There are many people I need to thank who have helped and supported me during the course of writing both my thesis and this subsequent monograph. Firstly, there is the long list of those who have provided me with information, photographs/images, shown me around sites and museums, and read over various chapters of this work. These are: Roger Beck, József Beszédes, Jonas Bjørnebye, Neil Christie, Jitse Dijkstra, Richard Gordon, Alison Griffith, Marion Großmann, Michael Gawlikowski, Ines Klenner, Orsolya Láng, Ray Laurence, Marleen Martens, Roger Pearse, Peter Talloen, Sophie Jackson and Sadie Watson of MOLA, Eberhard Sauer, Ellen Swift, Cornleius Ulbert, Francois Wiblé, Greg Woolf, and Paula Zsidi. Thanks go to Lloyd Bosworth for drawing various images, and to Chris Newman for imagining a 4th c. mithraeum, especially for having to put up with my continuous requests for tweaks, as well as to Carole Raddato for allowing me to use her extensive catalogue of photographs.
I am tremendously grateful to John Beale and the School of European Culture and Languages at the University of Kent for providing me with a fee-wavier, without which I would not have been able to undertake this opportunity. Many thanks also go to the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies for their generous bursary to help with research costs. Thanks also go to James Burchell and Andrew Martinovs for keeping me employed throughout, and to my flatmate Andrew Rawlinson, who probably now knows far more about cults in the Roman empire than he ever expected he would. Michael Mulryan has my immense gratitude for editing the manuscript, as does Mark Crittenden for his proof-reading prowess. Any errors that remain are my own.
Special acknowledgement must go to my supervisor Luke Lavan for his unwavering enthusiasm. Support for this Ph.D. topic was arranged through him, as a case study for a wider project on the end of paganism, to which the fate of the cult of Mithras has been seen as particularly significant.
Finally, the most important thanks go to my parents. I doubt they thought trips to the British Museum and the purchasing of many ‘Horrible Histories’ would result in this, but I hope this goes someway to repaying their endless faith and love. Any success I achieve is as much theirs as it is mine.