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• Mithras, Neoplatonism and the stars

  161–180

  Dan-Tudor Ionescu

  Views:

  603

  The main ideas of this study (which is a continuation of my former article entitled “Mithras, Sol Invictus, and the Astral Philosophical Connections”) are the following: I. The dichotomy and differences between the two main groups of theories regarding the origins of the Roman mystery cult of Mithras, namely the school of the great Belgian scholar Franz Cumont, who considered Mithraism in the Roman world as an essentially Iranian cult adapted to the new cultural Hellenistic-Roman context, and the theory of the 19th century German scholar K. B. Stark (revived in the 1970s by academics like R. Beck, J. R. Hinnells, S. Insler, R. Gordon, and A. Bausani, who considered that the Roman cult of the solar god Mithras was a new mystery cult which was born in the Roman world because of the Hellenistic scientific discovery of the precession of the equinoxes.1 My conclusion is that the Roman cult of Mithras, fused with the cult of Sol Invictus (the Hellenistic-Roman cult of the Unvanquished Sun), has more things Iranian than the name of the central deity of this initiation-mystery cult (despite its undeniable Hellenistic-Roman and astrological-astronomical elements). II. The astral element as a potent religious component of the religious and philosophical mentality of the so-called “mystery religious and initiation cults” in the Roman Empire is seen in Roman Mithraism as a ladder for the journey of the soul through the astral spheres towards perfection or possibly towards liberation (these are modern interpretations, since we do not have any consistent Mithraic religious-liturgical text). III. The role of Neo-Platonist philosophy in the religious and philosophical landscape of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE of the Late Roman Empire and its possible relationship with the Roman cult of Mithras.

• Minitrae Et Numini Eius. A Celtic Deity and the Vulgar Latin in Aquincum

  179-193

  Tünde Vágási

  Views:

  360

  The subject of this paper is a curious and somewhat problematic inscription on an altar from Aquincum. Among the many features of this inscription that are interesting for our study, the most striking one is the beginning of the text: the name of the god or goddess is controversial. Who exactly was Minitra? A Celtic goddess, or someone much better known from Roman religious life? According to Géza Alföldy, the native gods of Pannonia were venerated still in the 3rd century A.D., including Teutates, Sedatus, Ciniaemus and Minitra, etc. Since the inscription in question contains many vulgar Latin phenomena, it becomes questionable whether the name of the deity is written correctly, especially because, while the names of classical gods rarely appear misspelled, the names of the gods of so-called ‘eastern’ cults and mystery religions appear in a number of faulty variations. I will try to identify the deity through the analysis of Vulgar Latin phenomena.

• Oedipus Riddles

  131–140

  Andrej Preložnik

  Aleksandra Nestorović

  Views:

  232

  The paper discusses an interesting group of glass intaglios with the motif of Oedipus and the Sphinx. They are known from sites between the Adriatic, the Danube and the Black Sea, and occur in various colors and cuts, which suggests production in different molds or even workshops. Probably modeled on an intaglio made in an Italian officina gemmaria, the glass replicas may have been produced at Aquileia. The style points to the Late Republican or Augustan era, whereas the material of the glass copies and the funerary context from Aquincum show they were in use and probably produced till the 4 th century. The paper also discusses the possible meanings of the motif, from a simple illustration of the famous heroic adventure to a metaphoric depiction representing the mystic message of the key to a blessed afterlife.