Fitz Jenő (szerk.): Religions and Cults in Pannonia. Exhibiton an Székesfehérvár, Csók István Gallery 15 May - 30 September 1996 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: A. sorozat 33. (1998)

THE CULT OF THE OMENTAL DEITIES IN CARNUNTUM H. Jobst As for the religious life of Carnuntum in the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. the finds yielded by the excavations and the inscription material denote an obvious turning of its population towards the deities imported from the Orient - a tendency which manifests itself at the same time also in the capital of the multinational Empire, though, as in many towns of the Western provinces, this phenomenon is here, because of an absence of temples built in preimperial times for the traditional Italo-Roman gods, even more conspicuous. This impression is caused in Carnuntum without doubt also by the situation of the excavations, for till now in the civil town neither the Forum with the obligate temple of the Capitoline Triad1

has been archaeologically disclosed nor a sanctuary of Iuno Karnuntina, revered as the protectress of the town (STIGLITZ 1977, 597) discovered. All the better come the cult buildings in the foreground, dedicated to the deities of the eastern mystery religions2, placed first numerically to the Iranian god of light, Mithras. If we count, besides Mithraeum I and Mihtraeum III (SACKEN, 1853, 336 sqq; REICHEL, 1895, 169 sqq) identified by a rich inscription material and sculptural decoration, further attributing three cult buildings to Mithras (STIGLITZ 1977, 615 sq. 111. 2 [Mithraeum II?] and 608 with 619 111. 8 [Mithraeum V?]), whose characteristical three-nave ground plans would hardly allow a different explanation, the stock of Mithraeums in Carnuntum could be compared with t hat of Aquincum, capital of Pannónia Inferior. The recently discovered sanctuary, which we identify, on ground of the side platforms for the couches, the base of a cult sculpture at the end of the middle passage and the finds of snake vessels in the next proximity with a fifth Mithraeum of Carnuntum, is situated in the temple area for Oriental deities (KANDLER 1981,10 sq. 111. 5.) excavated in the canabae after 1978. The cult buildings in this temenos surrounded by walls, a large platformed room and smaller temples were, according to the inscriptions, dedicated primarily to Iuppiter Heliopolitanus and his paredros, Venus Victrix, for whom, outside of their native sanctuary and apart of Rome the town of Carnuntum seems to be a major cult centre. In the next vicinity of another Syrian Baal, i.e. in the temple area ofluppiterDolichenus was the invincible solar deity Mithras venered in the so-called second Mithraeum of Carnuntum (DELL 1893, 184 sq; cf STIGLITZ 1977, 605, 111. 2) uncovered as early as 1891. This Mithras sanctuary was built, similarly to that in Brigetio, with a longitudinal wall directly to the Dolichenum and because it yielded no finds it was assumed - certainly erroneously - that it served only as a Dolichenus sanctuary. In this later one the whole stone stock seems to be reserved: the votive inscriptions and altars, a statue as well as a votive stele with the relief figure of the god on the bull. A temple for the Aegyptian deities Isis and S e r a p i s, has been not uncovered as yet in the soil of Carnuntum, but the existence of such a temple is secured by a building inscription (WEBER 1985, 649 sq. PI. 12,1) found a couple of years ago, so that it can be concluded that a community of believers of the main deities from the Nile existed in Carnuntum. The cult of the Thraco-Phrygian deity S a b a z i о s, which was accepted in Rome as early as the republican times and in the first four centuries A.D. expanded in a modest measure also in the Western provinces, is proven in Carnuntum only by one evidence in the form of one of the characteristical votive hands (Carnuntum I, 50 sq. No. 8; CSIR Österr. 1/2, No. 122.) (not as usual in bronze but in marble), which holds in the gesture of the benediction latina a pine-cone, to which a snake is climbing up. For the synchretistic figure of Sabazios (whose name points to a connection with the Sabaoth of the Old Testament), who as fertility god resembled Dionysos and because of his competence in the cosmic world assumed also features of Iuppiter, it is not necessary to look for a cult place of his own. Till now his veneration is namely proven mainly in house sanctuaries and only sporadically in a camp sanctuary resp. in connection with the imperial cult (TÓTH 1987, 107). No more can we hope to discover a sanctuary of their own of the so-called Danubian Riders. The devotees of these rider deities, mostly soldiers, placed the relief figures of small measures of their patron deities in their contubernia without any building activity or they took them along to their military campaigns as amulets. Because the rich symbolics of the rider reliefs, starting with the emblemata of the elements and proceeding to the initiation scenes, the sacrifice of the ram and the meal of the fish finishing with the presence of Sol and Luna show a strong influence of eastern mystery religions, especially that of the Mithras cult, it is possible that the rider deities were later drawn into the cult of an oriental deitiy, related to them but more famous; this may be proven by the finding of a votive medail of the Danubian Riders in the Mithraeum of London (TOYNBEE 1986, 36 sq, No. 14, PI. XI). 1 On the other hand the mountain sanctuary of Iuppiter Karnuntinus with its temple buildings, votive altars and traces of Iuppiter-Giganto-columns on the Pfaffenberg, the mons sacer of Carnuntum, to whose feet the canabae were situated, has been wholly excavated before it became a victim of the quarry. Cf.: JOBST 1978, 12sqq.: Display of the total epigraphic material: I. Piso, Die Inschriften vom Pfaffenberg (in preparation for printing). 2 Zu den Zeugnissen orientalischer Kulte in Carnuntum: SCHÖN, 1988, 15-106; Carnuntum I. 1992, 17-81. 37