Marcus Limbricius Polides

Marcus Limbricius Polides is known from a marble altar dedicated to Sol Invictus in Rome together with Marcus Aemilius Chrysanthus, who is identified there as a freedman and magister anni primi (TNMM 479; CIMRM 519; CIL VI 717).

Polides bears the title decurio. Clauss (1992) included him among the persons associated with Chrysanthus and regarded the decurio as possibly holding an office within the same group, although he stressed more generally that the precise nature of Chrysanthus’ magister anni primi remained uncertain. He also noted that the connection of these dedications with a Mithraic community depends principally on Chrysanthus’ recurrence in this altar and in the dedications to Oriensand Deus Invictus Mithras.

The wording dec(urio) et sodalicio eius has, however, been interpreted differently in later scholarship. A subsequent discussion explicitly argues against Clauss’ reading of Polides as Chrysanthus’ sodalis, taking et sodalicio eius instead with the dedication itself, that is, as a dedication to Sol Invictus “and his sodalicium”. The same study therefore cautions that decurio may refer to Polides’ status outside the Mithraic group rather than to an internal Mithraic office.