Culti dell’antica Capua in età imperiale attraverso due casi di studio: il Mitreo e il tempio di via de Gasperi a Santa Maria Capua Vetere

Abstract

The paper examined two religious buildings in central areas of the ancient Capua: the so-called shrine of the “via de Gasperi” (discovered in 1980) and the Mithraeum (1922) linked by the chronology (full imperial age) and by spaces underground and darken with limited access and installations to attend the rites. The layout of either of two examples gave to the involved people the opportunity to follow a path, to stay in, to interact with structures and consacrated fornitures. In both cases the wall paintings were not a sheer decorum, but was specially designed to create a appropriated atmosphere for the rites. In both cases they provide two different register of representation: one formal and most noble, the second most popular was focused on the partecipation and the self identification of the audience (the faithfuls in the “Sacello di via A. de Gasperi”; the initiates at the Mithraeum). In the first case it appear to be female rites, or however rites where the female element played a prominent role; in the second it is instead the masculine element that is set in evidence whereas the rare female images belong to the divine sphere or to symbolic personifications. Thus it seems to me that they was spaces designed to respond to specifics cultual end ritual needs of the big urban community of ancient Capua between the I and III century A.D.