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By Brad Cook

27 BC. The Roman Republic is now the Roman Empire. Octavian, Emperor Augustus of Rome, has vanquished his enemies, thanks to you, but trouble still stirs in remote areas. Sent to quell the hold-outs, your soldiers are ambushed en route to their destination. A fierce battle rages.

In the aftermath, something seems wrong with your men. Your two most loyal officers, Avisius and Pollius, confide that talk of a curse wafts through the camp. Then your scouts come back with an odd report: Your location seems as if an island, inhabited by no living things but yourselves. And the bodies of the dead from the previous battle are gone. You cannot fathom the logic behind the forces at work here.

That night, a voice speaks in your dreams: “I see you are still alive, Commander. If you are strong, perhaps you will go far. But your camp cannot protect you forever. You have food for a week, but what then? Are you brave enough to seek out your destiny?”

A Phantom Menace

The next morning, you order your men to strike the camp and move on. Morale drops precipitously, and it plunges further still when a Gallic force attacks. The battle is costly, but you emerge victorious. The voice speaks in your dreams again that night, but you cannot remember what it says.

At dawn, Pollius excitedly wakes you with the strangest news yet: Phantoms stand on the battlefield. They raised their swords when your men approached. Pollius tells you: “The men think they may be the damned souls of warriors not properly buried.” He shows you the ghostly soldiers. They regard you with black eyes.

You ask Pollius: “How are we to know whether we actually exist or only think we exist?” He does not answer you.

Then a voice like granite sliding across a steel blade hangs heavy over the battlefield: “Mithras.” It is the disembodied being that spoke to you in your dreams, come to haunt your waking life.

New Units, New Features

Cult of Mithras picks up the story of Rome where Legion Arena left off, taking you through seven new campaigns encompassing 35 battles, each more difficult than the last. This time, however, the developments move away from established history, incorporating the mysteries of the god Mithras, who was worshipped in the Roman Empire from the first century BC through the fourth century AD. (See the sidebar “Who Was Mithras?” below for more information.)

Now you confront Fire Demons, Shadow Warriors, Helephants, Ghouls, and other horrific beings bent on your destruction. As in Legion Arena, you lay out your strategy before each battle, using your Legate (leader) to issue last-second instructions during the heat of the conflict. You improve your army between battles, recruiting more soldiers and improving the skills of the existing ones. Cult of Mithras adds a new wrinkle that prevents healing your men after each fight, forcing you to become more judicious during the planning phase.

The expansion pack also adds 15 new pieces of equipment for your soldiers to use and 12 new skills they can learn, along with new graphical effects that bring the demonic Mithras units to life, with eerie results. In addition, each campaign you complete earns you awards from Mithras himself; they range from a crown that improves your command abilities to a sword that grants better combat skill. In addition, you can play through the original Roman and Celtic campaigns with the Mithras units at your command.

Other changes that affect the entire game range from the ability to build a larger multi-player army to better balancing between Roman and Gaul units when taking on opponents over a LAN or GameSmith. Cult of Mithras also features: army reports that offer all the relevant statistics on a single page suitable for posting on the Internet; the ability to increase or decrease the speed during single-player battles; and a variety of performance improvements.

Game Hardware

Check out our systems for your best gaming experience.

Recommended Systems For Gamers

Ephemeral Warriors. These ghostly soldiers may seem insubstantial, but they pack quite a punch.

Those Helephants Are Hella Tough. Let your best units trample your foes.

Build an Unearthly Army. Fire Demons are among the new Mithras units you can use in the original Roman and Celtic campaigns.

Legion Arena

Learn more about Legion Arena by reading our previous feature which covers the original version of the game. Assemble and upgrade your army, plan battle strategies, and execute hasty, tide-turning orders that bring victory to your people. Such are the challenges that await you in this strategy game that covers Rome and Celtic warfare.

System Requirements:

Full version of Legion Arena
Mac OS X version 10.3.9
1GHz PowerPC G4 or Intel processor
256MB of RAM
32MB video RAM
1GB hard disk space
Internet connection (for Net play)

Who Was Mithras?

Worship of Mithras dates back approximately 4,000 years to Persia, which is now modern Iran. He was known by his followers in Asia and Europe as Mithra, Mitra, Mihr, and other names. Romans living in the eastern part of the empire encountered Mithraism and began adopting it, especially soldiers. The height of its popularity came in the third and fourth centuries AD, after which it faded away because of a decree banning all non-Christian rituals.

The religion carries a sense of mystery today because few writings about it have survived, thanks to an oral tradition of passing its secrets only to new initiates. It never adopted its own version of the Bible, so there is no venerated text that can be the basis for research. It was likely an all-male religion, and archeologists have found the remains of many mithraea (plural; singular: mithraeum), or places of worship, scattered throughout the lands once encompassed by the Roman Empire.

Rome itself may have contained as many as 700 mithraea, although only a fraction of them have been identified, ad the city is home to over 100 Mithraic inscriptions, more than 75 pieces of sculpture, and many other signs that the religion once flourished there. Many Romans worshipped Mithras as a god of truth and honor, using the handshake as a goodwill gesture between parties who wanted to demonstrate their faith in each other.

An image of Mithras killing a sacred bull, known as a tauroctony, was the most common representation of the god. It was found anywhere that worshippers gathered. Images of a serpent, a scorpion, a dog, and a raven were also commonly found in a mithraeum. Devotees of Mithraism progressed through seven ranks during their time in the religion, although few ever reached the upper three levels, which were reserved for official positions of power.