Mystery Cults in the Ancient World Quotes

“It still needs to be explained why the performance of this particular sacrifice should be commemorated on altars and included along with the list of initiations in the fourth-century inscriptions. The main location of the altars commemorating performances of the taurobolium is the Phrygianum”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World

“Mithraea vary in size but are never very large. They are clearly designed for small groups meeting together; in cities such as Rome and Ostia large numbers of Mithraea operated simultaneously”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World

“The Derveni Papyrus is the only surviving text on papyrus from Greece. It was discovered in 1962”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World

“The word Gallus is used in other literature to refer to devotees of the Mother of the Gods. The word itself probably simply means Gaul or Celt”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World

“Pausanias refers to a number of cults in honour of Demeter and Kore (Persephone)”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World

“We do have a description of the experience of initiates in a fragment of a lost work by Plutarch. It is making a comparison between the experience of the human soul at death and that of an initiate. Although Plutarch does not explicitly say that he is talking about the Eleusinian Mysteries”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World

“and with a number of gods or goddesses referred to only by titles”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World

“Animal sacrifice might also be understood in terms of a meal shared between men and gods. In Greek sacrifice as described by Homer”
― Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults in the Ancient World