Memmius Placidus
He dedicated the first inscription found by naming himself with the sixth grade of the Mysteries of Mithras.
Mithraic inscription from Cerveteri
F. Massa
Biography of Memmius Placidus
- Memmius Placidus was a Heliodromus.
- Active circa late 2nd – early 3rd century in Caere, Latium (Italia).
On the basis of the letters preserved and the space available on the stone (equal to three letters) one could think indifferently of Mammius, Memmius, Mummius, Nummius, Remmius, all attested in the area, but the existence in Caere of properties belonging to the gens Memmia, documented since 39 BC by two servants of a L. Memmius, in whom chronology would lead us to recognise the praefectus of the seventh and twenty-sixth legions in charge of the distribution of land in the ager of Luca in the triumviral age, at the current state of knowledge makes the dissolution Memmius proposed in the facsimile seem plausible.
There seems to be no room [on the cippo] for a praenomen of Memmius, an absence that seems supported by the onomastics of the character that follows below, the pater Curtius Iuvenalis. Of these we can observe the family name Curtius, which in the regio VII is documented in the nearby Forum Clodii and Sutrium, and, proceeding northwards, in Falerii, Tarquinii, Forum Cassii, Volsinii, up to the longest Luna.
—Antolini 2017.
Other brothers from Caere
Mentions
Heliodromus inscription of Cerveteri
This inscription by a certain Memmius Placidus is the first ever found signed by a Heliodromus.
