Editing Religion in ancient Rome (section)

== Mystery religions ==
[[File:Villa dei Misteri V - 2.jpg|thumb|left|Female figure, veiled and seemingly alarmed, from a wall-painting usually described as a narrative from Dionysiac/Bacchic mystery cult, which might also involve [[Ariadne]] and a marriage. There is "almost no agreement about how it works in detail". From Pompeii's "Villa of the Mysteries"<ref name="Beard et al., Vol. 1,3; 161-163">Beard et al., Vol. 1,3; 161-163</ref>]]

Most of Rome's mystery cults were derived from Greek originals, adopted by individuals as private, or were formally adopted as public.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1,3; 247</ref> Mystery cults operated through a hierarchy consisting of transference of knowledge, virtues and powers to those initiated through secret rites of passage, which might employ dance, music, intoxicants and theatrical effects to provoke an overwhelming sense of religious awe, revelation and eventual [[catharsis]]. The cult of [[Mithraism|Mithras]] was among the most notable, particularly popular among soldiers and based on the Zoroastrian deity, [[Mithra]].<ref name=":0" />

Some of Rome's most prominent deities had both public and mystery rites. Magna Mater, conscripted to help Rome defeat Carthage in the second Punic War, arrived in Rome with her consort, [[Attis]], and their joint "foreign", non-citizen priesthood, known as [[Galli]]. Despite her presumed status as an ancestral, Trojan goddess, a priesthood was drawn from Rome's highest echelons to supervise her cult and festivals. These may have been considered too exotically "barbaric" to trust, and were barred to slaves.<ref>Beard et al., Vol. 1,2; 96-97</ref>

For the Galli, full priesthood involved self-castration, illegal for Romans of any class. Later, citizens could pay for [[Taurobolium|the costly sacrifice of a bull]] or the lesser sacrifice of a ram, as a substitute for the acolyte's self-castration. Magna Mater's initiates tended to be very well-off, and relatively uncommon; they included the emperor [[Julian (emperor)|Julian]]. Initiates to Attis' cult were more numerous and less wealthy, and acted as assistant citizen-priests in their deity's "exotic" festivals, some of which involved the Galli's public, bloody self-flagellation.<ref>Gordon, in Rüpke (ed.), 390</ref>

Rome's native cults to the grain goddess [[Ceres (mythology)|Ceres]] and her daughter [[Libera (mythology)|Libera]] were supplemented with a mystery cult of Ceres-with-Proserpina, based on the Greek [[Eleusinian mysteries]] and [[Thesmophoria]], introduced in 205 BC and led at first by ethnically Greek priestesses from ''Graeca magna''.<ref>Orlin, in Rüpke (ed.), 63.</ref> The Eleusinian mysteries are also the likely source for the [[mysteries of Isis]], which employed symbols and rites that were nominally Egyptian. Aspects of the Isis mysteries are almost certainly described in [[Appuleius]]' novel, [[The Golden Ass]]. Such cults were mistrusted by Rome's authorities as quasi-magical, potentially seductive and emotionally based, rather than practical.

The wall-paintings in Pompeii's "Villa of the Mysteries" could have functioned equally as religious inspiration, instruction, and high quality domestic decor (described by Beard as "expensive wallpaper"). They also attest to an increasingly personal, even domestic experience of religion, whether or not they were ever part of organised cult meetings. The paintings probably represent the once-notorious, independent, popular [[Bacchanalia]] mysteries, forcibly brought under the direct control of Rome's civil and religious authorities, 100 years before.<ref name="Beard et al., Vol. 1,3; 161-163"/>

A common theme among the eastern mystery religions present in Rome became disillusionment with material possessions, a focus on death and a preoccupation with regards to the afterlife. These attributes later led to the appeal to Christianity, which in its early stages was often viewed as mystery religion itself.<ref name=":0" />