The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

PERSIA. 149
civilization escaped his influence and he theirs.^ 1 Mith-
raism passed directly from Asia into the Latin world.
from the
There it spread with lightning rapidity
time it was first introduced. When the progressive
march of the Romans toward the Euphrates enabled
them to investigate the sacred trust transmitted by
Persia to the magi of Asia Minor, and when they
became acquainted with the Mazdean beliefs which
had matured in the seclusion of the Anatolian moun
tains, they adopted them with enthusiasm. The Per
sian cult was spread by the soldiers along
length
the entire
of the frontiers towards the end of the first
century and left numerous traces around the camps
of the Danube and the Rhine, near the stations along
the wall of Britain, and in the vicinity of the army
posts scattered along the borders of the Sahara or in
the valleys of the Asturias. At the same time the
Asiatic merchants introduced it in the ports of the
Mediterranean, along the great waterways and roads,
and in all commercial cities. It also possessed mis
sionaries in the Oriental slaves who were to be found
everywhere, engaging in every pursuit, employed in
the public service as well as in domestic work, in the
cultivation of land as well as in financial and mining
enterprises, and above all in the imperial service, where
they filled the offices.
Soon this foreign god gained the favor of high
functionaries and of the sovereign himself. At the
end of the second century Commodus was initiated
into the mysteries, a conversion that had a tremendous
effect. A hundred years later Mithra s power was
such that at one time he seemed about to eclipse both
Oriental and Occidental rivals and to dominate the