After yesterday, the walking itself was getting easier and it was possible to enjoy the archaeology more. It was a day of Roman religion.
We immediately think of the great Olympian gods whom the Romans adopted from the Greeks. However, the Romans were not snobs - they would plunder gods from ANYBODY, and take them to their hearts and worship them.
In fact, with respect to their theology, they were complete kleptomaniacs.
Yesterday, at Housesteads fort, we had visited my favourite shrine - to the three British gods the 'cucullati'. Only British gods would be shown wearing duffel coats.
Today, we saw the Carrawburgh Mithraeum. The worship of Mithras was a secret, male-only cult with origins in the Near East, whose terrifying initiation ceremonies were held in dark, windowless temples. It was popular among Roman soldiers and some say it has contributed much to the more modern freemason cult. Much more attractive to me was the nearby Well of Coventina. She was a watery goddess of British origin and here the Romans had erected a shrine building around a spring. We could not see any remains of this above the ground, but in the museum at Chesters Fort were some of the very many offerings made to Coventina, showing how well-loved she was.
No comments:
Post a Comment