Roger Pearse

Is the book any good? I've not seen it, and was pre-disposed in his favour.

But the reason I ask is that I've just been looking at the Hilaria of 25th March, and the question of whether this celebrated the resurrection of Attis (a concept unrecorded as far as I know except in Firmicus Maternus); and I can see from Google Books that the book refers to "4th century sources" (plural) for this, where Cumont says its FM and nothing. It's also quoted as an authority on the Wikipedia Hilaria page. So I wonder about it a bit.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

How is it unrelated to ask if mithraists might have made comments about shedding blood?

Am I missing something? Is it questioned that Mithraism carried out sacrifices?

Toto

Clive - let's keep this thread narrowly focussed on the inscription mentioned in the opening post. Other discussion fits in better in another thread. Thanks.

Roger Pearse

I have Vermaseren &c on order, but I have been wondering whether it is possible to get someone to go to the Santa Prisca Mithraeum and take some fresh photographs. I'd be willing to hire a commercial photographer, but I'm not sure how it might be done.

Rome must be stiff with people who could do this. Anyone any ideas?

andrewcriddle

Personally I like it. It covers in detail a wide range of related material. It tends sometimes to allude without direct quotation to ancient sources in a way that makes it difficult to be sure how far this is what the ancient source explicitly states and how far this is Turcan's interpretation of the ancient source.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

I admit I have contemplated buying a copy. Is it a translation of a French text? I've noticed that in some cases translations from French omit footnotes. This was notoriously the case for Cumont's "Mysteries of Mithra".

andrewcriddle

It is a translation from the French (according to some Amazon reviews a mediocre one) but it does have footnotes (at the end of the book).

To clarify, I've not IMS been doubtful as to what Turcan's ultimate source is, just sometimes doubtful as to how far he is interpretating his ultimate source.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

Mod note: this thread is not a general discussion of Mithraism and blood. It is about the translation / interpretation of a specific inscription. So I have moved a few more posts to the other thread.

If posters start adding every reference to Mithra to this thread, it could well balloon into a thesis on Mithraism in general and the discussion of this inscription will become hard to follow. That's why we try to keep threads on topic.

You can follow links in this thread to other Mithra threads, or search the forum for Mithra / Mithras / Mithraism and find a multitude of opportunities to post on other aspects of Mithra.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Roger Pearse

I presume Turcan is a translation of Les cultes orientaux dans le monde romain (1989), available from Amazon.fr here.

show_no_mercy

Well... I'm going to be going to Rome with my Italian gf in about a month...