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Religion and the East

We have two intriguing, identical dedications to the pantomime Marcus Aurelius Pylades from the years 253-260 AD. They were set up by the ordo Augustalium, a guild of freedmen involved in the Imperial cult, and were also desired by all citizens of Ostia. The fragments of the inscriptions were found on the road behind the Small Market, on the Decumanus between Via dei Molini and the Capitolium, and on the same stretch of road in a fountain.

Left and below.

Some fragments and text of the first dedication to Pylades.
Marble slab. 253-260 AD. EDR031439.
Photo: ICCD N005427.
M(arco) AVREL[io --- f(ilio) Pyladi]
A[---]SC[---]
[pan]TOMIM[o sui temporis]
PRIMO IN [--- et]
[p]ROBATO A[b impp. Valeriano]
[[[e]T GALLIENO [Augg. ---]]]
EX PROVINCI[a ---]E[--- post]
MORTEM PATR[is s]VI IVD[a]E AT[q(ue) de]CV
RIONI CIVITAT[iu]M ASCALONI[tan]ORVM
ET DAMASCEN[or]VM HVIC S[---]NDVS
ORDO AUGVS[ta]LIVM NON [sol]VM
PROPTER MEMO[ri]AM PATR[is eius sed]
ET PROPTER PLENAM [peritiam postul(antibus)]
OMNIBVS PARITE[r civibus ---]
Below.

Text of the second dedication to Marcus Aurelius Pylades.
Marble slab. 253-260 AD. EDR031506.
[M(arco) Aurelio ---] F(ilio) TER(etina) PY[ladi]
[---] SCYTHOP[oli]
[pantomimo sui] TEMPOR[is primo]
[---]TO ET PRO[bato]
[[------]]
[--- ex p]ROVINCIA
[--- post] MORTEM P[atris]
[sui --- decurion]I CIVI[tatium]
[Ascalonitanorum et Damascenorum]
[Huic ---]
[no]N SOLVM [propter memoriam pa]
[tri]S EIVS SED ET PR[opter plenam]
[pe]RITIAM POSTVL[antibus omnibus]
[pa]RITER CIVIBVS [---]
Reconstructed translation:

For Marcus Aurelius Pylades, son of ..., of the tribe Teretina,
from Scythopolis,
the first pantomime of his time
in ...,
and approved by the Emperors Valerianus
and Gallienus,
from the province of ...,
after the death of his father Iudas, also decurion
of the cities of Ashkelon
and Damascus. To him, second,
the order of the Augustales not only
in memory of his father, but
also because of his own ample skills,
with all the citizens requesting it as well.

Pylades may well have been a stage name, since other actors with the same name are known. He was born in Scythopolis (Beit She'an in Israel). His father was Jewish, witness his cognomen, Iudas. Pylades was also a member of the city councils of Ashkelon (Israel) and Damascus (Syria). The text sparks the imagination. Did Pylades and his father live in Ostia? What and why did the Emperors approve? What was his connection to the Augustales, and therefore his importance for the Imperial cult? Why were the people in Ostia so enthusiastic? Surely Pylades will have performed in the theatre of Ostia. Did he show loyalty to the Emperors in his performances?

The presence in the harbours of Jews, in the person of Pylades and of course evident from the Synagogue, takes our thoughts to religion. The long-established cult of Cybele, the Magna Mater ("Great Mother"), is documented once with certainty in the later third century. On the Field of the Magna Mater a record was found of a taurobolium, the sacrifice of a bull, for the well-being and victory of Trebonianus Gallus and Volusianus, so from the years 251-253 AD. Behind the Temple of the Magna Mater a marble slab was unearthed with an inscription recording the rebuilding of the guild seat of the dendrophori Ostienses, the tree-bearers of Cybele. The building has not been identified. The dedication has been assigned to the last three decades of the third century, but only on general grounds. Two dedications have been preserved by Virius Marcarianus, a high-ranking man. One of the inscriptions is on a statuette of Cybele that is now in the archaeological museum in Naples. It has been assigned to the second half of the third century, based on the titulature and stylistic characteristics. However, in the absence of Imperial titulature or a similar criterion, this dating has been questioned. Analysis of the masonry has shown that the apse and adjoining walls of the Shrine of Attis on the Field of the Magna Mater were built in the third quarter of the third century.



Statuette of Cybele on a throne with lions, dedicated by Virius Marcarianus.
Height 0.98. EDR140567. Date: 250-300 AD. Photo: Wikimedia, Bujomar.

At least three shrines of Mithras seem to have been installed in the later third century: the Mithraeum of Fructosus and the stuppatores, the Mithraeum of the Serpents, and the Mithraeum of Felicissimus.[1] The Mithraeum of the Footprint was installed in the second half of the second century, but the mosaic floor and the altar in the niche at the back were added much later. In the masonry of the altar a coin was found of Valerianus (253-260 AD), with depictions of the radiate Emperor and Sol.[2] Surely it was inserted intentionally: the association of Sol and Mithras is well-documented.



A silver antoninianus of the type found in the masonry altar in the Mithraeum of the Footprint.
Obverse: VALERIANVS P F AVG. Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust.
Reverse: ORIENS AVGG. Sol walking left, holding whip and raising right hand.
Lugdunum (Lyon) mint. 257-258 AD. Photo: vcoins.com.

On an outer wall of the Mithraeum of the Serpents, installed around 250 AD, is the graffito DOMINVS SOL HIC AVITAT (= habitat), "Lord Sun lives here". The cult of Sol also seems to be documented in the Horrea of Hortensius. In a corner of the porticus of the courtyard a shrine was installed in the third quarter of the third century. In the mosaic floor, in front of a masonry altar, a radiate disc flanked by torches was depicted with pieces of marble. The cult of Sol appears under Emperors such as Valerianus and Claudius Gothicus, and was much favoured by Aurelianus (270-275 AD): his coins carry legends such as Sol Invictus, Sol Conservator and Sol Dominus Imperii Romani.



The mosaic and opus sectile in the shrine in the Horrea of Hortensius.
C. 250-275 AD. Photo: Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica.

As to traditional religion, the Sanctuary of the Bona Dea in region IV, near the beach, was reduced in size in the years 275-300 AD. The main religious authority in Ostia, the pontifex Volkani et aedium sacrarum, the "priest of Vulcan and sacred buildings", was honoured in an inscription with the consular date 287 AD. The man who then held the office, Quintus Vettius Postumius Constantius, must have had major concerns about the number of Christians in the city. Obviously the inhabitants of Ostia often came in touch with Christians, which is illustrated nicely by Cyprianus, a bishop of Carthage who was born around 200 AD and beheaded during a persecution in 258 AD. He has handed down to us a letter written by the deacon Celerinus, writing from Rome to Carthage, pleading for lapsed sisters at Rome. They had taken care of Christians arriving from North Africa at Portus:

Nam hoc, domine frater, scire debes, me non solum hoc pro eis petere, sed et Statium et Severianum et omnes confessores qui inde huc a vobis venerunt, ad quos ipsae in portum descenderunt, et in urbem levaverunt, quod sexaginta quinque ministraverunt et usque in hodiernum in omnibus foverunt. Sunt enim penes illas omnes. For this, my lord and brother, you ought to know, that it is not I alone who ask this on their behalf, but also Statius and Severianus, and all the confessors who have come thence hither from you; to whom these very sisters went down to the harbour and took them up into the city, and they have ministered to sixty-five, and even to this day have tended them in all things, for all are with them.
Cyprianus, Epistulae XX,4. Translation Robert Ernest Wallis.



The embarkation of Saint Paula (347-404 AD) in the harbour of Ostia.
Claude Lorrain. After 1642. Photo: Wikimedia.

(1) In 2014 a new mithraeum was discovered near the ancient beach by the University of Bologna, the Mithraeum of the Coloured Marble. There are still some uncertainties concerning the date, but it has an important fourth century phase (see Françoise van Haeperen in Fana, templa, delubra. Corpus dei luoghi di culto dell'italia antica 6).
(2) Cohen V, p. 311, nrs. 142-3.