Alfenius Ceionius Iulianus Kamenius

Alfenius Ceionius Iulianus Kamenius was a late Roman senator, priest and provincial governor active during the second half of the fourth century CE. He is attested in several inscriptions from Rome and Antium which present him as one of the clearest examples of the aristocratic pagan milieu associated with the late Roman mystery cults.

Kamenius held a distinguished political and religious cursus. His inscriptions describe him as vir clarissimus, quaestor candidatus, praetor triumphalis, septemvir epulonum, quindecimvir sacris faciundis, pontifex maior and consularis provinciae Numidiae. A statue base erected by members of his provincial administration records that a bronze statue was dedicated to him in his own house in Rome in recognition of his justice and administration in Numidia (CIL VI 1675 = CIMRM 516; LSA-1392). Another related base was discovered in the same area near the Palazzo Barberini on the Quirinal hill (LSA-1569).

His religious titles are especially notable. Kamenius is described as pater sacrorum summi Invicti Mithrae, hierophant of Hecate, archibucolus of Liber and recipient of the taurobolium of Magna Mater. An altar discovered beneath Saint Peter’s Square in 1949 and dated to 19 July 374 CE records the dedication of an altar to Magna Mater and Attis Menotyrannus after the completion of the taurobolium and criobolium rites (CIMRM 515 = AE 1953, 238). The monument is generally associated with the Vatican Phrygianum.

Kamenius also appears connected with the aristocratic religious networks of late fourth-century Rome centred around figures such as Vettius Agorius Praetextatus and Ulpius Egnatius Faventinus. Modern scholarship has frequently cited his inscriptions as evidence for the convergence of Mithraic, Dionysiac, Hecatean and Phrygian priesthoods within the Roman senatorial elite during the final decades of public paganism in Rome.

His funerary inscription from Antium indicates that he died in the late fourth century CE (CIMRM 206).