1The study of ancient mystery cults was long dominated by Franz Cumont (1868-1947) until the appearance of Walter Burkert’s (1931-2015) concise book Ancient Mystery Cults (1987). Despite his synchronic discussion of the mysteries, Burkert established once and for all that the ‘Oriental religions’ were cults rather than religions, that they were not that Oriental and, moreover, that they did not all promise otherworldly salvation.1 Perhaps not surprisingly, Burkert concentrated on the major and well-known mysteries, such as those of Eleusis, Samothrace, Isis and Mithras. On the other hand, the lesser mysteries have been well studied by Fritz Graf, who focused on the Peloponnesian mysteries and a limited number of mysteries of Asia Minor.2 However, he did not pay attention to those of Agdistis and Ma (cf. ILydiaKP III 18 = LSAM 20), Cybele and Attis,3 Men (ILydiaM 131), Sabazios (cf. IPhrygR 127 = CCIS II 6, 39, 43 [initiates of Zeus Sabazios near Philomelion]), the ‘mysteries of the god’ (I.Smyrna 597), Antinoos,4 and Alexander of Abonouteichos.5 Graf neither mentioned the so-called imperial mysteries, which is why these will be the focus of my contribution, the more so as these have not received any detailed scholarly attention for about half a century.

2Some readers may be somewhat sceptical about the project. In an important article, Nicole Belayche has pointed to the increasing mention of mysteries in the imperial period, but she also argued that we should not take their mention too literally. These mysteries could even refer ‘jusqu’à tout type d’expérience de la divinité et de son pouvoir’, but as proof of this statement she refers in her footnote to Cumont who says the same thing, which is perhaps not quite persuasive.6 The Altmeister Martin P. Nilsson (1874-1967) saw it from a different perspective and called the imperial mysteries ‘pseudo-mysteries’ and argued that the imperial cult ‘lacked all genuine religious content’.7 His view was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that his generation as a whole had a very low opinion of the imperial cult as such. To quote the words of another reliable student of that cult, Duncan Fishwick, imperial rituals were ‘a purely mechanical exercise’ that failed to evoke or stimulate the feelings and emotions of those who participated in these rituals.8 It is evident that the imperial cult is measured with certain ideals of what a religious ritual should be, and it is one of the merits of Simon Price’s (1954-2011) Ritual and Power to have noted and combated these Christianising interpretations. Yet it is rather surprising how little attention he gives to the imperial mysteries: less than two pages, in which his main thesis is that these mysteries, when mentioned in an inscription from Pergamum, are not ‘different in kind from the other rituals’ mentioned in that inscription, such as the celebration of imperial birthdays,9 the remembrance of former members of the imperial choir and the start of the New Year.10

3Debates about such interpretations are not made easier due to the fact, as Nicole Belayche notes, that the veil of secrecy prevents us from knowing what really went on at the rituals called mustêria.11 Yet, to return to her argument, why would ancient authors call certain rituals mustêria if there was nothing in them that reminded the participants of those old and established mysteries that had become authoritative for every new founder of mysteries, those of Eleusis and Samothrace?12 I assume that the contemporaries saw something of a family resemblance between the established and the new mysteries,13 which is why I will return to the imperial mysteries, fully conscious of the fact that we have indeed very little material at our disposal.

4The only article one can consult about these mysteries is the well-known 1965 article by the Leiden epigraphist Harry Pleket.14 This is still a very useful study, but most of his texts have been re-edited since and, as I hope, our insight into the mysteries itself has also increased somewhat. Yet it is remarkable that with all the attention to the mysteries, his remains the only analysis of the available evidence regarding the imperial mysteries. In my analysis I will follow Pleket’s enumeration of the evidence but will try to advance somewhat beyond him.

5Now it is always a good starting point, when possible, to take into account the chronology, as even mysteries did not stand outside the flow of history. So our first inscription – as literary texts do not seem to mention them – is an inscription from Ephesos dating to the year AD 88/9. It is a request by a Roman citizen of Ephesos regarding the mysteries of Demeter Karpophoros and Thesmophoros, which, as we are told, were celebrated yearly, as was the custom for the older mysteries:

To Lucius Mestrius Florus, proconsul (anthupatos), from Lucius Pompeius Apollonios of Ephesos. Mysteries and sacrifices are performed each year in Ephesus, lord, to Demeter Karpophoros and Thesmophoros and to the imperial gods (Theois Sebastois) by initiates with great purity and lawful customs, together with the priestesses. In most years these practices were protected by kings and emperors, as well as the proconsul of the period, as contained in their enclosed letters. Accordingly as the mysteries are pressing upon us during your time of office, through my agency the ones obligated to accomplish the mysteries necessarily petition you, lord, in order that, acknowledging their rights …15

6These mysteries must have had some stature, as we now know that they were probably also celebrated in Sardis, which was of course not that far away from Ephesos.16 Important for us is to notice that the inscription claims that the mysteries are also celebrated for the ‘imperial gods (Theois Sebastois) since very many years’. It is interesting to see that the emperors are included here among the gods of the mysteries seemingly without any distinction being made between the old Demeter and the new Roman upstarts. Moreover, the Ephesian mysteries of Demeter are regularly mentioned in the inscriptions of Ephesos as very important rituals (I. Ephes. 667A, 702, 987-89, etc.), but only in a formulaic manner, clearly preserving the secrecy of the mysteries.

7In an inscription from the time of Commodus (I. Ephesos 1600), the emperor was part of an inflated number of gods, which were apparently celebrated in mysteries by a kind of Dionysiac association, which is reminiscent of the famous Torre Nova inscription by the plurality of the Dionysiac offices, but also is surprising for the plurality of gods mentioned. Both inscriptions, then, but especially the first, show that the emperor could be joined to existing mysteries. This incorporation of the emperors into local mysteries was, it seems, the first step towards imperial mysteries proper.

8The time of the first inscription, before AD 100, would also fit since the second century AD is the century in which the mysteries seem to have flourished most. Unfortunately, and I will have to use that word more often, we do not know anything about these mysteries, but the presence of Demeter and her priestesses strongly suggests that they were modelled on the Eleusinian Mysteries. In fact, one can hardly be surprised about the fact that we have several mysteries of Demeter in Asia Minor, such as in Prusias ad Hypium and in Nicomedia where Demeter was the most important divinity of the town.17

9Our next city is Pergamum, where we have a famous inscription from the time of Hadrian.18 It relates to the hymnodes, the ‘choristers’ as Simon Price nicely translates them, and their sons. Here we have a few more details than we normally find. Apparently, there was a celebration of the mysteries during the first three days of the month Loios, that is, from 23-25 June. On the third day, the eukosmos, an office strangely not mentioned in the Realenzyklopädie, had to give wine, cash and bread (B 10-11). Moreover, during the mysteries, the eukosmos ‘has to decorate the humnôideion (where the mysteries clearly were celebrated) with wreaths and every day (of the mysteries) he will give wreaths to the choristers and their sons, and cake, incense and lamps to the Emperor’ (B 16-20). The priest of the club will have to give ‘wine, cash, loaves of bread’ on the second and third day (C 8) and the grammateus ‘wine, a laid table and bread’ and then, unfortunately, there follows a lacuna in the text (D 10-11).

10In an interesting discussion, Pleket has drawn attention to various aspects of these mysteries, which shed some light on the darkness in which they were celebrated. First, given that this inscription concerns hymnodes and their sons, it is reasonable to assume that they sang hymns during the celebration of the mysteries. Indeed, singing must have been part of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the model for other mysteries, as euphônia was required of the hierophant, and a first-century BC inscription mentions humnagôgoi in Eleusis;19 in fact, the singing of hymns is securely attested in the mysteries of the Lykomids.20 Unfortunately, though, we do not know at which stage of the ritual this singing took place, but hymnodes are widely attested in the imperial cult and seem to have become increasingly important in the imperial period.21

11Secondly, Pleket notes the presence of a theologos, a functionary who has naturally drawn attention from the theologians. In an interesting article from 1999, Alan Brent notes that the title theologos was given to the Apostle John as author of the Book of Revelation in several early Byzantine texts that also connect him with mysteries.22 This meaning was clearly the end result of a development in which theologos first was responsible for the composition of poetry and myth, to be set to music at the context for festivals, particularly that of Artemis, thus Brent, but he overlooks the theologoi for Demeter; in fact, we have two inscriptions from Smyrna that each mentions two female theologoi within a mystery cult for Demeter.23 Although we have no specific information about this office, it seems that the theologoi had to speak about the emperor(s). This is an interesting difference with the traditional mysteries, which contained little or no discursive content: apparently, that was no longer enough in imperial times with its many wandering sophists. Brent even suggests that the existence of imperial mysteries seems to be supported by Revelation 14.3 in which the seer as both θεολόγος and ὑμνωδός of the Christian cult mentions an ᾠδὴν καινήν, which no-one could learn except the ‘144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth’. Yet given the uncertain date of the composition of the Apocalypse, I think it better to keep that text out of our discussion. I am also far from certain that the theologos was responsible for a cultic drama, as Brent suggests. It is true that in the Dionysiac Mysteries performances of small plays seem to have taken place,24 but there existed a recognised body of myths concerning Dionysos, which was not the case with the emperor.

12Third, Pleket notes the lamps in the enumeration of the duties of the eukosmos. He rightly observes that light played an important part in the ritual of the mysteries. Yet he makes a strange mistake in following Deubner who thought that the light at Eleusis was ‘einem durch Tageslicht bedingten Effekt’25. Nothing could be further from the truth. The highpoint of the Eleusinian epopteia took place at night, as was normal for mysteries and as we learn from Eleusis from an epigram of ca. AD 200 for a hierophant, which stresses the moment that the initiates saw him ‘stepping forward from the anaktoron in the shining nights’ of the mysteries.26 This light, which was effected by well-staged fires and returns in many allusions to the mysteries,27 clearly was an important moment in the ritual, which made a big impression on the participants. In fact, this light was so important that it was taken over by the mysteries of Samothrace and those of Isis.28 Now in this light the hierophant showed an ear of wheat, but he or one of the other priests also displayed a statue of Demeter.29 It thus makes sense when Pleket suggests that these lamps were used to illuminate the images of the emperors at, as I would add, the high point of these mysteries. Moreover, he also persuasively suggests that the person who held up the images of the imperial couple or of Augustus alone was, actually, the sebastophant.30

13Our next stage is Galatia, which is not mentioned by Pleket. Here we have a large inscription from an association for Antoninus Pius (I. Ancyra 8), dating between AD 145-161, which set up an eikôn together with an identifying inscription and pictures (graphai). The eikôn was probably displayed during the imperial mysteries, and its production may well have been caused by the emperor’s recent accession. The inscription was probably displayed in the Galatian imperial sanctuary near the temple of Augustus under the supervision of the governor of the province and the three main officials of the imperial cult association at Ankara. It lists about a hundred names without much further specification, but at the beginning it states that it was set up ‘when Claudia Balbina the Younger was the sebastophant and Julius Aelius Julianus hierophant for life’ (10-12); apparently, as Christopher Jones notes, the sebastophant was more important than the hierophant.31 This Claudia, who is the only female name in the text, may have been the daughter of Claudia Balbina, who was of royal stock and married to Claudius Arrianus from a Roman senatorial family.32

14It is noteworthy, though, that in an apparently somewhat earlier inscription of Ankara, but still belonging to the time of Antoninus Pius, we find the father or elder brother of the aforementioned Julius Aelius Julianus, a man called Julius Aelius Macedo, who clearly also belonged to the top of the Galatian society, as he was, according to the inscription, ‘high priest, president of the games of the community of the Galatians, galatarch, sebastophant, hierophant of the Augusti for life’ (I. Ancyra 88.1-8). I presume that after his death, his collection of functions was partially rearranged and now divided over two persons instead of being kept in one hand. The function of sebastophant is noted quite often in the inscriptions of Ankara. As far as I can see, it starts to be mentioned in the time of Hadrian (81.5-6), but also occurs during the rules of Antoninus Pius as we have already seen (also 82.12, 83.6), and lasts till the time of Caracalla (96.14, 97.15-16, 98.11, 100.12, 101.10-11, 102.11), in all cases occupied by people belonging to the top of Galatian society. There can be no doubt, then, that the most important functions of the imperial mysteries in Galatia were in the hands of the elite of the local society.

15We also find a sebastophant in Galatian Pessinous (I. Pessinous 17), where an inscription honours Tiberius Claudius Heras, who had been a high priest of the provincial koinon and sebastophant. Unfortunately, the date of the inscription is debated. Whereas Johan Strubbe opts for the time of Marcus Aurelius, Stephen Mitchell has argued for the second half of the first century AD.33 The latter date seems very early to me, and it is not impossible that we have here an allusion to imperial mysteries, but that is all we can say.

16Let us now move to Bithynia, where we also have some information; in fact, long ago, Louis Robert already noted the ‘valeur religieuse de ces mystères et leur mention spéciale en Bithynie’.34 From the fine edition of the inscriptions of Prusias by Walter Ameling we learn of a number of officials with the now familiar function of sebastophant. Although he is not always able to date these inscriptions, they seem to be fairly late, that is, belonging to the second half of the second century AD and later. Our first example is a certain Titus Flavius Domitianus Nestor, who is praised by mentioning that his ancestors were ‘priests, Bithyniarchs, sebastophants and prytaneis’ (5.2-4, 46.3-5). We learn more from the honouring by the phyle Sebastene of a certain Titius Ulpius Aelianus Papianus, an interesting mix of Roman and epichoric names from around AD 200. He is said to be ‘hierophant and sebastophant of the common temple of the mysteries’ (17.6-7). The temple is the one of the province Bithynia in Nicomedia. According to Louis Robert, the mysteries of Demeter are meant,35 which we now know also from a fairly new inscription that mentions ‘the holy mysteries of Demeter’ (I. Prusias 69), which had not yet been discovered when Robert made his suggestion. In that case the imperial mysteries would have been closely connected to the Demeter mysteries. Although there seems to be no firm indication in support of the suggestion, it makes sense to suppose that Nicomedia did not have two important mysteries. More or less at the same time, we also hear of a certain Tiberius Claudius Piso, who represented the conventus of the Bithynians with the Roman authorities. He was ‘sebastophant and hierophant of the great and common temple of Bithynia of the mysteries’ (I. Prusias 47.11-12), once again somebody who combined the two functions we have now come across several times. Although we cannot be sure how we must imagine these Bithynian mysteries exactly, the evidence we have suggests once again that the officials belonged to the top of the provincial elite.

17This is all the evidence we have. Which conclusions can we draw?

181. It seems that we can see a historical development from the incorporation of the emperors in local mysteries, such as those of Ephesos to the emancipation from these mysteries into independent imperial mysteries.

192. We have seen that the latter occurred in Pergamum, Bithynia and Galatia – clearly a fairly limited area in Asia Minor. The office of sebastophant, which strangely does not occur in the index of Simon Price’s book, is better attested but also limited to Asia, Pontus-Bithynia and Galatia.36 Its mention may conceal a few more mysteries, but by all accounts we cannot consider the imperial mysteries an important part of the imperial cult.

203. There is very little that we can say about the content of the mysteries. If we suppose that they had a more or less identical format – something about which we cannot be at all sure – we can identify the following characteristics: they were celebrated at night,37 there was hymn singing, there was the revealing of the portrait of the emperor and there was a eulogy of the emperor, which also showed who the most important person was in these mysteries and, last but not least, there was a lot of eating and drinking.

21Finally, in two aspects the imperial mysteries differed clearly from the traditional mysteries. First, there was a eulogy of the emperors by the theologoi. Such addresses were absent from pre-imperial mysteries and may well have been stimulated by the general cultural climate of the time that appreciated the orations of sophists. Second, the imperial mysteries were clearly not intended for the lower classes of Asia Minor. Unlike the traditional mysteries, which were open to the free and slaves, males and females, Greeks and non-Greeks, imperial mysteries were closed societies of upper-class members of the elite, seemingly mostly male. In clear reaction to Nilsson (above) and others, Louis Robert and Pleket spent much energy in arguing that the imperial mysteries manifested ‘genuine devotion’, and Pleket even concludes his article with stating that ‘here we are faced with an expression of the general dependence of man on the god(s) which comes close to pious veneration’38. Price suggested that the latter expression ‘hints at a connection between the imperial cult and the afterlife’, but there is nothing in Pleket that comes even close to that suggestion.39 In the end, we have no idea what the participants thought about the emperor and his cults. What we can notice is that none of our few testimonies is very late. This would fit the observation by Lukas de Blois that around AD 200 the imperial cult had entered a period of decay.40 Yet, in the end, we see these mysteries only through a glass darkly.41