Les dévots latinophones de Mithra disaient-ils leurs mystères, et si oui comment ?
Résumé
Abstract Studying the epigraphic testimonies of Mithraists should be a suitable approach to our task of tracing the mysteries in Latin, because Roman worshippers of Mithras were Latin speakers in their vast majority. Moreover, a certain proportion of them had their origin in the Greek-speaking Mediterranean, where mysteria were known. And yet there is almost no lexicon of ‘mysteries’ in these texts, although a Latin lexicon was available for talking about the mysteries. A close study of the few terms that might be related to an eventual expression of the ‘mysteries’— sacratus/a, consacranus/a, fratres, syndexi —produces results less convincing than is usually thought. However, at the end of the fourth century in Rome there does seem to be a shift in the way in which the entry into each grade ( traditio ) is expressed. In the end, this kind of lexical analysis reveals less about the ‘mysteries’ of Mithra than it does about the profoundly Roman nature of the organization of these religious groups.