Buried Under Rome (Circo Massimo)

• PHOTOS

The mithraeum (a gathering place for adherents to the mystical cult of Mithras) under the Circus Maximus is one of the best examples of this type of subterranean site to be found in Rome. It was uncovered during the construction of a Fascist-era office building, and is now preserved (behind locked doors) for archaeologists and other scholars of antiquity. This particular space very clearly lays out how the rituals of mithraism were observed, from the ritual feasting to the recreated act of killing and sacrificing a bull. (There is a wonderful bas-relief discovered on-site that shows this sacrifice in detail.)

This special site visit will include an on-site lecture by one of our archaeologists, discussing the specifics of this mithraeum and also the cult of Mithras and other illicit religions during the first years of the empire.

After our time at the mithraeum, the visit will continue to include the underground remains of Republican temples preserved nearby. These monuments provide

The mithraeum (a gathering place for adherents to the mystical cult of Mithras) under the Circus Maximus is one of the best examples of this type of subterranean site to be found in Rome. It was uncovered during the construction of a Fascist-era office building, and is now preserved (behind locked doors) for archaeologists and other scholars of antiquity. This particular space very clearly lays out how the rituals of mithraism were observed, from the ritual feasting to the recreated act of killing and sacrificing a bull. (There is a wonderful bas-relief discovered on-site that shows this sacrifice in detail.)

This special site visit will include an on-site lecture by one of our archaeologists, discussing the specifics of this mithraeum and also the cult of Mithras and other illicit religions during the first years of the empire.

After our time at the mithraeum, the visit will continue to include the underground remains of Republican temples preserved nearby. These monuments provide the opportunity to see how some pagan temples were later converted into places of Christian worship. In their ensemble, these sites allow us to debate the ending of paganism and the establishing of the Christian cult within the Roman world.

Mithraism is the starting point, and the main point of reference for the first part of the walk, but our discussion widens in order to see how and why Christianity eventually abolished its main rival and explore all the social, political and cultural tensions this created throughout the Ancient World.