Paterna

Paterna is known from a Roman inscription discovered at Rheder in Germania Inferior , dated to the third century AD (TNMM 2148). The text records the fulfilment of a vow connected with a man named Firminus and has traditionally been interpreted as a dedication to Deus Invictus Mithras. If this reading is correct, Paterna would be one of the very few women directly associated with the Mithraic cult in the surviving archaeological record.

Little is known about her life beyond the inscription itself. She was probably a member of the prosperous Romano-Germanic population of the Lower Rhine frontier, a region where Roman, local Germanic and military influences were closely intertwined. Her ability to commission a formal dedication suggests a woman of some status within her community, possibly acting on behalf of family members or dependants.

Modern scholarship has questioned the traditional interpretation of the inscription. Alison Griffith highlighted a number of linguistic and epigraphic problems, noting that neither the identity of the dedicator nor the intended recipient can be established with complete certainty. Richard Gordon subsequently proposed an alternative reconstruction in which the disputed name belongs to a man rather than to a woman named Paterna. Similar reservations have been expressed by other scholars working on the evidence for female involvement in Mithraism, including discussions cited by Griffith and later studies by Aleš Chalupa.