Bronze plaque of Sisak

TNMM 397 ↔ CIMRM 1477

This small, bronze tabula ansata was at some point extracted from the bed of the Kupa River, which flowed by the ancient city of Siscia, in Pannonia Superior. It bears an ex-voto naming two worshippers:

D(eo) i(nvicto) M(ithrae) / Aurelius Heraclides / et Agathopus fra/tres v(otum) s(olverunt) l(ibentes) m(erito).

To the invincible god Mithras, Aurelius Heraclides and Agathopus, brothers, have fulfilled a vow willingly and deservedly.

Both individuals bear a Greek name, which does not imply that they themselves were of Greek or Eastern origin. The first, a Roman citizen, bears the nomen Aurelius, which became rather common after the Constitutio Antoniniana of 212 C.E. conferred Roman citizenship on all free men in the empire. However, the possibility cannot be excluded that Heraclides, apparently a freedman, might have obtained Roman citizenship betore that date. The status of the second dedicant is less certain. There are, in fact, three possibilities.

Agathopus could have been a free provincial who was not a Roman citizen, in which case the inscription is to be dated before 212 C.E, since only his Greek name is mentioned. Or, instead, he could have been a slave, but neither his master's name nor his own servile status is indicated. Lastly, his status could have been identical to that of Heraclides, with the stonecutter deliberately having omitted the nomen Aurelius because of its redundancy and the lack of space for it.

But then, in the latter case, why was the nomen not simply inscribed in the plural [Aurelii]? Presumably because this would have implied that the two men were actual biological brothers, which was clearly not the case. It is therefore most probable that the two fratres, perhaps freedmen of the same patron, were brothers in the sense of belonging to the same Mithraic community.