Heavy Traffic: Mithras as Commodity

Alison Futrell

This paper is meant to examine the perception of Mithraism as basically foreign to the Roman West, a sophisticated import transferred in toto from one society to another. The argument for such a transferal is examined and rejected. Instead, Mithraism should be understood as an "Orientalizing" cult, native to Rome, and functioning in a way analogous to the evocatio ritual better known from the Republican period. When "The East," or "Persia," became the only serious challenge to Roman might, Rome adopted a Persian god to support her cause, creating a religion solidly founded in the traditions of Graeco-Roman mystery cults.

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