'And what may Britain be?' - The fiction field of Roman Britain: Part Two

Abstract

Throughout the more modern novels there are mentions of Mithras and his cult, the necessary one for most career officers in the legions. As Marcus realizes in 'The Eagle of the Ninth' of Guern the Hunter, "at some time, years ago to judge by the faintness of the sear, he had been initiated into the Raven Degree of Mithras" (p.127). This cult, of Asian origin, was propagated from the late first century throughout the Empire by Asian merchants and especially by the Army, so that, not surprisingly, the (surviving) monuments to the cult are almost entirely confined to the sites of garrisons and sea-ports.