The Winds in Eastern Mystery Cults There is much that we still do not know about the mystery cults

such as Mithraism, Orphism and Aeonism, with some scholars believing that the latter two cults had a different genesis and growth (391). Mystery religions have an ancient basis, with the cult of Magna Mater (Cybele) celebrated in Neolithic Anatolia before its spread westwards. In Greece, the rites of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis, and those of Dionysus everywhere were joined by the more esoteric mysteries of Orpheus. In the Hellenistic world, the worship of the Egyptian goddess Isis gained a strong following with its syncretism with contemporary religions (Isis as Aphrodite-Venus), and Aeonism became a subsidiary branch of the Isis cult, taking its lead from this mother religion to adapt to the demands of the Hellenistic world. Mithraism as a purely western, and artistic, phenomenon is known only from around 100 A.D., although it had a large following in its eastern, and literary, guise under the earlier Indian and Persian empires. Mystery religions are so called because of their complicated system of initiation (mysteria), when a new member of the cult had to undergo a trial. The meetings and the worship of the divine figure central to the cult were to be kept secret by its members, and thus we know very little about the actual practices involved. It is perhaps easy to see what drew people to mystery religions - some welcomed women (Cybele, the Bona Dea), while others admitted only men (Mithras), and many took no notice of social distinctions - slaves and freedmen were allowed as members alongside the freeborn and wealthy. There was no onus upon people to join; they came of their own free will. Mysteries are essentially a form of personal votive religion, whereby proximity to the divine would offer the worshipper their salvation. People often made offerings to ask for health and safety - in sanctuaries throughout the ancient world we may find votive statues, models of afflicted body parts, written dedications and so forth - so it follows that eventually, these mystery religions should grow up based upon a purely votive nature. Mithraic monuments clearly show their votive character (392), while Isis and Serapis were wellknown as healer-gods, and were praised accordingly. While it is likely that some degree of syncretism took place between all three religions we shall look at in this section - Mithraism, Orphism and Aeonism - this is mainly because they had a similar theology. This was based on cosmology, with the Seasons, Winds, Sun, Moon and constellations all playing an important role in assisting the central deity - Mithras, Phanes, or Aeon - to rule the heavens. Mithraism Mithraism had a great following, particularly under the Roman Empire where it was known as a soldiers religion, when it spread from Persepolis to mid-way down the Nile, to the Western edges of the Black Sea and all along the frontiers of the German provinces and in Britain; yet Mithraism contains two separate belief structures: the first being of Iranian origin, known from a purely literary source; the second being Western Mithraism as practised by the Romans, which, in the extant record, is represented pictorially rather than by the written word. The extent to which the two branches of Mithraism overlapped is probably very slight, yet the Winds appear in both Iranian and Western Mithraism as more or less fundamental deities in the initial cosmology of the religions. (i) Indo-Iranian religion: Mit(h)ra and the Winds Mitra (old Indian) or Mithra (old Iranian) is a deity attested in literary sources such as the sacred texts of the Indians, the RgVeda, and of the Iranians, the Avesta, both of which date from the fourteenth century B.C. The root of the name means friend in Classical Sanskrit and in the RgVeda, while it means contract in the Avesta (393). The two concepts are not so far apart, since concluding a (formal) contract seals a friendship, and people make (informal) contracts through simple interaction with their friends. Mitra or Mithra (henceforward Mithra) is therefore the god Contract, a personification of an abstract concept. His chief duties as a god are to defend and reward those faithful to their contracts (RgVeda), or to avenge himself upon those who break their contracts (Avesta) (394). Mithra is therefore the deity who stands between man and the gods - the act of worship is essentially the creation and affirmation of a contract, and so it is unsurprising that Mithra is the god most associated with the supreme being of light and good, Varuna, the god True-Speech (also known as Ahura Mazda) (395). The vast majority of Indo-Iranian gods are personified concepts, with the exception of Vayu, the god Wind, who is simply a personification of an element. These deities all act as allies to, and extensions of, Varuna, yet they can also be identified as separate entities, as may be seen in this example from a RgVedic text: Let us not be under the wrath of Varuna and of Vayu, nor under that of Mitra, who is most dear to men (396). Mithra is the most accessible deity due to his nature of the contract god; what is interesting here is his connection with Vayu, the Wind, a connection found also in the Iranian texts, as Thieme notes that Mithra appears in the Avesta alongside vata vereq rajano, the victorious winds, on several occasions (397). As in Greek mythology, the supreme deity of India and Iran controls the weather; sometimes this task is undertaken solely by Mithra, and on other occasions, it is the responsibility of both Varuna and Mithra (398): The rain winds (masrut) clothe themselves in clouds - by your magic you [Mithra and Varuna] make the sky rain...(399) This is presenting Varuna and Mithra as fertility gods, the harbingers of "luxuriant vegetation and thereby health" (400), thus fulfilling the heavenly part of a contract between the men who offer sacrifice to the gods, and the gods themselves who take care of the mortals on earth. It is important to note that the Indo-Iranians perceived a difference between Vayu, the god Wind, and other, lesser, winds which were under the control of the supreme god Varuna - although, strictly

speaking, all other gods were under Varuna and were a part of him. This separatism in the cult of the Winds is a recurring factor throughout the ancient world - who has ultimate control over the weather? Cumont believed that Western Mithraism developed from Indo-Iranian Mithraism, and read the iconography accordingly; Ulansey, however, suggests that the two religions are very separate, and are only related by name (401). Some compromise may be reached: the Romans saw no problem in synthesising the religions they encountered to merge with their own view of theology, so the cult may have begun as an adulterated version of the Indo-Iranian religion, then, during its gradual spread to the West, its ideas and approaches to its central theology altered to become more acceptable, yet suitably mysterious and Eastern. It kept some ideas, and the name of its major deity, but was tempered by the West - in particular, given the reliance upon the god Helios, it seems to have been touched by Greek mythology and ritual practice. Certainly the representation of the Winds on Western Mithraic altars relies more heavily on the traditional Classical views of Wind-gods, rather than on any Eastern concepts, yet their fairly rare appearance, especially on the more developed tauroctonies (bull-slaying scenes), seems to obey the original Eastern concept of associating the elements with a notional supreme deity. This makes the Winds both outside of the control of Mithras himself - they are more ancient than he is and yet they act as his subordinates for the sake of preserving the cosmic balance. (ii) The Winds in Western Mithraism The extant sculptural record for Western Mithraism is fairly large, owing to the cult requirement that all mithraea should be built in a cave, or cave-like structure. This ensured the preservation of many of the altars and free-standing votive statues, despite the iconoclasm of the Christians during the end of the third century A.D. From the images left to us, we can hypothesise upon the nature of the religion, and upon its central myth. Mithras is usually depicted in a tauroctony, which can be very simple or extremely complex, as he wrestles the bull to its knees to slit its throat. The bull represents evil and darkness, possibly akin to the Bull of Heaven found in the Epic of Gilgamesh which was sent by Ishtar to destroy the earth after Gilgamesh rejected her suit (402). Mithras must kill the bull in order to preserve the harmony of the cosmos; he is helped in his quest by several creatures, such as a scorpion that attacks the bulls testicles. When the bull is dead, Mithras ascends to the heavens to meet with Helios, god of light and truth. Mithraic sculpture is rich in iconographic content, and it is generally accepted that this iconography is based upon the constellations and stars of the Northern Hemisphere (403). On almost every tauroctony, certain animals and objects appear with regularity, and these can be related to a constellation or star: the bull (Taurus), the dog (Canis Major), the serpent (Hydra), the cup (Crater), the raven (Corvus), the scorpion (Scorpio), the lion (Leo), the ear of wheat (the star Spica). These are also indicative of the levels that a Mithraist must pass through in his initiations into the religion. Mithras himself may be the constellation of Orion (404), or of Perseus (405). The sun and moon are represented by busts or figures of Helios-Sol and Luna. In addition to these, the celestial twins or Mithraic torchbearers of Cautes (torch upright) and Cautopates (torch lowered), stand on either side of Mithras. Their presence has been explained as representing the dawn and sunset (406), life and death (407), fire and water (408), and the spring and autumn equinoxes (409). They are dressed in a similar fashion to Mithras, and appear to be extensions of his power. Campbell and Ulansey both associate Cautes and Cautopates with the Greek Dioscurii, Castor and Pollux (410); one function of the Dioscurii was to protect the traveller from harm, and this especially applied to sailors when out in a storm (411). The Dioscurii would ensure safe passage and favourable winds, and Ulansey quite correctly ties this in with his thesis that Cautes represents the vernal equinox and Cautopates the autumnal: the date of the two equinoxes mark, roughly, the start and end of the safe sailing season. The sailing season in the ancient Mediterranean was very much at the mercy of the winds, and therefore the linking of the Dioscurii or the Torchbearers to the control of the winds (as a general concept rather than as individual deities) makes a great deal of sense. Iconographically, the Winds usually (but not always) appear in the four corners of the tauroctonies, with Cautes and Cautopates standing between them, possibly to represent the interposition of the gods between the elements and man. Mithraic scenes other than that of the tauroctony can be found: Mithraism is no different to other mystery cults in that its central deity is seen by his/her worshippers as being the ruler, but never the creator, of the cosmos. Hence we also see the representations of the Birth of Mithras (emerging from the Cosmic Egg (412)), and Mithras-the-child as ruler of the cosmos, as well as the victorious feasting with Helios after the death of the bull. Tauroctonies that feature the Winds can be divided into two categories: those that feature two Winds, and those that feature four Winds. As stated above, tauroctonies vary in their complexity and iconographic richness, and so we must pay careful attention to the other figures upon the monument to decide what role the Winds have therein. We should also note that it is very rare for us to be able to assign a specific date for a Mithraic monument, save for the rather vague 100-500 A.D. (a) Tauroctonies with two Wind-gods The relief from Neuenheim (fig.94) seems to be from a second century mithraeum, as coins have been found there dating to 159 and 175 A.D. (413). The tauroctony is rich and complex, with the typical central bull-slaying scene surrounded by persons and events from the life of Mithras (from the lower left upwards): Mithras-Atlas carrying the cosmic globe on his shoulders; Oceanus or Caelus reclining against a rock; Saturn handing the thunderbolt over to Jupiter; and Mithras emerging from the rock. Then, the head of a Wind-god blowing towards Mithras, who is breaking branches from a cypress-tree; Mithras aiming his bow before a rock; Mithras and Sol ascending in a quadriga; Luna descending in her

biga; Mithras and his bow before another rock, and Mithras amidst the branches of a cypress-tree being blown upon by a second Wind-god. Finally we see episodes of Mithras and the bull: the bull grazes, it is caught by Mithras, it breaks free and drags Mithras along behind it, and the final capture of the bull for the slaughter. Both Wind-gods are shown in profile, beardless and with rectangular wings set into their short curly hair. They are identified by Cumont as Notus at top left, and Boreas at top right (414); Campbell explains it thus: With the bust in the right hand panel is an Arbor genetrix [tree of birth] and with the other is an Arbor frugifera [tree of fruitfulness]... [these] symbols tend to confirm Cumonts identifications, since North is the place of Genesis and South of Apogenesis (415). This concept is a philosophical belief endorsed by Porphyry on the incarnation of souls, which was applied to Mithraism to the extent that Mithras was called Lord of Genesis (416). The Winds are here depicted as cosmological helpers to Mithras, appearing on this relief not only in this capacity but also as markers for their respective compass directions: the soul descends to its genesis through the constellation of Cancer, the northernmost part of the zodiac, aided by Boreas. The apogenesis, or ascent of the soul, is via the southernmost part of the zodiac, the constellation of Capricorn, aided this time by Notus (417). A similar schema is depicted on the relief from Osterburken (fig.95), which is, if anything, even more complicated that that of Neuenheim (418). Here, the position (but not the function) of the two Wind-gods is reversed: Boreas, with a heavy beard and a thick mass of hair, blows wind from the top left corner down onto the small figure of Mithras who is depicted both emerging from the tree at his birth, and also when fully grown, is shown cutting the fruit of the tree. In the top right corner is Notus, youthful and beardless, blowing upwards towards the descending biga of Luna and the falling figure of Hesperus, who carries torches. The iconography appears to be the same in both cases. The similarity between the Osterburken and Neuenheim reliefs is notable; the two locations are close geographically, so perhaps there was some kind of mutual influence upon the sculptors of these Mithraic reliefs, or one place copied the other; in any case, these pieces are unique in their portrayal of the incarnation of the soul. Londons mithraeum, active from 150-500 A.D., yielded this fine zodiacal tauroctony (fig.96). Mithras slays the bull, accompanied by Cautes and Cautopates, within the circle of the zodiac. At top left, outside, Sol-Helios ascends the heavens while Luna descends at top right. The heads of two Wind-gods are placed at bottom left and right; they are generally identified as Boreas and Zephyrus (419). Boreas is fierce and bearded, while Zephyrus is youthful. Both have a pair of wings from the centre of their hair. Their role on this tauroctony seems to be to lend their support to the deeds of Mithras. It will be noticed that two of the tauroctonies that include four Wind-gods feature a zodiac (Augusta Treverorum and Modena), which the Winds are outside - this is to underline their place in the cosmos before the coming of Mithras, and also may be related to the positioning of the four Winds and Seasons on certain mosaics (see section 2.3 above); i.e., the Winds refer to the foursquare stability of the cosmos (four elements, four seasons, four corners of the earth, four winds). In this piece from London, Sol-Helios and Luna take the place of two Wind-gods, as they are more important iconographically to the cult of Mithraism than are the Winds. (b) Tauroctonies with Four Wind-gods Fig.97 is a relief from Augusta Treverorum which belongs to a small group of monuments depicting Mithras as kosmokrater, ruler of the cosmos. He is shown as a child, holding the globe of the world against his body with his left hand while he leans out and turns the wheel of the zodiac, symbol of both the heavens and of the procession of time, with his right hand. In the four corners of the relief can be seen the four Winds: Boreas (top left), Eurus (top right), Notus (bottom right) and Zephyrus (bottom left). Since there are no inscriptions to identify the characters, it is Campbells tendency to identify the lower left Wind as Zephyrus because he is blowing towards the east (420), the direction that the relief was originally oriented towards; it would then follow that top left would be Boreas, and so on clockwise around the compass. Here we will follow Campbell, although it must be said that it probably does not matter which Wind is placed where, for the most part, as it is their presence upon a cosmological tauroctony that is the important thing, not their positioning. Here we may imagine the Winds to be assisting, with their breath, the young Mithras in the task of moving the heavens and thus time. They are there both as the element of stability, and also of the concept of eternal motion: the heavens will not change while the four Winds blow, but by their very act of blowing, they turn time forwards. However, it is also suggested that the Winds, who were part of the creation of the cosmos originally, appear on the Birth of Mithras scenes in the same way as the Magi witnessed the birth of Christ; the action is taken not so much in submission as in recognition, the honouring of the kosmokrater by the elements both outside, and yet inside, the control of Mithras (421). Carnuntum is the location of a large centre of Mithraism in Pannonia, with three successive altars and temples built there. The stone altar (fig.98) that stood close to the great tauroctony relief dates to between the early second and early third centuries A.D., and is a fascinating piece of sculpture. It is carved on four sides, depicting the Winds and Seasons in procession, shown as full-length figures (422). At the front of the altar stands Caelus-Atlas, holding aloft the vault of the heavens; to his right is Aestas, the Summer, followed by Notus and Hiemas (Winter), Boreas and Eurus, Autumnas and Zephyrus, and finally Ver, the Spring. This altar is unique in Mithraic sculpture; other great sites of multiple mithraea,

such as Heddernheim, Stockstadt or Dura have nothing (extant) comparable. Vermaseren notes that the Seasons are aiding Caelus by supporting the vaults of the heavens (423); the Winds, however, are positioned in such a way as to suggest that they once played trumpets - possibly made of bronze. The progression of the figures around the altar fits into the accepted schema of a Season with an appropriate Wind: thus, Notus follows Aestas, Boreas follows Hiemas, Eurus follows Autumnus and Zephyrus follows Ver. This is interesting as it is at variance with the Greek belief that the Winds were the harbingers of the Seasons, although it does appear that in Mithraism, Seasons were considered more important indicators of the years passing than Winds. The appearance of the trumpets gives a military air to the Winds; the Carnuntum mithraea was patronised by the XIII, XIV and XV legions, and Mithraism is seen as being primarily a soldiers religion (424). Therefore the Winds could be considered as heralds, calling, or announcing, the Seasons. Fig.99 shows a bronze plaque, possibly from the third century, from Brigetio (Pannonia). It depicts the tauroctony with the inclusion of seven busts below the main scene, representing the seven planets known in ancient times: Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. Unusually, the images of Sol and Luna are duplicated, since they appear at top left (Sol) and top right (Luna) of the tauroctony. The seven planets are reflected in the seven grades of initiation for the followers of Mithras: the Raven, the Bride, the Soldier, the Lion, the Persian, the Sun-Courier, and the Father. As the worshipper made his way through the grades on earth, so his soul would wend heavenwards through the planets after death; as Vermaseren writes: The concept of the souls journey through the separate spheres of the planets led the followers of Mithras to believe that the Wind-gods could help or hinder this journey, a belief which explains why they are sometimes blowing upwards and sometimes downwards (425). The latter part of the sentence seems a little strained; the Winds are shown blowing in their respective directions, or turning the wheel of the zodiac as we have seen above, rather than up or down. The idea of a cosmological snakes and ladders seems to sit uncomfortably with the carefully-planned Mithraic tauroctony. Yet Campbell may have had this Wind-Planet aspect in mind when he identified the four busts in the corners of the tauroctony as Wind-gods (426). Certainly others do not share his opinion (427), identifying the busts as those of the Seasons instead. The figures are rather indistinct, and with the absence of wings in the hair, it would appear that they could indeed be Seasons and not Winds. However, we can compare this piece with two other bronze reliefs. Fig.100 is a fragment of a silvered bronze plate from Stockstadt, showing the tauroctony within an arch. Outside of the arch are busts of Sol and Luna, and beyond them, two youthful busts with one apparently with a pair of wings in his hair. Vermaseren identifies this as a Wind-god (428), and it does seem as if the mouth of the figure is pursed, as if breathing wind; but since the piece is fragmentary we cannot be sure of the identification, as the position of this wind would suggest the placing of Wind-gods in all four corners of the complete plate. Fig.101 shows the unmistakable head of a Wind-god, fashioned in bronze, discovered at Angleur with two others (the fourth is lost). On the reverse side is a iron hook for hanging. They must have been used as decoration in a particularly rich mithreaum, as they were found together with other bronzes representing signs of the zodiac (429). Fig.102 is a double-sided relief from Dieburg which was originally mounted on a pivot. The terminus ad quem for the Dieburg mithraea is 260 A.D., following the destruction of the limes by the Germans (430). The front shows Mithras as a horseman, accompanied by dogs; the reverse depicts the myth of Phaethon and Helios (431). Four female Seasons surround Helios throne, and four naked youths lead away his horses. In the foreground, Oceanus, Caelus and Tellus observe the proceedings. In the corners, the Winds blow down upon the scene. Here we have the two Winds at the bottom of the relief with their backs to the viewer so that they seem to be looking at the central motif; perhaps this is to signal their involvement and their connections with the other elemental deities also featured, because this is a strongly cosmological scene: four Winds, four Seasons, the four horses of Helios, which represent the four elements, and emphasised by Oceanus (Water), Caelus (Air) and Tellus (Earth). According to Ulansey, Mithraists believed in the conflagration of the earth at intervals known as Great Years (432), a doomsday concept that, to their eyes, was paralleled by Phaethons ill-fated ride through the heavens. As in the birth of Mithras scenes, the Winds stand as dispassionate observers; they also belong to the element of Air.

Another double-sided relief was discovered at Heddernheim, possibly dating to the third century (fig.103). Here the border remains static while the central scene moves around to display the tauroctony or the sacred meal. On the border, the four Winds are displayed in corner roundels, while between them are placed the Seasons and episodes from the life of Mithras. A similar, one-sided, depiction may be found at Augusta Rauricorum (fig.104), and again at Mayence in a fragment of a large-scale tauroctony (fig.105). In the latter relief, we can clearly see the breath of the Wind-god issuing from his mouth. Somewhat more problematic is the identification of the relief found in Rome (fig.106), which shows the lion-headed god of Time, a common addition to all mithraea. Opinion is divided on the correct name to be given to this figure, who is identified variously as Zurvan (433), Aeon (434), Cronos (435), Saturn (436), and a Gorgon-type creature representing the

Order of the Universe (437). The identification is difficult due to the many different attributes of the god; the lion-head, the posture, the Serpent and the wings are basic, found on every example. Differences include the representations of the zodiac, multiple eyes on the body of the god, lions heads on the stomach and/or knees, and a Cerberus-like hound that crouches at the feet of the deity. This relief shows the god standing on the world-globe; the two bands across its circumference represent the equinoxes (438). The deity is usually taken to be male; in this example, his genitals are hidden by the Serpents seven coils, symbolising the seven planets and the progression of the sun through the zodiac (439). In his left hand he holds a sceptre divided into twelve parts by a running spiral: this represents the zodiac. His right hand clasps a key to his chest, and this is identified as the key to the gateway of heaven and therefore the genesis and incarnation of the soul (440). Finally, the lion-headed god is often shown with four wings, two pointing up and two pointing down; this represents his control over the Winds, and hence the Seasons (441). Ulansey concludes: The lion-headed god, therefore, embodies in one symbol the organising power of the entire cosmos...the power which Mithras...would be able to overcome and absorb (442). Thus we can see that the Winds again play a cosmological role, subservient to, and a part of, Time itself, which will eventually be ruled by Mithras. Once the god has arrived as kosmokrater, the Winds become his servants and helpers, and aid in the migration of the soul from genesis to apogenesis. These beliefs are similar to those in Orphism, which by the Roman period was almost interchangeable with Mithraism, as will be seen below. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------