Altar from Meknès

TNMM 655 ↔ CIMRM 160

Altar in white limestone.

I(nvicto) d(eo) M(ithrae) / Aur(elius) Nectore/ga (centurio) vex (illariorum) Brit(tonum) / Volubili / agentium / l(ibens) l(aetus) merito.

At Volubilis, in Mauritania Tingitana, two inscriptions were found in 1919 in a room near a well where the Fertassa aqueduct ended. According to L. Chatelain, the layout of this room could have been a mithraeum, although this remains to be proven. Both are the work of a centurion of the vexillation of the Brittones (= Bretons), contrary to M. Christol who suggests Brittanniciani, i.e. soldiers belonging to the army of Brittany.

The first inscription is engraved on a stone tablet in a dovetailed cartouche. Dedicated to the salvation and protection of Commodus, the Roman Hercules, it is addressed to a god identified only by the onomastic attribute invictus. Although the epiclesis used alone can refer to both Hercules and Mithras, the existence of the second inscription, dedicated to Mithras by name, suggests that Mithras is behind the term invictus.

CIMRM II 160

Found at Ksar-Faraoun (H. 1.06 Br. 0.29).

ILA, 178 No. 611.

L.H. 0.04.

ILA reads: Aur(elius) Nectore/ca c(enturio) vex(illationis) Brit(tonum) /.