When Rome extended her conquests into Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, the
influence of Persia became much more direct. Superficial contact with the
Mazdean populations began with the wars against Mithradates, but it did not
become frequent and lasting until the first century of our era. During that
century the empire gradually extended its limits to the upper Euphrates,
and thereby absorbed all the uplands of Anatolia and Commagene south of the
Taurus. The native dynasties which had fostered the secular isolation of
those distant countries in spite of the state of vassalage to which they
had been reduced disappeared one after another. The Flavians constructed
through those hitherto almost inaccessible regions an immense network {140}
of roads that were as important to Rome as the railways of Turkestan or of
Siberia are to modern Russia. At the same time Roman legions camped on the
banks of the Euphrates and in the mountains of Armenia. Thus all the little
Mazdean centers scattered in Cappadocia and Pontus were forced into
constant relation with the Latin world, and on the other hand the
disappearance of the buffer states made the Roman and Parthian empires
neighboring powers in Trajan's time (98-117 A. D.).

From these conquests and annexations in Asia Minor and Syria dates the
sudden propagation of the Persian mysteries of Mithra in the Occident. For
even though a congregation of their votaries seems to have existed at Rome
under Pompey as early as 67 B. C., the real diffusion of the mysteries
began with the Flavians toward the end of the first century of our era.
They became more and more prominent under the Antonines and the Severi, and
remained the most important cult of paganism until the end of the fourth
century. Through them as a medium the original doctrines of Mazdaism were
widely propagated in every Latin province, and in order to appreciate the
influence of Persia upon the Roman creeds, we must now give them our
careful attention.

However, it must be said that the growing influence of Persia did not
manifest itself solely in the religious sphere. After the accession of the
Sassanid dynasty (228 A. D.) the country once more became conscious of its
originality, again resumed the cultivation of national traditions,
reorganized the hierarchy of its official clergy and recovered the
political cohesion which had been wanting under the Parthians. It felt
{141} and showed its superiority over the neighboring empire tha