Page 41 - A Walk to Caesarea / Joseph Patrich

A Walk to Caesarea: A Historical-Archaeological Perspective 27

Libation Scene in front of the Local Tyche on the Annual Fig. 28
Inauguration Feast of Caesarea as a Roman Colony (Fig. 28)
The Louvre Caesarea Cup. Drawing of a
A Roman dignitary – apparently the governor, wrapped in a mantle also libation scene in front of the local Tyche,
covering his head, holding a scroll in his left hand, while in his right a the goddess of fortune of the city
libation bowl over an incense altar; behind him is a youth holding an
incense box. The goddess, whose dimensions are larger than the figure
pouring the libation, is represented as Tyche-Amazone, and near her
left foot the genius of the port, as in the marble statue. The goddess
is identified in the inscription as the genius of the colony – GENIO
COΛONIA (the writing is corrupted, combining Greek and Latin letters).
This description of Tyche is also familiar on embedded gemstones from
the Roman period; she is personified the same way also on bronze
statuettes as well as on large marble statues. Incised above the libation
scene is a second inscription, which mentions sacred games (AGONES
IEROI – Greek in Latin letters), and five busts (apparently of gods).

The festival of the proclamation of the city as a colony took place on March 5,
coinciding with the annual sailing feast of Isis (Navigium Isidis). Osiris and Isis
were also considered gods of salvation who grant immortality. Their followers
participated in the mysteries’ rite, in which the scenes of resurrection and rising
from the netherworld were dramatized. An echo of this hope is discerned from
a tombstone in Greek placed by parents over the grave of their children who
both passed away within an hour of each other: their seven-year-old daughter,
who was named Isidora for the goddess, and their son, Priscus Nemonianus, age
15. The parents appealed to Osiris to take care of their needs even after death.
The inscription reads, “Farewell, my dear children. Farewell Priscus Nemonianus,
fifteen years old. May Osiris give the cold water to you and to your sister who was
carried off within the space of one hour with you. And you, Isidora, seven years
old, farewell. May Osiris give the cold water to you and to your brother, who was
carried off within the space of one hour with you. May the earth [Gaia] be light for
you, and may those things she grants you below be good” (tr. CIIP II, inscription
no. 1531).

A second mystery rite taking place in Caesarea, involving the seven degrees of
initiation rites and meals, was that of the god Mithras, apparently a god of Persian
origin, who was popular in the Roman army, mainly in the provinces along the
Rhine and the Danube, from the first century onward. A temple dedicated to him –
the only one in Palaestina – was installed by one of the financial procurators in
one of the vaults beneath his praetorium. Also found there was a round marble
medallion, c. 12 cm in diameter, presenting Mithras in relief in Anatolian costume
and wearing a Phrygian cap, stabbing a bull in the neck with a dagger (tauroctony),