The Mithraeum of Circus Maximus underground tour

Mithraism was one of the most diffuse mystical religions in the Roman world and many typical traditions of the Christian religion have derived inspiration from it.

The Mithraeum was discovered in the course of work undertaken in the 1930s for the creation of scenery storage for the National Opera Theater at the old Pantanella Pastry Factory, that the city of Rome bought in the 1920s to be a branch of the Roman museums.

This vast building is identified as one of the second century A.D., modified many times, and the ground floor was adapted to be a Mithraeum in the third century A.D. A magnificent relief in white marble evokes the ceremony called Tauroctony, during which a bull is killed in the example of Mithras, with Cautes, Cautopates, Sol and Luna at his side, he raises his dagger against the sacrificial animal. The Mithraeum of the Circus Maximus is one of the largest locations of the cult of Mithras known in Rom