{"id":1873,"date":"2009-06-15T13:15:48","date_gmt":"2009-06-15T13:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=1873"},"modified":"2009-06-15T13:15:48","modified_gmt":"2009-06-15T13:15:48","slug":"reference-to-mithras-in-the-commentary-of-servius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2009\/06\/15\/reference-to-mithras-in-the-commentary-of-servius\/","title":{"rendered":"Reference to Mithras in the Commentary of Servius?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A strange Jewish anti-Christian site here<\/a> has the following claim:<\/p>\n

\n

Plutarch (Pompey<\/em>, 24, 7) and Servilius (Georgics<\/em>, 4, 127) say Pompey imported Mithraism into Rome after defeating the Cilician pirates around 70 BCEE.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is starting to circulate around the web, and caught my eye.\u00a0 We all know the Plutarch reference, and it says only that the Cilician pirates worshipped Mithras (which may be a mistake anyway).\u00a0 But the “Servilius” reference is new to me.\u00a0 This, I presume, is Servius, the 4th century commentator on Vergil?<\/p>\n

The commentary of Servius on the Georgics<\/em> is online at Google books here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 The comment on the Georgics<\/em> 4, 127 is on p.354 of the PDF, p.329 online<\/a>. So, what does it say?<\/p>\n

\n

127. CORYCIVM Vidisse <\/span>SENEM Cilica: Corycos enim civitas est Ciliciae, in qua antrum illud famosum est, paene ab omnibus celebratum. et per transitum tangit historiam memoratam a Suetonio. Pompeius enim victis piratis Cilicibus partim ibidem in Graecia, partim in Calabria agros dedit<\/span>: unde Lucanus <I 346> an melius fient piratae, magne, coloni? male autem quidam ‘Corycium’ proprium esse adserunt nomen, cum sit appellativum eius, qui more Corycio hortos excoluit: quod etiam Plinii testimonio conprobatur. Vidisse Senem <\/span>ordo est ‘memini vidisse’. dicimus autem et ‘memini videre’: Terentius memini videre, quo aequior sum Pamphilo, si se illam in somnis. Relicti <\/span>deserti atque contempti; quis enim agrum non sperneret nulli rei aptum, non vitibus aut frumentis vel pascuis? et aliter: ‘Corycium’ autem Cilicia, a monte et civitate C\u00efliciae Coryco. alii Corycium non natione, sed peritia, quod haec gens studiose hortos colat. et sic dictum est, ut <\/em>Arcades ambo.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

No mention of Mithras.\u00a0 But this states that Pompey settled the Cilician pirates, partly in Greece and partly in Calabria.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wonder what Servius’ source was?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A strange Jewish anti-Christian site here has the following claim: Plutarch (Pompey, 24, 7) and Servilius (Georgics, 4, 127) say Pompey imported Mithraism into Rome after defeating the Cilician pirates around 70 BCEE. This is starting to circulate around the web, and caught my eye.\u00a0 We all know the Plutarch reference, and it says only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[170,1142],"class_list":["post-1873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-world","tag-ancient-world","tag-mithras"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}