Secret pagan basilica in Rome emerges from the shadows after 2,000 years

[Ichingcarpenter]

An underground chamber that was a place of worship for a mysterious cult 2,000 years ago has opened to the public for the first time

A mysterious Roman basilica built for the worship of an esoteric pagan cult and now lying hidden more than 40ft below street level has opened to the public for the first time.

The basilica, the only one of its kind in the world, was excavated from solid tufa volcanic rock on the outskirts of the imperial capital in the first century AD.
Lavishly decorated with stucco reliefs of gods, goddesses, panthers, winged cherubs and pygmies, it was discovered by accident in 1917 during the construction of a railway line from Rome to Cassino, a town to the south. An underground passageway caved in, revealing the entrance to the hidden chamber.


A painstaking restoration that has been going on for years has now reached the point where the 40ft-long basilica can be opened to visitors.

The subterranean basilica, which predates Christianity, was built by a rich Roman family who were devotees of a little-known cult called Neopythagoreanism.
Originating in the first century BC, it was a school of mystical Hellenistic philosophy that preached asceticism and was based on the writings of Pythagoras and Plato.








http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/12005864/Secret-pagan-basilica-in-Rome-emerges-from-the-shadows-after-2000-years.html


Neopythagoreanism


Neopythagoreanism (or Neo-Pythagoreanism) was a school of Hellenistic philosophy which revived Pythagorean doctrines. Neopythagoreanism was influenced by Middle Platonism and in turn influenced Neoplatonism. It originated in the 1st century BCE and flourished during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.


The 1911 Britannica describes Neopythagoreanism as "a link in the chain between the old and the new" within Hellenistic philosophy. As such, it contributed to the doctrine of monotheism as it emerged during Late Antiquity (among other things influencing early Christianity). Central to Neopythagorean thought was the concept of a soul and its inherent desire for a unio mystica with the divine


Neopythagoreanism was an attempt to re-introduce a mystical religious element into Hellenistic philosophy (dominated by the Stoics) in place of what had come to be regarded as an arid formalism. The founders of the school sought to invest their doctrines with the halo of tradition by ascribing them to Pythagoras and Plato. They went back to the later period of Plato's thought, the period when Plato endeavoured to combine his doctrine of Ideas with Pythagorean number theory, and identified the Good with the Monad (which would give rise to the Neoplatonic concept of the One), the source of the duality of the Infinite and the Measured with the resultant scale of realities from the One down to the objects of the material world.


They emphasized the fundamental distinction between the soul and the body. God must be worshipped spiritually by prayer and the will to be good, not in outward action. The soul must be freed from its material surrounding, the "muddy vesture of decay," by an ascetic habit of life. Bodily pleasures and all sensuous impulses must be abandoned as detrimental to the spiritual purity of the soul. God is the principle of good, Matter the groundwork of Evil. In this system can be distinguished not only the asceticism of Pythagoras and the later mysticism of Plato, but also the influence of the Orphic mysteries and of Oriental philosophy. The Ideas of Plato are no longer self-subsistent entities but are the elements which constitute the content of spiritual activity. The non-material universe is regarded as the sphere of mind or spirit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopythagoreanism


Pythagoreanism doctrines

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoreanism

[marym625]

1. Cool!

[CTyankee]

2. I think I read something about this a few years back in National Geographic or

the Smithsonian Magazine. I can't wait to see more about this, as I am sure we will soon. Must be great to be one of the restorers to this historic find...

[merrily]

3. Nice.

With basic tools, they built lovely things. With everything available to us today, we usually don't.