Inscription on the leonteum of Umbria

TNMM 483

This monument was found broken into several joined fragments, inserted into the foundations of a wall in the ancient city of Carsulae. It mentions that ten lions financed the construction of a leonteum, which is assumed to be a cult space reserved for initiates of their rank, rather than a denomination of the mithreum itself. This is the only attestation of a building that would be specific to a group of initiates in the cults of Mithra (cf. however the mention of a leonteum in Hermoupolis, Egypt, a place of unconfirmed Mithraic character).

The sum of 5,000 sesterces, to which the legitimate priest (collator) Egnatius Reparatus contributed, seems however quite low for such an evergetism. This leonteum, whatever its cost, was built in a particular place by the decurions of Carsulae and with their permission. If the fact that a group of worshippers could be granted public land to build a place of worship does not necessarily mean that it was an official cult of the city, it could nevertheless testify to a form of recognition by the municipal authorities. The authorisation was renewed some years later when, after an earthquake, a sevir named Sextus Egnatius Primitivus, a member of the same people as the priest in the first document, had the collapsed speleum rebuilt at his own expense.