A MITHRAEUM AT THE BOLARDS

The town called “Les Bolards” owed its growth to its very convenient location, close to a crossing of secondary roads that connected it to major routes in the region, and also close to the Meuzin valley in the plains of the Saône. These major routes made it easy for influences and religions from the East to find their way to Les Bolards.

So the appearance of the cult can be put down to the presence of the Via Agrippa, the busiest overland road network there was and a major trading route for the Roman Empire. Merchants from the East or from Italy travelled over the Alps, bringing the cult with them. Indeed, the Great Saint Bernard Pass was of strategic and commercial importance, connecting Italy, Germania and central Gaul. The iconography and orientation of the temple also suggest an Eastern influence.

Mithra took up his seat alongside the Roman, Gallo-Roman and indigenous gods and his temple cohabited with a sanctuary for therapeutic springs, around which medical structures arose.

Despite the conflicts that beset the Roman Empire at the beginning of the 3rd century, the temple continued to prosper until it was finally abandoned in the first half of the 5th century.

Mithraism undoubtedly only reached a tiny part of the population in a town that had a huge sanctuary, proving religious activity was still dominated by more traditional Roman cults.