FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
One would like to know whether family relationships played much of a
role in the recruitment of the Virunum Mithraists. Obviously, they cannot
have done so in the same way as they did among contemporary Christians,
for the simple reason that Mithraism excluded women. A family, then,
could not become Mithraic in the same sense that it could become Chris-
tian. But was there a pattern of Mithraists recruiting their sons or other male
relatives?
Potentially, among the shared Gentile names, there could be numerous
close family relationships. But it is, of course, no more likely that all the Aelii
on the bronze albumwere related than it is that all the Smiths would be,
on the membership list of a modern small town club. Piccottini does not
make exaggerated claims; rather, he finds (1994: tables between 28 and
29) four fairly certain father-son pairs, one fairly certain pair of brothers and
one fairly certain trio of brothers, with another twenty-two possible rela-
tionships of either the father-son or the brotherly variety. It is likely, then,
that close kinship among males did play a considerable, though not crucial,
role in Mithraic recruitment at Virunum. Again, we would scarcely expect
it to be otherwise.
Sharednominacan also indicate a patron-freedman relationship (or
freedmen of the same familia), especially when Greek cognomina are
involved (see above, Mithraists of the Virunum Alba). It is likely, though
unable to be proved, that there are instances of this relationship among the
shared Gentile names of the alba.For example, Piccottini (1994, 41–43)
makes Trebius Zoticus the freedman of Trebius Alfius, one of the Fathers.
He identifies the latter with the equestrian M. Trebius Alfius of CILIII
- This latter person was conductor(contractor) of the Noricum iron
industry. The position became that of an imperial procurator under M.
Aurelius, so CILIII 4788 predates the Mithraic album.Richard Gordon (per-
sonal letter) dates it to 157 CE. For this reason, I hesitate to follow Piccot-
tini in his identification of the Mithraic Pater.If Piccottini were right, Trebius
Alfius would, of course, replace Lydacius Ingenuus (see above, Mithraists
of the Virunum Alba) as the mithraeum’s greatest success story. In the
ancient context, the patron-freedman relationship should, of course, also
be classified as a family relationship.
The Lydacii furnish an interesting case (Piccottini 1994, 38f.; and see
above, Mithraists of the Virunum Alba). Lydacius Ingenuus was on the
original list of thirty-four members, as was a certain Lydacius Charito. It is
not an unreasonable assumption that the former, the “Freeborn” (Ingenuus)
Lydacius, was the son of the latter, and that the latter, with his Greek cog-