Abstract
Historiography has generally classified the historiettes engraved on Anatolian confession stelae, like the mystical experience (that of initiation at Eleusis, which I'll take as an example), as individual and personal religious experiences, or even " spiritual " for the mysteries. The very term " confession " attributed to the Micrasiate inscriptions (Beichtinschriften) speaks volumes about this typological orientation for texts that are, when examined, primarily glorifications of the gods framed by priests.
The fact that these two files, though different in their rituals, have been placed in the same category of religious experience justifies, in my view, a comparative reflection on the tension between religious, civic or village authorities and the degree of " individual " of devotees' experiences... when the documents give access to them. In studies of confessional stelae, little attention has been paid to the omnipresence of priests - at rhetorical, ritual, judicial and economic levels - since they are rarely mentioned explicitly. As for Eleusis, whose mystèria were one of the climaxes of the religious polis of Athens, its public authorities are well known thanks to the work of K. Clinton ; but, to appreciate the nature of religious experience in Roman times, we must not underestimate another " authority ", virtual, mental or cognitive : that which was attached to the imaginary of the mysteries, disseminated since Plato outside any civic reference.
