Plaque of Meknès

TNMM 656 ↔ CIMRM 161

Altar in freestone.

Pro salute et incolumitate imp(eratoris) Caesaris / L(ucii) Aeli(i) Aurel(ii) Commodi Pii invicti feli/cis Herculis Romani imperioque / eius Aur(elius) Nectorega (centurio) vex(illariorum) Britt(onum) / Volubili agentium sua pecunia / invicto posuit et d(e)d(icavit).

191 A.D.

CIMRM II 161

Marble plate (H. 0.56 Br. 0.97).

ILA, 180 No. 612; St. Weinstock in HTkR L, 1957, 242 n. 174.

L.H. 0.04–0.035.

ILA reads: Nectoreca c(enturio) vex(illationis) Britt(onum) / Volubuli agentium sua pecunia / invicto posuit et d(onum) d(edit).

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.