Paterna

The person traditionally known as Paterna is attested in a Roman inscription discovered at Rheder in Germania Inferior, generally dated to the third century CE (TNMM 2148). The text records the fulfilment of a vow connected with a man named Firminus and has often been interpreted as a dedication to Deus Invictus Mithras. Under the traditional reading, Paterna would represent one of the very few women associated with the Mithraic cult in the surviving epigraphic record.

Little can be said with confidence about the dedicator. Under the traditional interpretation, Paterna may have belonged to the prosperous Romano-Germanic population of the Lower Rhine frontier, a region where Roman, local Germanic and military influences were closely intertwined. If the conventional reading is correct, the inscription suggests that she possessed sufficient social standing and resources to commission a formal votive monument.

Modern scholarship has raised substantial doubts about both the Mithraic interpretation of the inscription and the identity of the dedicator. Alison Griffith highlighted a number of linguistic and epigraphic difficulties, noting that neither the recipient nor the person responsible for the dedication can be established with certainty. Richard Gordon subsequently proposed an alternative reconstruction in which the disputed name belongs to a man, possibly Iustinius Paternianus or Iustinius Paternus, rather than to a woman named Paterna. Similar reservations have been expressed by other scholars discussing the evidence for female participation in Mithraism, including Aleš Chalupa. As a result, neither the sex nor the identity of the dedicator can be regarded as certain.