After Action Report: MithraCon 2026 Day 3

Sunday, April 26th, 2026
Around 8 a.m. - around 12 p.m.
Participants: Marcus Quintius Clavus
Sibylla Ambrosia Fulvia
Marcus Cassius Julianus
Titus Ovidius Nonus
Erica
David
Aulus Iulius Paterculus
   Most of us awakened a bit earlier on Sunday than on Saturday. M. Quintius Clavus, Sibylla Ambrosia Fulvia, M. Cassius Julianus, T. Ovidius Nonus, and I went to breakfast at Patricia's again, but our new friends had breakfast at the hotel, which was part of a package deal with their room. Patricia's was a bit busier than the day before, but not by too much. We expected larger crowds to be arriving when church services ended. Patricia remembered many of our orders from the previous day. During breakfast, Nonus mentioned plans to stop by Denny's on the way home, and this opened up discussion of restaurants in Maine, storms & flash floods, and visits to Salem, Massachusetts. Cassius again paid for breakfast.
   We returned to the room and met with Dave and Erica again. Dave had brought a number of art pieces he'd created himself, including larger & smaller tauroctonies etched on wood, leather book marks, including one depicting the Mithraic grades, and images of the face of Mithras surrounded by rays. Cassius liked this last image so much, he requested permission to put it on the t-shirts for the following year. Dave offered the pieces for sale at a generous "pay-what-you-want" price. Nonus purchased a larger tauroctony, Cassius purchased everything not already bought by others and then gave much of it away.
   Those of us who'd been staying in the shared rooms packed up. Sibylla started the drive home, while the rest of us, including David & Erica, headed to the Yale University Art Gallery. While walking we talked. Erica told me about her hobbies; I mentioned reading some poetry by William McGonagall (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-mcgonagall). We noted an independent bookstore along the way which had seen visits in previous years.
   At the museum, we looked at the Classical artwork and the finds from Dura Europos, but also ventured into some other exhibits. Next to the Classical exhibit was a gallery of early modern currency; of particular interest was a series of coins struck with the image of Liberty/Libertas. I left the group briefly in order to make a call and stumbled into a room of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artwork, which I encouraged the others to check out, and they also appreciated the works we saw.
    At last we bid each other goodbye. Cassius had let me store the leftover fruit in his car when we'd packed up the room, so we headed back together. We stopped at the bookstore along the way. Cassius made a number of purchases, and I collected two books from the "Free Books" bin, one of which was Murder on the Appian Way by Steven Saylor. I thought some of our other friends were browsing there around the same time, though we didn't actually greet one another.
   Cassius and I said our farewells back at the hotel parking lot, both agreeing that we looked forward to seeing everyone again in the near future.