Album of Portus

TNMM 648 ↔ CIMRM 325

Tabula marmorea reperta in Portu Romano fossibus Torloniae.

Album sacrato[rum...]

Underneath the first column:

. . reus pater / . . . [G]lycon / . . . Rufus / . . . [D]afinus . . . Sinplicius / . . . Petrus / . . . Crescentinus / . . . Crescentio / . . . Bictorus / . . . Dafinus / . . . Feston / . . . . [S]erpentius / . . . [A]pronianus / . . . Alexander / . . . Acuca.

Underneath the second column:

Tr . . . / Pet . . . / Pa . . . / Tr . . . / E x . . . / lu . . . / Me . . . / T . . . / Ro . . . / Sa . . . / Se . . . / Ap . . . /

Between the two columns:

Leo fe[cit].

A fragment of an album, which gives an incomplete series of names in nominative form, with only the cognomina preserved, engraved on a marble plaque, was found in 1863-1864 at Portus Ostiae during excavations carried out by Prince Alessandro Torlonia. The mention of a pater at the head of the column and that of a leo, who is thought to be the donor of the album, have led some scholars to believe that this fragment is a Mithraic document, which is possible. The prosopographical study of the text does not allow us to go any further in identifying it.

Fragment of a marble slab with inscription found in Portus in the excavations of prince A. Torlonia (1863-1864), 3rd – early 4th century CE. Currently preserved in Rome, Villa Albani.

The slab consists in the central fragment of an album sacratorum, which reported the list of names of the members of a community possibly seated in Ostia. The fragment exhibits part of the first line where the nature of the collegium would have been specified, large part of a central column with a list of names, and a minor portion of a third column where the list of names continues. The first column(s) is missing.

The Mithraic character of the community here listed resides in the line which separates the two surviving columns of names. The text is written vertically between the second and third column of the album, and it reads:

Leo fe[cit]

The name of this devotee was possibly written in a similar vertical disposition between the first (not preserved) column and the central one.