Some 1,600 years ago, a group of Roman empire citizens in Italy received a letter from Emperor Constantine, allowing them to celebrate a religious holiday in their hometown rather than traveling to a ...

The Sun played a powerful role in the spiritual life of the ancient world from the Greek titan Helios and the Roman god Sol to the mystery cult of Mithras and the Syrian deity Elagabal Over time Sol ...

Odds are long for any application for a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship—only about 7 percent are awarded. Even longer are the odds that two professors from the same department ...

The mystery cults of classical Greece and Rome remain appropriately mysterious to historians. In contrast to the mainstream currents of Greco-Roman paganism, where rites were conducted in the open, ...

Beneath Roman streets and temples, a secret cult thrived—its initiates sworn to silence, its rituals cloaked in darkness. The Cult of Mithras wasn’t just a religion—it was a force that shaped empires.

In a river near Hadrian’s Wall, a Roman construction in England, researchers found an ancient piece of sports memorabilia. Ray Harrington via Unsplash As actor Paul Mescal prepares to step into the ...

Archaeologists discovered ruins of an ancient cult temple in Italy, seen here in an aerial view. Douglas Boin Saint Louis University via Phys.org Some 1,600 years ago, a group of Roman empire citizens ...