effect. At the same time, it offers a powerful model for social interaction through-
out the society.
We can trace the descent of patronage networks down through the structures of
local city government to the micro-level of the patrons of professional corporations.
Yet anyone in a position to accord or withhold favors, distribute rewards or sanc-
tions, can act in the manner of a patron at the micro-level. In so doing, he asserts
his (temporary) social power, fulfills the possibilities of his social position, and acquires
the profitpar excellencethat consists in the feeling both that one’s existence is justi-
fied and that one is comme il faut. At any rate, in the procession of the seven grades
at S. Prisca in Rome, the Father sits by himself on a throne, dressed as Mithras,
his hand raised as though he were a patron greeting his clients. The demand for
deference is but one aspect of a claim to high status within the congregation: the
number of inscriptions referring to patres, which far outweighs references to all other
grades put together, is another. At S. Prisca, again, the dignity of the Fathers is
apparently one that spans the world: Nama [Patribus] ab oriente ad occidentem, “Hail
to the Fathers, from east to west” (Vermaseren and van Essen 1965: 155, 179). In
all these respects, the seriousness with which the notion of Fatherhood was taken in
Mithraism far outstrips the rather perfunctory use of the theme in the context of
other corporations, professional and religious.
Specialized private religious structures like Mithraism naturalize the model of the
patron–client relationship; but they also idealize it. What remains is the desirable essence,
generous altruism, service of the other world. The religious act decently masks its
contribution to the reproduction of social relations of inequality.The Suffering Body
Patronage and deference were, however, only one aspect of Mithraism’s naturaliza-
tion of key social values. There is also the use of fear and intimidation. I have already
mentioned the initiation scene on the ritual vessel from Mainz. Much more striking
is the series of panels, now seriously deteriorated, that were painted c.ad 225– 40
on the revetment walls of the podia of the mithraeumat Capua Vetere near Naples
(Vermaseren 1971: 24 – 48). Only seven of an original 12 or 13 can now be deci-
phered, all of them apparently depicting initiation scenes in which a naked, often
blindfolded, man is subjected to intimidation or threat. The clearest cases are a man
enduring a burning torch pushed into his face (R II), another apparently having his
arms singed (L III), and a prone man with a scorpion directly above his bare back
(L II). In each case there is a clear distinction between the initiator, a man dressed
in a quasi-military fashion, with helmet and flowing cloak, the mystagogue, dressed
in white, who exhorts or teaches the initiand, and the wretched subject. These scenes
seem to explore the implications of one of the key narrative scenes, after the bull’s
death, in which Mithras seems to threaten Sol, who kneels before him (the “enlist-
ment” of Sol).
Distantly in the wake of Michel Foucault and Norbert Elias, ancient historians have
explored the symbolic functions of violent spectacle in antiquity, both in the théâtre
Institutionalized Religious Options 403