ABSTRACT
The influence of the small band of sectaries on the great mass of the Roman population was virtually as infinitesimal as is to-day the influence of Buddhistic societies on modern Europe. From the banks of the Black Sea to the mountains of Scotland and to the borders of the great Sahara Desert, along the entire length of the Roman frontier, Mithraic monuments abound. The influence of Mithraism among the troops massed along the Rhenish frontier is also proved by the extension of this religion into the interior of Gaul. The propagation of Mithraism in the towns and country districts of the provinces in which no armies were stationed was due in great measure to other agencies. The majority of the merchants that founded the commercial houses of the Occident were servitors of the Semitic Baals, and those who invoked Mithra were generally Asiatics in humbler conditions of life.
