Altar of Gaius Iulius Crescens of Friedberg for Respectus

TNMM 646 ↔ CIMRM 1066

Fragmentary sandstone altar, found lying on top of another altar dedicated to Sol invincible and bearing a dedication to the matrons engraved on the capital, by a citizen of Gallic or Germanic origin. The upper part of another sandstone altar was also found upside down in the central aisle of the speleum. The inscription is engraved on the façade, on the crown supported by two pilasters. This appears to have been cut away, removing the lower part of the letters in the third line. The inscription in suo indicates that this altar was originally erected on the lands of Pervincus, before being moved to the mithraeum.

Overlooking a street, the mithraeum was close to a crossroads in a town located at the junction of several roads and boasting a station of beneficiaries, some of whom left inscriptions in the mithreum (cf. CIMRM 1064-1065). As for the matrons, they also had a place of worship around a sacred spring in the immediate vicinity of the mithraeum. It is therefore quite possible that these broken monuments, found incomplete in the speleum on top of others, outside their original location, were thrown there and abandoned among the rubble of the mithraeum after its destruction and that of the neighbouring places of worship.