The great majority of members in Virunum were Roman citizens,
whether freeborn or freed. Indeed, among the ninety-eight, there is only one
identifiable peregrine, Calend(inus) Successi f(ilius), and one slave, Sper-
atus s(ervus). It is impossible to distinguish freedmen from freeborn citi-
zens by name alone, although Greek cognomina tend to be indicative of
freedmen. Piccottini (1994, 29–31) finds twenty-four Greek cognomina, as
against fifty-six Latin (seventy-one individuals) and four indigenous Celtic.
Again, there are ninety-eight members, but ninety-nine individuals are
mentioned, since Calendinus’s father, Successus, is named.
In this context, a fairly high proportion (ca. 25 per cent?) of freedmen
among Mithraists is not unexpected. The low proportion of indigenous
Celtic names is remarkable, though likewise not unexpected. Many of the
prosopographical links made by Piccottini are necessarily tentative, but we
may say with certainty that at least one of the Mithraists was a person of
some consequence in the larger community: L. Lydacius Ingenuus, known
fromCILIII 4813 f. as IIvir iure dicundo in Virunumandsacerdosandflamen
(presumably of the imperial cult) and as dedicator of altars to the “Impe-
rial Victory” (Victotiae Augustae). All in all, then, the picture is just what
one has come to expect of Mithraists: modest worldly success (enough dis-
posable cash to rebuild their mithraeum without, it seems, assistance from
a patron) set within the context of a provincial administrative centre (a reli-
gion not of Noricum but of the Roman presence in Noricum).
MITHRAEUM LEADERSHIP
The leadership of a mithraeum was exercised by its Father or Fathers
(Pater/Patres). The Father was the highest of seven grades in a hierarchy of
initiations (see, e.g., Beck 1992, 8–10). There is currently some controversy
over whether the grades, and particularly the Father, were priestly offices;
also, whether they were normative, in the sense that all or most Mithraists
in all or most mithraea would be expected to enter the cursus(on both
questions, see Gordon 1994, 465–67). There could be more than a single
Father in any mithraeum, as we shall see was the case at Virunum.
The bronze albumnotes six Patresat one time or another (on the
Virunum Patres,see Piccottini 1994, 34–36; I see no reason to entertain the
possibility that the abbreviated form pat,used for four of the six, might
meanpat[ronus]). The original pair, Iulius Secundinus and Trebius Zoti-
cus, were given pride of place at the head of the first column, though their
rank was not actually inscribed until later, in fact by the hand which added
the cohort of 184 CE. A different hand added the grade title to the name of
Atticius Sextus at the bottom of the first column. Given his position in the
On Becoming a Mithraist 189