CIMRM 434 - Mithraeum. Circus Maximus,* Rome.

In 1931 during refurbishment works at the Museum of Rome (Opera), a Mithraeum was discovered. It is today known as the "Circus Maximus" Mithraeum. Access is only possible on a guided tour.

CIMRM entry

434. When in 1932 a wing of the Palazzo dei Musei di Roma was rebuilt into a warehouse for the Teatro dell'Opera, considerable remnants of a Roman public building were discovered, a part of which was made to a Mithraeum in the second half of the third century. The finds are kept on the spot or in the Antiquario. Colini in BCR 1931, 123ff (cf. AA 1932,484; BCR 1933, 279); Lugli, Mon. Ant. (Suppl.), 157; Pietrangeli, Mitreo Pal., 1ff (reprint from BCR 1940 (1941), 143ff1); Fuhrmann in AA 1941, 517ff; Vermaseren, Mithrasdienst Rome, 45ff. See figs. 120 and 121. By a corridor one enters the sanctuary, which has been constructed in a number of adjacent rooms. First of all one reaches the paved rooms C and F, which by a door are connected with the rooms A and B. Next to C, separated from it by a wall, and connected by a door, lies room E, which served as an apparatorium. A niche beside this door probably contained a statue. Underneath the architrave on either side of door e, which opens on the actual sanctuary, there was a small plastered niche (H. 1.09 D. 0.30), in which on a base the statues of the torchbearers must have been standing. Two small columns, which rested on a mensola with leaf-work, supported an architrave and thereby gave the niches the shape of an i>aedicola. Below them against the wall, two small votive-altars or bases, the one made of marble (H. 0.425 Br. 0.28 D. 0.27), the other of travertine (H. 0.38 Br. 0.33 D. 0.28). Near the left niche there also was a small well, which by a pipe was connected with the cloaca. Near the other niche some bones and a small bronze bell were found. Entering the room G and H, we find only in G a bench (H. 0.72) with projecting edge (H. 0.12 Br. ,0.33) and entirely covered with marble. It can be ascended via three steps on the side. In the polychrome marble floor a capital was dug in, which must have supported a statue. Under the arched doorway d a pit was found (D. 0.65), containing a round amphora. On its bottom two tusks of a boar were found. On either side of this archway niches have been constructed in the same shape as those at c, but here they are on floor level. On the inside they are plastered and painted red; on the outside a marble covering is made with,the aid of bronze nails. On the bottom of the r. niche a terracotta vessel (D.O.45) with a crescent-shaped rim. At the same time a vase, entwined by a serpent, was discovered here. Finally we enter the rooms L and M. Looking back, we see over arch d a marble console on which a bust, dressed in lorica and paludamentum (the head has got lost). The floor-covering in these rooms is much more expensive. In the middle of a square of cippolino-marble a circle of alabaster; further polychrome marble (red, brown etc.) was used. Two small holes in the ground communicate with the cloaca. Also the walls are decorated: in L there are twelve red circles all around and a few red and grey lines. The slight sloping bench (H. 1.03) in this room shows a polygonal recess and is covered with white and polychrome marble. It can be ascended via three steps at the side. The other bench (in M) with a projecting edge lies under the arch of the adjoining room P. Two bases, standing on either side before the cult-niche, supported statues; in the front side of the r. one there is a hollow. In front of the l. base there is another base, triangular in shape. It supported a triangular block with a terracotta tube in the centre. Finally a fourth base, standing in front of the cult-niche, might have served as an altar. In the back wall on either side of the cult-niche a relief was fixed; under the left one (now lost) there is a bracket for another relief. To give the whole a cave-like appearance, the inside of the arch of the cult-niche was made in pumice. In the niche itself a semi-circular construction with a depression for a cult-statue. Before it two steps. The entire was covered with marble. The cult-niche could also be entered from a room behind it.

* The name "Circus Maximus" appears nowhere in Vermaseren, but several websites show photographs of what is plainly this Mithraeum under the name of the "Circus Maximus Mithraeum".²

Links

• F. Fontana, "Il Mitreo del Circo Massimo. Studio preliminare di un monumento inedito tra archeologia, conservazione e fruizione". Open-access monograph. Online here.
• Great article with photos by Csaba Szabo.