{"id":4532,"date":"2010-06-26T19:50:23","date_gmt":"2010-06-26T18:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2010-06-26T19:50:23","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T18:50:23","slug":"images-from-the-santa-prisca-mithraeum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2010\/06\/26\/images-from-the-santa-prisca-mithraeum\/","title":{"rendered":"Images from the Santa Prisca Mithraeum"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Mithraeum under the church of Santa Prisca in Rome, there are a number of verses written on plaster around the walls, in between or above various images in the frescoes.\u00a0 The frescoes themselves have been badly damaged, partly because of the poor quality of the material on which they were placed, but also because of intentional damage not later than 400 AD.<\/p>\n

One of these verses has attracted wide attention.\u00a0 It reads as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

Primus et hic aries astrictius ordine currit;
\nEt nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso;
\nOffero ut fiant numina magna Mithre.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The meaning is less than obvious:<\/p>\n

\n

Here too the ram runs in front, more strictly in line.
\nAnd you saved us after having shed the eternal blood.
\nI bring offerings so that the great power of Mithras may be shown.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Even Vermaseren is not sure whether this gibberish makes up one sentence or three independent sentences.\u00a0 The middle line has been eagerly seized on by the headbangers, although the Mithraeum was constructed in 220 AD, and so is not evidence for any pre-Christian beliefs.<\/p>\n

The inscription appears on the left-hand wall, at the top of the lower layer of frescoes.\u00a0 The colour images sent to me by a reader and\u00a0published in Mysteria Mithrae<\/em>, appendix 1, are the best I have seen; far better than the wretched effort by Vermaseren.\u00a0 Here’s the context in which\u00a0those three lines\u00a0appear:<\/p>\n

\"Location<\/a><\/p>\n

It should be immediately obvious that the wall is badly damaged.\u00a0 Also\u00a0some sort of graphic — is\u00a0 that a head? — intrudes into the middle of the text.\u00a0 Note the word “FUSO” – that last word in the crucial sentence is the clearest element we get.\u00a0 Note also the next lines of the inscriptions, on the right.<\/p>\n

Let’s add the diagram by Vermaseren:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Fig.69: "et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso" - or is it?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And now the photograph.\u00a0 Since this is long and thin, it’s in two halves; first the left, then the right.\u00a0 Click on the images to get the full size.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

Myself I would have thought that colour would be clearer, but\u00a0 maybe not.\u00a0 At all events, this is all we get.<\/p>\n

Possibly more is visible on the wall than can be photographed.\u00a0 But frankly… it’s not very good, is it?\u00a0 How much of what Vermaseren read is imaginary?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Mithraeum under the church of Santa Prisca in Rome, there are a number of verses written on plaster around the walls, in between or above various images in the frescoes.\u00a0 The frescoes themselves have been badly damaged, partly because of the poor quality of the material on which they were placed, but also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":[19],"tags":[728,1142],"class_list":["post-4532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-from-my-diary","tag-mithras"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532","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=4532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}