Inscription of the praeses Aurelius Hermodorus

TNMM 455 ↔ CIMRM 1431

This inscription to the invincible god Mithra explains that the Mithraeum of Virunum was destroyed by time and how Aurelius Hermodorus, governor (praeses) of the Noric Meditarrenaen province, restored it in 311.

This marble plaque, known for several centuries, belonged to a group of Mithraic pieces preserved at Tanzenberg Castle until 1820. It bears a complete inscription of nine lines, dated to 311 C.E. based on the names of the two consuls.

This dedication could be associated with the same Mithraeum as the bronze plaque found at Virunum in 1992. The cult site had been abandoned for 50 years, probably for lack of worshippers. Inclusion of the detail that there had been an interruption in the cult is unusual, since those commissioning inscriptions were usually content to indicate that a cult site had been restored, and sometimes rebuilt from the foundations or ground (a fundamento or a solo), even if in reality this most often involved nothing more than the decoration of the sanctuary and not major reconstruction.

This time, the donor who takes charge of the restoration of the temple is the actual governor (praeses) of the province. This is a sign that an active community including at least one prominent individual was still practicing the cult of Mithras at Virunum in the first third of the 4th century C.E.