imagination.
Krautheimer makes clear that there is pretty much no evidence of any Christian activity on the site before the erection of the church in the 5th century in the ruins of the house. The construction of churches in Rome in this period is related to the devastation caused by the Goth and Vandal sacking of Rome, making use of high-status locations now conveniently vacant. Perhaps the house of Sura was one such? An oratory in the garden was discovered in the 18th century, with depictions of apostles, and dated by the finders to the 4th century; but this has since been demolished, and Krautheimer makes the point that frescos of the apostles are generally a medieval decorative feature. The first literary reference is in a synod of 499 AD, to a single priest of the church – suggesting that it was a small and unimportant one. And that seems to be all the data. If there is more data, I have yet to see it.
I must say that I am unimpressed by the scholarly articles, on the whole. Not that I can complain – at least the excavations were published! But there is a vagueness about them, which is quite infuriating, when you want specifics.
What I did was go and find the reports of the original discovery in the 1930’s. These, thankfully, have diagrams that make it MUCH clearer what is where!
It will be interesting to see what can be seen on the ground!
