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 veneration of another Syrian Baal, namely that of Baal-Hadad of Heliopolis/Baalbek, whom the Romans equated, similarly to Dolichenus, with their Iuppiter Optimus Maximus, is in Carnuntum through dedications known for a long time (CIL III 1137,1138 and 1139; HAJJAR 1977, No. 274,275 and 273). In addition the relief on the armour of a statue of an emperor (CSIR Osterr. 11 No. 83; HAJJAR, No. 277; Carnuntum I, 60 sq No. 40, 111. p. 58), found in the principia of the Carnuntum camp representing most likely Severus Alexander (222-235 A.D.) is a free variant of the cult picture of the god in the main temple of Baalbek, which was built since the 1st century A.D. by the Roman Emperors to the most monumental temple of the Empire. The relief displays the god standing on a base, flaked by two bulls, his legs and body wrapped in the typical attire, in the right the whip of the solar god, while the attributes now broken in the left must be completed after the model of Heliopolis with the thunderbolt and a bunch of spikes pointing to a tempest deity who brings fertility to the crop. That Iuppiter Heliopolitanus was venered in Carnuntum together with his paredros, the Syrian Atargatis, who, romanized, became Venus Victrix, is proven by two votive inscriptions6

known also for a long time. On one of them even the head of the goddess is represented. In the course of the excavations led since 1978 in the canabae East from the camp, the finding of further Helipolitanus votives, that of an altar and a bronze-gilt tablet (KANDLER 1983, Vol. 2, 194 sq, Pis. XXVI-XXVII) led to the conclusion that the sacred area excavated there was primarily sacred to the Helipolitane deities. To which deity we have to attribute the single cult buildings, arranged around a trapezeshaped courtyard, we have no certain proofs at yet. The excavator presumes that the quadrate temple with an altar base before it standing isolated at the eastern side of the area exactly in the East-West axis, was the temple of Iuppiter Heliopolitanus, and considers the possibility that the edifice attributed to Mithras because of its three-naved construction, situated on the south of the courtyard between a room with platforms and the bath complex, could be the sanctuary of the paredros of the Heliopolitanus, namely Venus Victrix. The laid up platform at the end of the middle passage, thought to be the base of a cult relief of Mithras, would be accordingly the base for the cult picture of the goddess. Whether the smaller than life-size, sandstone female head with a crown of leaves (KANDLER 1981, 11, Frontispiece) and the fragment of a lower arm, belonging to the same statuette, with fractional wings, which probably belonged to one of the sphinges , flanking the statue, might have been the cult statue of Venus Victrix, is till now uncertain. Among the founders of the eight votive inscriptions for the Helipolitan deities from the town area of Carnuntum soldiers (of the 14th, and once of the 10th legion) were in predominance, if we consider also the veteran list of the dedication to Venus Victrix. Once an Augustalis appears as founder, twice a pair of priests, presumably of oriental origin, whose names figured in order to give an intern dating - about 240 A.D. - for the inscription. The beginning of the cult of the Heliopolitanus in Carnuntum is assumed about the mid-2nd century A.D. The earliest inscription which can be dated is from 189 A.D., the times of Commodus, in which in whole Pannónia an increased immigration of Syrians and people from Asia Minor is demonstrable. The Helipolitanus sanctuary became a prominent cult centre along the Danube limes certainly through the promotion of the Syrian emperors. The founder of this dynasty was Septimius Severus who was saluted emperor in Carnuntum. While the date 240 A.D. seemed till now the latest one for a Heliopolitanus devotion, the cult area with its baths might have been used till the middle of the 4th century. The most numerous group among the believers of Oriental religions in Carnuntum was formed by the initiated into the mysteries of the Persian Mi thras. This is attested not only by the above mentioned Mithraeums - three of them, counting only those attributed with certainty and five together with the two assumed - but also by monuments of the Mithras cult coming to light in great numbers (SCHÖN 1988, 15 sqq No. 1-61). Not considering the small finds, among them many fragments of snake vessels, almost 60 votive inscriptions, sculptures and reliefs exist, among the last ones 6 items with the motif of the Tauroktonia. The stone monuments come partly of the inventory of Mithraeum I (13 items: beside the cult sculpture and the Dadophori the representation of the rock-birth and of a lion with a fire cana as well as an altar dedicated to the transitus) and of Mithraeum III (12 items: beside the altar dedicated to the conference of the Emperors and the cult-picture assembled of 4 square plates we have to mention another rock-birth as well as the high reliefs of Cautes and Cautopates from the environment of the entrance, a shell basin and the sculpture of a lion). Monuments of Mithras were found also scattered as spolia over the civil town and canabae as well as the camp. In the case of the Mithras altar to be dated as the earliest, which cannot be attributed to any of the Mithraeums, the person taking a vow is an Italian, centurion of the legio XV. Apollinaris (CIL III 4418; Wien, KH Mus. AS III 35: VORBECK 1980a, No. 143.), which was after the Oriental campaign, closed with the occupation of Jerusalem, stationed between 71 and 114 A.D. in Carnuntum, till it was relieved by the 14th legion. With this proof for the possible beginning of the cult of Mithras in the last quarter of the 1st century Carnuntum seems to be in the Western provinces one of the places where the cult could gain a foothold earliest after its widespread in and about Rome (MERKELBACH 1984, 148 sq.). 6 CIL III 11139; HAJJAR, No.273 (+ Votive column) and CIL III 11140; CSIR, 1/2, No. 197 - Votive tablet with relief head. 40