The International Business Times reports that archaeologists in Corsica have uncovered ruins of an ancient Mithraic temple. This is the first evidence of Mithraism being practiced in this region.
The cult of Mithras was one of many Mystery Cults that thrived during the Roman Empire. Mystery Cults were products of the religious syncretism that was encouraged by the trans-cultural ecumenicism of the Hellenistic Empire that Alexander of Macedon had won through his campaign of conquest and then conscientiously knitted together via trade and cultural exchange. When Rome’s military might overtook the Hellenes, they left much of the cultural conventions in place.
The cult of Mithras was one of the most popular and was the faith of choice for many in the Roman military forces and if not for Emperor Constantine’s official embrace of Christianity it might have well become the predominant Western religious institution rather than the former, and in fact many of its conventions would up absorbed into the Christian church.
Read more about this discovery here:
