[Mod] Mithraism

[The Russian Empire]

I did get to reading about the Eleusinian Mysteries whilst researching the Bacchic ones, although I'm not clued up on Serapis or Cybele. Were they particularly well-spread? Eleusinian seems an obvious addition as it was apparently the major mystery religion, but I didn't add it in v1.0 because I hadn't researched it yet. Originally I was only going to add Mithraism (hence the mod name) but then I got reading about Dionysus and the Bacchics/Orphics, and thought Pythagoreanism was something interesting and unique to round off the mod.

While widespread, worship of Serapis was mostly confined to Egypt, where the cult was first formulated by Ptolemy I who wished to create a new patron deity for the city of Alexandria. IIRC, Serapis was created as a synthesis of Enki, the Sumerian god later adopted by the Babylonians as Ea, and the traditional Greek god Hades. Serapis would later become the consort of Isis, another Egyptian deity whose worship would be adopted by the Romans.

A Serapeum, or place of worship for Serapis, would be built in Alexandira by Ptolemy III, but in reality the first Serapeum to be used was located near Ṣaqqārah along the west bank of the Nile. Originally a place of worship for Aspis bulls, sacred animals of the Egyptian god Ptah, the site would be converted to a place of worship for Serapis. During the Imperatorial era of Rome, the Temple of Isis and Serapis was built, but would not be used for worship until the reign of Caligula. Serapis worship was present in Rome from at least the second century on, probably a result of cultural diffusion from Egypt, but was not sanctioned by the state until Caligula. Augustus and his successor Tiberius both opposed his worship.

An interesting curiosity to consider is the depiction of Serapis on Roman coinage. Serapis appears on the coinage of Elagabalus, Septimius Severus, Severus Alexander, Commodus, Gordian III, Caracalla, Maximinus II, and many others beginning with (I believe) Claudius. Many coins featuring Serapis come from the mint in Alexandria, which was largely independent and considered a "provincial" mint until the reign of Diocletian, who brought it under imperial supervision. Coins with Serapis also come from Antioch (Serapeums can also be found in Turkey), an imperial mint, Moesia Inferior, a provincial mint in the southern Balkans, and Thrace, another provincial mint. This goes to show that the worship of Serapis was so widespread that people across the empire felt the need to mint coinage depicting Serapis.

Worship of Serapis, like that of all the pagan gods and goddesses, could not resist the Christianization of the empire that began with Constantine. The Serapeum of Alexandria was destroyed during the rein of the Emperor Theodosius in 391, although the date is uncertain. The destruction of the temple was the final nail in the coffin for Serapis, whose worship was included in Theodosius's proscriptions of non-Nicene worship.

Do you have any suggestions for the three faiths you've listed, such as tenets/doctrines and localization (e.g. priest/god names)?

Here is what I would suggest, but keep in mind there's a lot of room for interpretation as we unfortunatly don't know a lot about the specifics of his worship.

• Views on Gender
  • Male Dominated
• Religious Attitude
  • Righteous, although I could see an argument for pluralism
• Clerical Tradition
  • Lay clergy
• Head of Faith
  • None
• Marriage Types
  • Consorts & Concubines, which makes sense given the time period
• Divorce
  • Always allowed
• Bastardy
  • No bastards
• Consanguinity
  • Avunculate marriage
• Same-Sex Relations
  • Shunned
• Male Adultery
  • Shunned
• Female Adultery
  • Shunned
• Deviancy
  • Shunned
• Witchcraft
  • Accepted, but perhaps shunned
• Kinslaying
  • Shunned
• Clerical Function
  • Control
• Clerical gender
  • Only men, but I think either could work as Serapis and Isis were both intertwined
• Clerical marriage
  • Allowed
• Clerical appointment
  • Spiritual, Revocable imo

With tenets, I would suggest Mendicant Preachers, Esotericism, and Human Sacrifice. It's hard to know what to do with these, but those 3 make sense in my mind.

Localization is probably the hardest part. Serapis is obviously the high god name, with priests being called, well priests I guess? Perhaps Hierophant would work, but I'm not so sure. For holy sites, Alexandria is obviously one, and I'd include Rome, Sinope (where according to Plutarch the original statue of Serapis was base on was located,) Memphis, and finally Pergamon.

I'd finish with virtues and sins but it's close to 4:30 ET which is when my Patriots play. I would love to help out with Cybele and the Eleusinian Mysteries, but alas I'm working this week so I'll try to get to it whenever I have free time.

Hopefully this wasn't too long!

 

[NarcomancerPL]

Cult of Serapis was largely tied to Cult of Isis. Cult of Isis was the more spreaded one. Some historians of religion say that with Christianity becoming official religion of the Empire Cult of Isis "evolved" into Marian Cult

 

[moatman15]

Nice mod here. Pythagoeranism should have used triangle as it's icon tho

 

[Mhoirbheinn]

Excellent stuff @Mhoirbheinn! I'll be sure to include some of this in v1.1, alongside some new virtues and sins.

Both Bacchism and Orphism venerate Dionysus so if you've any preferences for some of this localization do let me know which.

I'm not as hot on the specifically Orphic Dionysus, although much of the myth above comes from Orphic-Dionysus sources and the classical authors were quite open about the theogony and identity of Dionysius being incongruent and mixed up.

Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3. 21-23 (trans. Rackham) (Roman rhetorician C1st B.C.) :
"We [the peoples of the Roman Empire] have a number of Dionysi [i.e. gods identified with Dionysos].
The first [the Orphic Zagreus] is the son of Jupiter [Zeus] and Proserpine [Persephone];
the second [the Egyptian Osiris] of Nile--he is the fabled slayer of Nysa.
The father of the third [Phrygian Sabazios] is Cabirus; it is stated that he was king over Asia, and the Sabazia were instituted in his honour.
The fourth [the Thraco-Orphic Sabazios] is the son of Jupiter [Thrakian sky-god] and Luna [Bendis]; the Orphic rites are believed to be celebrated in his honour.
The fifth [the Theban Dionysos] is the son of Nisus [Zeus] and Thyone [Semele], and is believed to have established the Trieterid festival."

I think you'd be safe using the stuff for both. There's a general tendency for all Greek gods to have many different identities and mythologies tied to local geographic ritual sites, every town and village Pausanias visits in second century Greece has its own variation, I think you're free to pick and choose from them as you like to flesh out the mod.

I do have the translation of the Derveni papyrus on my backlog so if I learn anything relevant about Orphism I'll come back and post.

 

[Mhoirbheinn]

Another suggestion, Silenus as a good god name for Bacchants.

SEILENOS (Silenus) was the old rustic god of wine-making and drunkenness.
He was the foster-father of the god Dionysos who was entrusted to his care by Hermes after his birth from the thigh of Zeus. The young god was raised by Seilenos and nursed by the Nysiad nymphs in a cave on Mount Nysa. Once, when Dionysos was travelling through Phrygia, Seilenos became lost and was captured by King Midas. The king treated him hospitably and as a reward Dionysos granted him his golden touch. Seilenos was the father or grandfather of the tribes of Satyroi (Satyrs) and Nymphs. He was sometimes multiplied into a triad or large band of Seilenoi (Silens).

 

[Mhoirbheinn]

So, whereas I appreciate that sites in Afghanistan or further afield could fit, it may be too wide a spread for the faith - generally holy sites want to be within the same continent.

My idea for the Holy Sites in Syria and India was to have abitiuous places outside of Greece for the player to strive for and provide a narrative path to emulate the Dionysian crusade for India as a curve-ball novel campaign playthrough.

Looking at the how Holy Sites function in CK3 it's a lot less punishing to not have control over them than it was in CK2. I may be wrong, but aside from not getting the bonuses tied to the site itself, the only gameplay function of not controlling Holy Sites is as a trigger to allow earlier crusade/GHW activation. As long as the benefits awarded by controlling each holy site aren't unbalanced, there's greater scope to have a larger quanity of holy sites per faith to give the campaign map flavour and have goals to strive for.

 

[Pied-Noir]

My idea for the Holy Sites in Syria and India was to have abitiuous places outside of Greece for the player to strive for and provide a narrative path to emulate the Dionysian crusade for India as a curve-ball novel campaign playthrough.

Looking at the how Holy Sites function in CK3 it's a lot less punishing to not have control over them than it was in CK2. I may be wrong, but aside from not getting the bonuses tied to the site itself, the only gameplay function of not controlling Holy Sites is as a trigger to allow earlier crusade/GHW activation. As long as the benefits awarded by controlling each holy site aren't unbalanced, there's greater scope to have a larger quanity of holy sites per faith to give the campaign map flavour and have goals to strive for.

That's fair enough - I'll give it some thought; and thanks again for the info and suggestions. It's much appreciated.

 

[Mhoirbheinn]

For Orphism, a holy site in the eastern footsteps of Mount Olympus in Pieria

The Pierian town of Leibethra housed a small wooden image of Orpheus, a xoanon that was said to have sweated when Alexander the Great set out for the conquest of Asia – the statue did so not out of concern for Alexander, but “because he would perform deeds worthy of song and fame that would cause much sweat and work for the singers.” According to the late Hellenistic author Conon, Orpheus, “king of the Macedonians and Thracians,” suffered his death in Leibethra, torn to pieces by the local women whose husbands he had alienated from them. In order to atone for this killing, the Leibethrians buried Orpheus’ head in a splendid temenos and offered him cult “as if to a god,” but excluded all women from the sanctuary. At some time between Alexander’s death and the Imperial epoch, the neighboring and larger city of Dion took over: Pausanias saw Orpheus’ grave there, transferred from Leibethra after a flood had destroyed the lesser town because of the carelessness with which orpheus, his poetry, and sacred texts the Leibethrians had treated the grave. In the political reality of Roman Greece, Dion incorporated Leibethra as a suburb; Pausanias thus reports the myth told in Dion to justify their annexation of the grave. Whatever, then, the historical value of these stories may be, they attest to the claims that Leibethra, Dion, and its region made on Orpheus.

The closest in game sites are either Mount Olympus itself, which has an empty mountain terrain barony named after a village just west of Olympus:

#Mount Olympus
county = c_veria
barony = b_kalyvia

Or the plain to the east of Mount Olympus named after the main seaside port of the Pierian region:

county = c_thessalia
barony = b_platamon

I'd pick Platamon because it's closer to the the Pierian plain site of Orpheus's grave rather than the mountain itself.


And some more Orphic good god names:

the Derveni allegorist cites Hymns by Orpheus that mention Demeter, Rhea, and Cybele

Both quotes from Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets

 

[Mhoirbheinn]

Same source as before

In attempting to clarify Socrates’ allusion (in Phadeo) Olympiodorus (6th century AD Neoplatonic philosopher) gives us the Orphic story. He says:

According to Orpheus there were four cosmic reigns. First was the reign of Uranus, then Cronus received the kingship, having cut off his father’s genitals. Zeus ruled after Cronus, having cast his father into Tartarus. Next, Dionysus succeeded Zeus. They say that through Hera’s treachery, the Titans who were around Dionysus tore him to pieces and ate his flesh. And Zeus, being angry at this, struck the Titans with thunderbolts, and from the soot of the vapors that arose from [the incinerated Titans] came the matter from which humanity came into existence. There-fore, we must not commit suicide – not because, as [Socrates] seems to say, we are in our body as if in a prison, since that is obvious and [Socrates] would not call such an idea secret, but rather because our bodies are Dionysiac. We are, indeed, part of Dionysus if we are composed from the soot of the Titans who ate Dionysus’ flesh

Which the author elabaorates into a full Orphic theogony of:

Dionysus was the child of Zeus and Zeus’ daughter Persephone. Dionysus succeeded Zeus; Zeus himself placed the child on his throne and declared him the new king of the cosmos. The Titans, jealous of Dionysus’ new power and perhaps encour-aged by Hera, used various toys, and a mirror, to lure Dionysus away from his guardians, the Curetes, and dismembered him. They cooked his flesh and ate it. Zeus, being angry at this, killed the Titans, and from their remains, humanity arose. Because humanity arose from material that was predominantly Titanic in nature, each human is born with the stain of the Titans’ crime, but a remnant of Dionysus leavens the mixture. Each human must expiate the Titans’ crime by performing rituals in honor of Dionysus and Persephone, who still suffers from the “ancient grief ” of losing her child; by doing so, humans can win better afterlives. Meanwhile Dionysus was in some manner revived or reborn.

The manner in which the Orphic Dionysus is reborn gets complicated. Rhea, who becomes identified with Demeter, reassembles the torn up pieces of Dionysus. Another tradition has that it was Apollo who reassembled Dionysus. Another version is that Apollo collects Dionysus's body parts that Rhea/Demeter then reassembles. Another version has it that Apollo buries the reasssmbled body parts at the site of the Delphian Orcale where there was a pre-Orphic tomb of Dionysus. And to link them all back to the Semele-mother theogony of the pre-Orphic Dionysus:

The fourth tradition concerning Dionysus’ revival finally brings us back to Semele. Quite a few late sources say that Athena snatched Dionysus’ heart from the Titans while it was still beating. Some authors tell us no more than this, but Proclus, in his Hymn to Athena, goes on to say that Zeus used the rescued heart to create Dionysus anew in Semele and Nonnus says that the second Dionysus, Semele’s son, was linked to the first Dionysus through the heart that the two shared. Allusions to this story show up in the Orphic Hymns as well. Hyginus provides more specific details, saying that Zeus minced up the heart, created a stew, and fed it to Semele so that she might conceive Dionysus. Clement combines this tradition with the one we have just examined: Apollo buried all of the pieces of Dionysus at Delphi except his heart.

And then when Semele gets killed by seeing the true divine form of Zeus because of Hera's second act of deceit, Dionysus gets sewn into Zeus's thigh and born for the third time as per the pre-Orphic myths.

From all that I'd add as good god names:
Perephone
Rhea
Demeter
Athena
Apollo
Semele

Zeus as well somewhere in the mix, perhaps as creator god.

 

[Pied-Noir]

Thanks again for this @Mhoirbheinn, it's much appreciated. I do plan to update this mod with a couple of these new religions, but I've been distracted getting my existing mods combined into a larger overall mod alongside my various bug fixes, database corrections and balance changes. That makes it easier to use these mods collectively as well as giving me fewer things to update.

I'll try to get v1.1 released before the next CK III patch. From then on, I'll update it as required (for further patches) but in terms of content I think it'll be done.

 

[Pied-Noir]

I have updated the mod for v1.2.1 of CK III on Steam. No gameplay changes.

A future update will include some of the new content discussed here, but I've primarily been focusing on working on content for TIP, as it's easier to do everything for a single larger mod.

 

[Pied-Noir]

With the release of the Celtic Paganism mod I've updated some of the others to increase modular compatibility. For Mithraism, I've also added some extra flavor text for holy scriptures.

v1.2

- added religious text references for the Mithraism, Bacchism, Orphism and Pythagoreanism faiths
- fixed the Oracle of Delphi being assigned the wrong gender in event text
- removed some earlier database changes to improve compatibility with other religion mods

Now that I've released Basque and Celtic paganism mods I'll finish researching the additional faiths I have in mind for this mod, which will include Eleusinian, Sol Invictus and maybe a couple more.