The Mystery Cults and the Latin Historians

What is it about?

This paper examines the treatment of ancient mystery (i.e. initiatory) cults by pagan Roman historians writing in Latin. They show only intermittent interest in them; but when they do, their approach falls broadly into three different patterns. At times the cults are described in their local context, and treated as alien to a greater or lesser degree, though recognizable and sometimes acceptable to Roman participants. Secondly, they are sometimes treated as more or less indistinguishable from the rest of the religious landscape at Rome – but in those cases all sense of foreignness disappears, and there is no mention of initiation or anything distinctive about the experience of those cults. Thirdly, those more distinctive aspects may be emphasized, but only when the cults are treated as something dangerous and hostile to Rome, and are assimilated to ideas of secrecy and conspiracy.

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