Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 23-24. (1994)

I. Arheologie

7

CELTS AND GERMANS IN DACIA

23

In the capital of Dacia, at Sarmizegetusa, are know three epigraphes60 which attest the cult of the healthful divinities Apollo Grannus and Sirona; the worshippers belong to the sphere of the upper imperial officialities.

C. Sempronius Urbanus,61 procurator Augusti Daciae Apulensis between AD 182-185, dedicated eight attars,62 the greatest number of votive inscriptions from the same person in Dacia. In C.Sempronius Urbanus'personal pantheon can be acknowledged three categories of divinities:

1) the official ones; 2) ancestral divinities - the character being originated from Baetica;63 3) goddesses proper to another provinces, to which the dedicant had been attached himself during the time he spend there. In this last category are also to be framed the couple Apollo Grannus - Sirona, brought in Dacia by the treasury officier of higher rank from one of the Celtic provinces where, previously, he occupied another administrative function.64

In the case of the other two dedicants -Q.Axius Aelianus,65 procurator Augusti Daciae Apulensis between AD 235/236 - 238, and Q.Axius Aelianus iunior-66 , it seems that we have to do with a "hereditary inclination". In order to explain this situation two hypotheses had been advanced:

1) the first, is based on the presumed origin of the financial procurator which, by his name, would be Italic, but his connections with Gallia Narbonensis weren't excluded;67 it might be said about the preservation of some ancestral beliefs, and the fact that the altar dedicated by Q.Axius Aelianus iunior to Apollo Grannus is in Greek68 might be explained by the excess of erudition of the dedicant.

2) the ethnical origin of the two dedicants being uncertain, we might think about a similar explanation with the case of C.Sempronius Urbanus, as long as Q.Axius Aelianus, previously his arrival in Dacia, exercised magistracies in Belgica and Germania 69

We make an option for the second interpretation considering that Q.Axius Aelianus worship some other Celtic divinities as Mars Camulus and the couple Mercurius-Rosmerta.

60 CIL. Ill, 74 = IDR. III/2 191; I. Piso. in ZPE. 50 1983, p. 236, no. 3 and p.241, no. 8.

M. BOrbulescu, Interference spirituale ih Dacia romanú, Cluj-Napoca, 1984 p.154, no. 14.

62 Ibid., loc.cit.

63 I.Piso, op.cit.. p.238.

64 Ibid., p.237.

65 M. BOrbulescu, op.cit.. p.156, no.17.

66 Ibid., p.156, no. 18.

67 I. Piso, op.cit. p.242.

68 Ibid, p.241. no. 8, pl. XIV, fig. 8.

69 CIL. Ill, 1456 = ILS. 1371 = IDR, 111/2, 89 (Sarmizegetusa). Concerning Q. Axius Aelianus' career, see A. Stein, Die Reichsbeamten von Dazlen, Budapest, 1944, p.71 and H.G. Pflaum, Les carréres procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut Empire Romain, II, Paris, 1960, p. 851 -854.