end of two years the emperor was
victorious. It is he who states his policy as follows, "My son,
content the soldiers and you may despise the rest." For a century
there was no other form of government than the will of the soldiers.
They killed the emperors who displeased them and replaced them by
their favorites.

Strange emperors, therefore, occupied the throne: Elagabalus, a Syrian
priest, who garbed himself as a woman and had his mother assemble a
senate of women; Maximin, a soldier of fortune, a rough and
bloodthirsty giant, who ate, it was said, thirty pounds of food and
drank twenty-one quarts of wine a day. Once there were twenty emperors
at the same time, each in a corner of the empire (260-278). These have
been called the Thirty Tyrants.

The Cult of Mithra.--This century of wars is also a century of
superstitions. The deities of the Orient, Isis, Osiris, the Great
Mother, have their devotees everywhere. But, more than all the others,
Mithra, a Persian god, becomes the universal god of the empire. Mithra
is no other than the sun. The monuments in his honor that are found in
all parts of the empire represent him slaughtering a bull, with this
inscription: "To the unconquerable sun, to the god Mithra." His cult
is complicated, sometimes similar to the Christian worship; there are
a baptism, sacred feasts, an anointing, penances, and chapels. To be
admitted to this one must pass through an initiatory ceremony, through
fasting and certain fearful tests.

At the end of the third century the religion of Mithra was the
official religion of the empire. The Invincible God was the god of the
emperors; he had his chapels everywhere in the form of grottoes with
altars and bas-reliefs; in Rome, even, he had a magnificent temple
erected by the emperor Aurelian.

=The Taurobolia.=--One of the most urgent needs of this time was
reconciliation with the deity; and so ceremonies of purification were
invented.

The most striking of these was the Taurobolia. The devotee, clad in a
white robe with ornaments of gold, takes his place in the bottom of a
ditch which is covered by a platform pierced with holes. A bull is led
over this platform, the priest kills him and his blood runs through
the holes of the platform upon the garments, the face, and the hair of
the worshipper. It was believed that this "baptism of blood" purified
one of all sins. He who had received it was born to a new life; he
came forth from the ditch hideous t