Marcus Aurelius Decimus

Marcus Aurelius Decimus was a Roman equestrian official who served as praeses of Numidia during the reigns of Carinus and Numerian, around AD 283-285. Before attaining the governorship, he held the office of princeps peregrinorum, a prestigious military appointment traditionally associated with the castra peregrina and the corps of the frumentarii at Rome. His career is documented through an unusually large corpus of inscriptions from Numidia, where he repeatedly identifies himself as ex princeps peregrinorum. According to Ginevra Benedetti, no fewer than twenty-one sacred inscriptions record his religious activity across the province.

Decimus is particularly notable for his extensive patronage of religious cults. His dedications include monuments to Sol Mithras, Sol Invictus, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Juno Regina, Minerva, Hercules, Mars, Mercury, the Genius Loci and collective divine formulae such as dii deaeque omnes. Laurent Bricault has also drawn attention to four dedications made by Decimus to Jupiter Bazosenus, a Romanized Near Eastern Baal described as his deus patrius, suggesting a personal attachment to an eastern cult alongside his devotion to Mithras and solar deities.

Because of the number and diversity of his religious dedications, Decimus stands out as one of the best documented provincial governors associated with Mithraic worship in late Roman North Africa.