Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire. : 147 In the 4th century, Mithraists faced persecution from Christians and the religion was subsequently suppressed and eliminated in the Roman empire by the end of the century. Mithraism is viewed as a rival of early Christianity. The cult appears to have had its center in Rome, and was popular throughout the western half of the empire, as far south as Roman Africa and Numidia, as far north as Roman Britain, : 26–27 and to a lesser extent in Roman Syria in the east.
They met in underground temples, now called mithraea (singular mithraeum), which survive in large numbers. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake". Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from about the 1st to the 4th-century CE. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity ( yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras is linked to a new and distinctive imagery, with the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice debated. Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras.
Rock-born Mithras and Mithraic artifacts ( Baths of Diocletian, Rome)