The Dionysiac reliefs are numerous. They show symbols of the religion, such as the shepherd’s staff, the winnow (an ancient device for separating chaff from grain), and the phallus; they depict the gay life of satyrs and maenads, shepherds and shepherdesses; and they represent the “golden age” of the gods with tame and wild animals enjoying a peace that the god had instituted. A great silver dish dating from about the 4th century ad and found at Mildenhall, England, shows the swift and elegant dance of the maenads. Dionysiac sarcophagi represented Bacchic revels and the pastime of the Erotes and Psyches in afterlife. Many reliefs of the Isis Mysteries also survive. They display the mystical cista (a receptacle for carrying sacred objects) with the snake of Horus, the priest carrying holy water in a procession, female attendants with a ladle, and a man in a dog’s mask, who represents Anubis (the guardian god). Other Isiac reliefs show Isis riding on a dog, symbolic of her position as goddess of Sirius (the Dog Star).

In Mithraic caverns there was always a relief depicting the god sacrificing the bull. Representations of the sacramental meal were also frequent; a relief recently discovered in Konjic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, shows a banquet at which the initiates are wearing masks, among them a lion, a raven, a soldier, and a Persian. Two reliefs—at Rome (now at Modena, Italy) and at Housesteads, England (the best preserved fort along Hadrian’s Wall)—depict the creation of the world out of an initial egg; in this case, Orphic and Mithraic ideas were amalgamated. Other episodes of Mithraic mythology that were commonly displayed include the birth of Mithra from a rock with the shepherds who welcome him and his dealings with the sun god.

The stucco reliefs in the subterranean basilica near Porta Maggiore are of outstanding quality. In the central episode, Sappho—an early Greek poetess who supposedly killed herself in a “lover’s leap” from the island of Leucas into the Ionian Sea—is shown leaping toward Apollo, the god of the sun; this symbolized the soul’s transcendence into more favourable existence. Many of the reliefs in the basilica allegorize episodes from Greek mythology in the fashion of the Pythagoreans, who found a hidden religious or philosophical meaning behind the mythical tales of the Greek tradition.

Painting

There are few paintings from the temples of the mystery religions that have been preserved; nevertheless, some of these deserve comment. The superb Dionysiac frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries (Villa dei Misteri) at Pompeii show the initiation of a girl into the Bacchic Mysteries: in one fresco she is lifting the cover of a sacred casket; in a second scene three followers of Dionysus are practicing lecanomancy (divination by the inspection of a bowl filled with water); in a third scene the girl is unveiling an erect phallus and because of this she is being flagellated; finally, she is seen dancing in happy bliss. A number of Isiac frescoes, preserved in the temple of Isis at Pompeii, show the sacred dance of the initiates, the presentation of an urn filled with the ritual holy water to the initiates, the coffin of Osiris and his resurrection, and episodes from the cycle of Io, a Greek heroine equated with Isis. Isiac frescoes dating from the time of the emperor Caligula in the 1st century ad are also found in the ruins on the Palatine at Rome. In the Mithraeum under Sta. Prisca in Rome, two layers of frescoes were found that show the procession of the initiates toward ritual sacrifice of a bull, called Suovetaurilia, and the sacred meal of the sun god and Mithra. Sometimes a fresco replaced the relief of the sacrifice of the bull. The initiation ceremonies are shown in the Mithraic sanctuary at Capua (in western Italy): the candidate, accompanied by the mystagōgos, is blindfolded, kneels down, and lies prostrate. At Rome, in the tomb of Vincentius and Vibia, who worshipped the god Sabazius (a Thracian form of Dionysus), frescoes show how Vibia was carried away by Death, as Kore had been carried away by Hades, how she was judged and acquitted, and how she was introduced by a “good angel” to the sacred meal of the blessed.

Mosaics

A mosaic at Antioch represents the Phoenix—the solar bird who died and resurrected from its own ashes and who was its own father and son at the same time—with sunrays encircling its head. A Dionysus mosaic at Cologne, Germany, depicts in several panels the life of satyrs and maenads and also Bacchic symbols such as the winnow (an implement of purification) and the oyster (which has to be liberated from the shell as the soul from the body). The room evidently was used for banquets and Dionysiac merrymaking.