a filiation, much like a manuscript stemma, in which groups of monu-
ments could be ordered as to their derivation and an archetype postulated.
The spread of the cult, it was thought, must have replicated the filiation of
the monuments (Beck 1984, 2074–78; Saxl 1931; Will 1955).
Although this quest proved unsuccessful and in its simplest form was
misconceived, it did rest on an important truth about Mithraism. Visual art
was always and everywhere the prime medium of the Mysteries. That art,
despite its complexity, is remarkably uniform. Clearly it is not an epiphe-
nomenon, not simply a local or regional expression of myth and doctrine
received in other forms, i.e., by word of mouth or sacred text. Rather, it was
part and parcel of the mysteries transmitted, the physical sign, together with
the mithraeum itself, of the authentic Mysteries of Mithras.
How was that iconography transmitted? The problem was thrown into
sharp relief by the discovery of the Dura Europos mithraeum. Here was a
mithraeum widely separated from the cult’s zones of concentration, yet
which demonstrated in its array of side-scenes in the arch surrounding
the tauroctony remarkable fidelity to European norms. It is hard to escape
the conclusion that graphic designs of some sort were part of the baggage
of those who brought the Mysteries to Dura. Pattern books or illustrated
sacred texts have been suggested (Beck 1984, 2016).
Richard Gordon (1994, 463) has used the term colporteurs(“pedlars”)
to describe metaphorically the early carriers of the Mysteries. The term is
apt, perhaps even in the literal sense of luggage carried. At any rate, the
transmission of iconography is a factor not to be lost sight of when one mod-
els the propagation of Mithraism. It shows, moreover, how different must
be the modes of propagation for the various religions of antiquity. The
appropriate composition of icons was scarcely a concern of the Christian col-
porteurs.
NEW EVIDENCE FROM VIRUNUM
We may turn now to the principal subject of this chapter: how the new evi-
dence from Virunum illustrates recruitment into the Mysteries of Mithras
in their mature phase. The new evidence is a bronze plaque containing a
completealbum,or membership list, of a mithraeum. The find yielded an
additional dividend, in that it shows that a previously known list of a selec-
tion of the same names on a fragmentary stone is also Mithraic. More will
be said about this second albumin due course.
The bronze plaque from Virunum was discovered in 1992, and ably
published by Gernot Piccottini in 1994 (AE1994, 1334; Clauss 1995; Gor-
On Becoming a Mithraist 183