Cresces

Cresces has donated the main altar found in the Mithraeum of Marino. The monument mentions that he is the administrator of a certain Alfius Severus, probably his master.

—Marteen Vermaseren (1982) Mithriaca III

The altar [of the Marino Mithraeum] is dedicated to the unconquered god by a certain Crescens, who claims to be an actor (proxy) of M. Alfius Severus. The latter must have been an important person, probably at least a knight, because the function of actor necessarily implies property to manage, or an office to fulfil which requires a fidei commis.

Crescens is therefore part of this bureaucracy of administrators or managers, agents of large entrepreneurs or private owners. He belonged to a category of officials in which we can place the dispensator, Yarcarius (author of the Nersae inscription) and the tabularius, who formed a milieu as active as the army for the diffusion of Roman Mithraism.

We can perhaps go further and remember that the Mithraeum is opposite the Marino quarries. Can we not assume that M. Alfius Severus was somehow connected with the exploitation of the quarries and that his trusted man Crescens gathered around him a small community, including some of the workers?

E. Will proposed a similar hypothesis concerning the large Mithraic relief of Mackviller (Alsace) dedicated by a knight to whom the management of the neighbouring quarry probably belonged.

—Henri Lavagne (1974) Le Mithréum de Marino.