Tamesius Augentius Olympius

Aurelius Victor Augentius was a late fourth-century Roman senator (vir clarissimus) and one of the best documented Mithraic priests of Late Antiquity. Together with Nonius Victor Olympius, he belonged to an aristocratic circle responsible for maintaining a Mithraic community traditionally associated with the area of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome, although the precise location of its mithraeum remains uncertain (Gallo 1979; Griffith 1993; Bjørnebye 2007; Canciani 2022; Chalupa 2023).

The earliest inscriptions, dated AD 357–362, present Augentius as a pater working alongside Nonius Victor Olympius, who held the supreme Mithraic office of pater patrum. These inscriptions record a series of initiatory ceremonies in which the two priests admitted new initiates into successive grades of the Mithraic hierarchy, including leo, Perses, Heliodromus and Pater, while another inscription refers to the presentation of cryfii, probably catechumens awaiting initiation into the mysteries (Blomart 1992; Griffith 1993; Chalupa 2023).

By AD 376, following the disappearance of Nonius Victor Olympius from the epigraphic record, Augentius himself had become pater patrum. In that capacity he initiated his own son, Aemilianus Corfonius Olympius, into the grade of hierocorax, providing rare evidence for the transmission of Mithraic religious authority across successive generations of a senatorial family (Gallo 1979; Griffith 1993; Canciani 2022; Chalupa 2023).

The family’s continued involvement in the cult is further demonstrated by a metrical inscription commissioned by Tamesius Augentius Olympius, probably Augentius’ grandson, sometime between AD 371 and 400. The inscription commemorates the achievements of his ancestors and declares that he himself “built the cave” (antra facit), almost certainly referring to the construction or refurbishment of a mithraeum. Whether this inscription refers to the same sanctuary attested by the earlier inscriptions, however, remains a matter of scholarly debate (Gallo 1979; Bjørnebye 2007; Chalupa 2023).

Although no archaeological remains of the sanctuary have yet been securely identified, the inscriptions associated with Aurelius Victor Augentius constitute one of the richest bodies of evidence for the persistence of Mithraism among the Roman senatorial aristocracy during the final decades before the suppression of the traditional pagan cults. They also document one of the clearest examples of hereditary continuity within a Mithraic community, extending across at least three generations of the same family.