“I am a citizen like other people,” he protested, “and give my basket of corn to the house when there’s a distribution. You know I don’t bother much about the gods. I’ve been content to make sacrifices to Hercules occasionally when in real need, but with old age creeping on, one has to put one’s house in order. Several firemen and other old soldiers have got me to join a secret society, thanks to which I shall never die.”
“The underworld is a gloomy place,” I said. “The shades will have to make do with licking the blood around the sacrificial altars. Wouldn’t it be wiser to submit to your fate and be content with the shades and ashes when your life-span is over?”
But Barbus shook his head.
“I’ve no right to reveal the initiates’ secrets,” he said, “but I can tell you that the new god’s name is Mithras. He was born out of a mountain. Shepherds found him and bowed down before him. Then he killed the great bull and brought all that is good to the world. He has promised immortality to all his initiates who have been baptized in blood. If I’ve got it right, I’ll get new limbs after death and go to fine barracks where the duties are light and the wine and honey always plentiful.”
“Barbus,” I said warningly, “I thought you’d had enough experience now not to believe such old wives’ tales. You should take a cure at a spa. I’m afraid your constant drinking is making you see things.”
But Barbus raised his trembling hands with dignity.
“No, no,” he said, “when the words are spoken and the light from his crown shines in the darkness and the holy bell begins to ring, then one trembles deep down in one’s stomach, one’s hair stands on end and even the most skeptical is convinced of his divinity. After that we eat a holy meal, usually ox meat if an old centurion has undergone blood baptism. When we have drunk wine, we all sing together.”
“We live in strange times,” I said. “Aunt Laelia is saved with the help of a Samaritan magician, my own father worries about the Christians, and you, old warrior, have become involved in Eastern mysteries.”
“In the East the sun rises,” Barbus went on. “In one way this bull-killer is also the Sun God and so the God of Horses too. But they don’t look down on an old infantryman like me, and there’s nothing to stop you learning about our god as long as you promise to keep quiet about it. In our circle there are both older and younger Roman knights who have grown tired of the usual sacrifices and idols.”
I had at that time grown tired of races and betting, the life of pleasure with vain and conceited actors from the theater, and of Pollio and his friends’ interminable talk of philosophy and the new poetry. I promised to go with Barbus to one of the meetings of his secret god. Barbus was very pleased and proud about this. To my surprise, on that day he really did fast and wash himself thoroughly. He did not even dare drink any wine and he put on clean clothes, too.
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That evening he led me along the winding stinking alleys to an underground temple in the valley between Esquiline and Coelius. When we had gone downstairs into a dimly lit room with stone walls, we were received by a Mithraic priest with a lion’s head across his shoulders, who unques-tioningly allowed me to take part in the mysteries.
“We have nothing to be ashamed of,” he explained. “We demand cleanliness, honesty and manliness from those who follow our god Mithras for peace in their souls and a good life the other side of death. Your face is clean and your stance upright, so I think you will like our god. But please do not talk about him unnecessarily to outsiders.”
In the room was a crowd of men both old and young. Among them I recognized to my astonishment several tribunes and centurions from the Praetorian Guard. Several were veterans and war invalids. All were dressed in clean clothes and wore the sacred Mithraic insignia of rank, according to the degree of initiation they had reached. In this respect, their army rank or personal wealth seemed to make no difference. Barbus explained that if an irreproachable veteran were initiated with blood baptism, then it was the wealthier initiates who paid for the ox. He himself was content with the raven degree, for he had not led an entirely blameless life and did not always remember to keep to the truth.
The light was so dim in the underground room that one could not distinguish many faces. But I could see an altar and on it an image of a god with a crown on his head, killing a bull. Then silence fell. The eldest in the congregation began to intone sacred texts which he knew by heart. They were in Latin and I could understand nearly all of them. I learned that according to their teachings, a constant battle between light and darkness, good and evil, was being waged in the world. Finally the last light was extinguished, I heard a secretive splash of water and a silvery bell began to ring. Many people sighed heavily and Barbus squeezed my arm hard. Lights from hidden apertures in the walls slowly began to illuminate the crown and image of Mithras.
I ought not to reveal any more about the mysteries, but I was convinced by the Mithras worshippers’ solemn piety and the trust in their life to come. After the victory of light and the forces of good, the torches in the room were lit and a modest meal brought in. The people seemed relaxed, their faces radiating joy, and they conversed together with friend-liness, regardless of rank and degree of initiation. The food consisted of tough ox meat and the cheap sour wine of military camps.
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