Before Rome became an empire, mystery cults infiltrated the Roman political class.
Rome and Carthage, former allies, became enemies in the Punic Wars, with Rome emerging victorious and taking control of Carthage’s territories, leading to Carthage’s downfall and Rome’s moral decay into an expansionist empire, Matthew Ehret explains.
The mystery cults, including the Cult of Cybele, Isis and Mithra, migrated to Rome, influencing its culture and values, and contributing to its transformation into an empire.
The Cult of Mithra originated in Persia. It was a seven-degree initiatory male-only cult, catered to a warrior class and worshipped in underground grottos. It gained significant influence in the Roman Empire, with several Roman emperors being part of the cult, and it played a role in the expansion of the Roman Empire.
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Below is an article by Matthew Ehret about how the Roman Empire became a host for mystery cults. While reading his article, we’d like you to consider three things.
Firstly, the name “Palestine” has neither Arabic nor Hebrew origins. The English term derives from the Latin Palaestina, which comes from the Ancient Greek Palaistinê.
The Greeks used this term to describe the region, possibly adapting it from the Egyptian Peleset and Assyrian Palastu, which referred to the Philistine people. According to Britannica, the Hebrew Bible later used a similar term, Peleshet, to refer to the Philistines. The Philistines, who constantly warred with the Israelites, were not native to the land, and by the 6th century BC had disappeared from history.
The Roman Empire resurrected and officially adopted the name in the 2nd century AD, 800 years after the Philistines had disappeared, as the provincial name Syria Palaestina. The Romans renamed the region from Judea in an attempt to strip Jews of identifying with their land.
“Palestine” is, therefore, strongly associated with both Roman occupation and the Philistines. It has no association with, for example, modern-day Gazans or Jordanians living in the West Bank. Yet, in recent years, the name has been resurrected once again to describe an as-yet-to-be-identified region that will no doubt include Judea and the entire State of Israel. Why are the Roman Empire and the Philistines being invoked thousands of years later?
Secondly, consider the Biblical prophecy about seven kings: “This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while. The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction.” Revelation 17:9–11 (NIV).
Thirdly, consider what is happening today, keeping in mind: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV).
Is the past warning us about the present day and our future?
The Origins of the Roman Empire: The Mystery Cults Migrate to a New Host
In the previous instalment of this series, you were introduced to the story of Rome’s moral decay from a republic into an evil empire, and the battle which St. Augustine of Hippo engaged in during the last phases of the western Roman Empire’s meltdown.
That exploration took us into the rise of Alexander the Great, the clash between Platonists and Aristotelian influences over Alexander, the defeat of the Persian Empire, and the assassination of Alexander the Great.
We will here pick up the story with the rise of the Silk Road in 200 BC, and the infiltration of mystery cults into the heart of Rome.
Table of Contents
The Silk Road Connection to Hellenic Civilisation
The Silk Road that united Chinese culture with Persian, Arab, Greek, Roman and African cultures would first emerge with the Han Dynasty about a century after Alexander’s death.
Despite the fact that many modern historians attempt to treat the events of Alexander’s west-to-east expansion and China’s east-to-west programme as two separate events, the connection of both programmes is most certainly connected in the study of universal history. Were it not for Alexander’s Hellenizing efforts, it is unlikely that the Silk Road would have ever arisen.
With Alexander’s untimely assassination within the gates of Babylon, the great potential to create a city of justice, love and goodness, which treated all human beings as divine, reasonable and self-perfectible, the way Plato had put forth in his Republic, or Solon had dreamed of much earlier … fell to pieces.
Just outside of the chaos of the regions formerly known as Alexander’s Empire, the small state of Rome could be seen across from its southern neighbour across the Mediterranean, Carthage. Many people know of the term “Carthage delenda est”, i.e., “Carthage must be destroyed,” as the battle cry of Rome during its destructive battles against its nemesis … but few understand how this war happened, why these former allies became enemies in the first place, or how this helps us to understand the origins of the Roman Empire.
Rome’s Moral Downfall: The Carthaginian Wars
What is often overlooked by experts of the Carthaginian Wars is that these two neighbours had much in common for centuries.
In fact, they were established around the same period in 800 BC. During most of their existence, Carthage and Rome maintained a strong alliance, which had been renewed in the form of four formal treaties spread out across the years 509 BC to 279 BC.
It was an important division of labour and talent.
Rome was known as a great land-power, with an extremely competent and disciplined standing army. Through its military power and reputation, Rome had built an important array of strategic alliances over the centuries, since they were so often forced to defend themselves from invading forces from the north, attacking from the Alps.
Due to Rome’s lack of a strong maritime capability, they also lacked a strong commercial centre or robust trade policy.
Carthage, on the other hand, had a very strong focus on commerce and trade, sharing much from their Phoenician forebears. But they did not have a very strong army and, as such, were forced to often use mercenaries or call upon their Roman allies to defend themselves during enemy invasions.
Overall, there was a win-win synergy between Rome and Carthage that worked quite well for centuries, and which allowed them to avoid being conquered.
But during the early 3rd century BC, something changes, and the alliances began to crumble. It is uncertain what invisible forces had been working behind the scenes to sever the alliance, but in the year 264 BC, the first Punic War was launched by Rome. Several Carthaginian territories were invaded, and the first of three bloody wars began. When the war ended in 241 BC, Rome had come out victorious and took control of Carthage’s former territory of Sicily.
Carthage also had to start paying large annual tributes to Rome, resulting in growing resentment and a sense of betrayal.
You must now put yourself in the position of the high priesthood of the mystery cults floating above the stage of this theatre of universal history.
The powerful Babylonian high priesthood of Marduk had still suffered the sting of their Persian “Marcher Lord” being defeated, and their Macedonian eastern empire plans crumbled due to Alexander’s Platonic conspirators.
But this priesthood had learned a valuable lesson. The Cult needed a new seat of power to accomplish what the Achaemenid Empire had failed to achieve. With Alexander’s former empire divided into warring factions, the viability of using any of Alexander’s former generals to become the new “Marcher Lord” was likely deemed unwise. And so, the Marduk priesthood would have been looking further westward toward the region of Rome and Carthage.
I suspect this factor, despite being neglected by academia, is likely a driving force orchestrating the Punic Wars from behind the scenes.
The question posed by those heirs of Babylon was: Will this new seat of power be Carthage or Rome?
Who was going to host the parasite and become the new Marcher Lord?
There were two more Punic Wars which resolved this question.
In the Second Punic War, which occurred from 218 to 201 BC (also instigated by Rome), Carthage did quite well under the leadership of the brilliant general Hannibal. But with Hannibal’s defeat at the Battle of Zama in 201 BC, the tides of fortune turned against Carthage and the nation was beaten again.
During this time, Rome was technically still a republic, but like the similar case of Athens during the Peloponnesian War of 434-404 BC, Rome had also embraced a new moral descent into an expansionist empire, betraying its allies, its former values and demanding total obedience to those new territories it brutally conquered.
Despite its slide into empire, Roman citizens during the early to mid-Republic still had a strong sense of morality, duty and honour, which was not easy to destroy. Although there was a belief in various gods imported from Greece,[1] the dominant culture of Rome was still ethics-driven and featured a spiritual life more premised on the deification of heroes. The Romans, not unlike the Confucians, believed in treating war heroes like the great Roman general-turned farmer-turned Dictator-turned farmer Cincinnatus in religious-like reverence, which had a much greater influence over the minds of Romans than any of the pagan gods.
After the Second Punic War, one of the new insidious foreign cults that came into Rome was the cult of Cybele, which spearheaded the overthrow of Rome’s ethical order. This earth-mother cult had various names within various parts of the ancient world, such as Inanna to the Babylonians, to the Greeks she was Demeter, to the Minoans she was Rhea, but she was most popularly known as the cult of Gaia.
The Cult of Cybele’s entry into Rome was entirely tied to the Second Punic War.
Mystery Migrate to Rome
Within Rome, a powerful institution existed in the form of the Committee of 15. This elite committee of priests was sanctioned to interpret the Sibylline Oracles, which had been brought into Rome under King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, who ruled as king of Rome from 534-509 BC, and remained a dominant subversive institution throughout the entire lifespan of Rome.
Very few important decisions were made without consulting with the Committee of 15 who would in turn, interpret the transcribed allegorical streams of consciousness that were the Sibylline Oracles … these oracles were composed in three large tomes which contained the allegorical sayings of the Pythian Oracle of Apollo at Delphi in Greece, and were sold to Tarquin by the Cumaean Sibyl before his downfall.
During the Second Punic War, the Roman Senate asked the Committee of 15 how they might defeat Carthage. After consulting the Sibylline Oracles, the committee stated: “Rome would be victorious over Carthage IF an official invitation were extended to the Cult of Cybele to become an officially sanctioned Roman cult.” Cybele’s cult was then firmly entrenched, its stronghold in Anatolia and the Mithraic Kingdom of Pontus.
In 204 BC, the Roman Senate agreed and invited the cult into the capital, which immediately built temples across Rome, including on Palatine Hill which housed the infamous Sibylline books. Whether it was due to the “favour of Cybele” or darker political intrigue, by 201 BC, Carthage was defeated and Rome expanded ever further into former Carthaginian territory, enslaving many of their citizens and increasing Carthage’s tribute.
However, unbeknownst to the Roman population, the Cult of Cybele proved to be a much more corrupting influence as its rites included widespread orgies, ecstatic drug-induced frenzies and an initiatory system that required all male priests (dubbed “Galli”) to be castrated (see image on next page), dress as women and speak with a falsetto voice.
The Stoic Roman values of the day, which prized masculinity, temperance and family, were deeply offended as thousands of young men became fanatical Galli eunuchs, and at least for a century, public backlash resulted in the Cybele cult going underground. It would only re-emerge into the open through Government protection under the Empire.
By the Third Punic War (149-146 BC), Rome had fully embraced its new imperial identity. Despite Carthage’s offer to surrender to the Romans, the edict ‘Carthage Delenda Est’ called forth by Senator Cato the Elder won the day. Carthage’s requests for peace were ignored, and the last remnants of the state were destroyed, its male population massacred and its women and children taken into slavery.
Through it all, the mystery cults continued to rise in influence. The cult of Isis began to spread in Rome in the mid-second century BC under a Romanised branding dubbed “Isis-Serapis,” practising sexual rites and various forms of sacrifice.
The Isis cult’s importation into Rome was also steered by the Sibylline Oracles and began in 201 BC with the figure of Osiris (Isis’ male counterpart) being replaced by the figure of Serapis – a Romanesque lord of the dead.
Mithra: Sol Invictus
By 64 BC, the Roman General Pompey introduced the Cult of Mithra covertly into Rome. This Cult originated in Persia and, for a period, dominated the Kingdom of Pontus, in Northern Turkey, alongside its female-dominated sister cult, Cybele, whose temples were often featured next to Mithraeum (underground crypts that served as temples to Mithra). The Kingdom of Pontus existed from 268-63 BC and was led by a dynasty of Kings each named Mithradates I-VI.
The Cult of Mithra was a seven-degree initiatory male-only cult, which catered to a warrior class and worshipped in underground grottos called “Mithraea” of which over 500 have been discovered across Europe, North Africa, England and the Middle East in modern times.
Soon after the Roman Civil Wars, which ended in 33 BC, the Cult of Mithra became the leading cult of the Roman Legion, elite Praetorian Guard and a dozen Roman emperors, including Marcus Aurelius, Diocletian, Constantine, Commodus, Valerian, Galerius, Licinius and Julian the Apostate.
General Pompey had likely first encountered the Cult of Mithra during his battle against Mithradates VI Eupator – the ruler of Pontus during the Mithridatic Wars, which were waged from 88 BC to 63 BC. The Mithridatic dynasty was itself established by the bloodline of the Emperor Darius (of the Persian Achaemenid Empire) and acted as the last bastion of direct Achaemenid influence after the Empire’s downfall, whose state religion was Mithra worship, with each hereditary king adopting the name “Mithradates” and elevated to God status as Sol Invictus in the flesh.
King Mithradates VI waged numerous attacks on Rome until his death in 63 BC, during which time, General Pompey (a rival to Julius Caesar) had led battles against the determined Mithraic King Mithradates VI and it is likely that his failure to conquer Rome had something to do with an agreement reached out between General Pompey and the high priests of Mithra who saw in Rome a more attractive host with much more room for growth than the small Kingdom of Pontus.
Rome continued to expand, carrying its new cults as a new Marcher Lord from 63 BC onward, and by 117 AD, the Roman Empire reached its apex of size and power.
The Rise of Pax Romana
Between the death of Mithradates VI and the high point of Roman expansionism, a number of very important things happened.
We had Cicero’s many battles to revive the better spirit of Rome and restore the healthier traditions of the republic.[2]
But just like Socrates earlier, Cicero, who defined himself not as an Epicurean or Stoic but as a Platonist, was assassinated by Mark Antony in 43 BC who demanded the great orator’s head to be cut off.
Just like Socrates, Cicero also had a chance to escape Rome and keep his life, but following the teachings of his beloved Plato,[3] Cicero decided that it would be better for posterity and better for the health of his soul to remain in the land that he had fought so hard to defend his entire life.
Sadly, unlike Socrates, Cicero had not trained a Plato to continue his work. He had not built an Academy and no one was left on the stage of history to pick up his torch after he died.
After a protracted series of civil wars, Octavius Augustus, the nephew of Julius Caesar, emerged victorious, having successfully defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 32 BC. Octavius Augustus wasted no time in declaring himself Emperor, establishing a new form of God-man (Pontifex Maximus) which would lead the Roman Empire into a promised new “Golden Age.” Whatever residues of the old Roman Republic that existed in 32 BC were largely purged by this time.
The late philosopher Lyndon LaRouche took note of a particular meeting between priests from the mystery cults and emperor Octavian Augustus held on the Isle of Capri, which was a central command for the Cult of Mithra:
“The first century BC was a time of great troubles throughout the Mediterranean littoral. The priesthoods of the various forms of Great-Mother worship, the Syrian-Canaanite Magi, the Ptolemaic cult of Isis and of the cult of Apollo, were engaged in the effort to combine the conquests of Rome, Egypt and Syria into a single world-empire. The bloody issue was, what would be chosen as the capital of this new empire? The leading contenders were Alexandria and the city of Rome. The decision was settled on the battlefield against Mark Antony and Cleopatra; Rome’s victory had been negotiated earlier, at a meeting on the Isle of Capri.”[4]
In the next instalment, we will be introduced to the rise of Christianity onto the stage of history, 33 years into Rome’s takeover by the mystery cults of Babylon and Persia.
Footnotes
- [1] Some examples of Roman gods imported from Greece include: Jupiter (Zeus): Sky god, head of the pantheon, Juno (Hera): Queen of the gods, associated with marriage. Neptune (Poseidon): God of the sea. Venus (Aphrodite): Goddess of love and beauty. Minerva (Athena): Goddess of wisdom and strategy. Apollo (Apollo): Imported early as a deity of prophecy. Bacchus (Dionysus): God of wine and ecstasy. Mercury (Hermes): Messenger god. Diana (Artemis): Goddess of the hunt. Vulcan (Hephaestus): God of fire and forge. Hercules (Heracles): A hero/god adopted directly.
- [2] See Cynthia Chung’s “How to Conquer Tyranny and Defeat Tragedy” essay included in the Spring RTF Anthology
- [3] As outlined in the Crito and Phaedo dialogues showcasing the final days in the life of Socrates
- [4] Cited in Executive Intelligence Review, vol 15, no. 44, Nov 4, 1988
About the Author
Matthew Ehret is the editor-in-chief of The Canadian Patriot Review, Senior Fellow of the American University in Moscow and Director of the Rising Tide Foundation. He’s written the four-volume ‘Untold History of Canada’ series, four volume ‘Clash of the Two Americas’ series, the ‘Revenge of the Mystery Cult Trilogy’ and ‘Science Unshackled: Restoring Causality to a World in Chaos’. He is also the host of the weekly ‘Breaking Free of Psyops’ on Badlands Media and host of ‘Pluralia Dialogos’ (which airs every second Sunday at 11 am ET HERE).
Featured image: Map of Roman Empire territory at its peak (left). Frontal close-up of a marble statue depicting the ancient Roman emperor Augustus giving a salute (right). Source: Adobe
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How can this author be a fellow of the American University in Moscow (promoter of American propaganda) and also the host of ‘Breaking Free of Psyops’ on Badlands Media (opposer of American propaganda)?