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Mithraic Inscription in Ficulle (Umbria)

(CIL VI.3723)


Church of S. Maria Vecchia, Ficulle, Umbria.
Transcription:		Translation:
1 5 10	Soli Invicto Mitrhaeº Tiberivs Clavdi- -vs Tiberii filivs Thermodon spelaevm cvm signis et aptis ceterisqve voti compos dedit	1 2 3 5 4 9 10 6 7 8	To the Unconquered Sun Mithra Tiberius Claudius Thermodon son of Tiberius, his prayer heard, gave the cavern with its statues and other appropriate items.

The "cavern" was the heart of the Mithraic sanctuary: sometimes a natural cave, but always at any rate a dark windowless space, usually underground. The spelaeum was very often made to look like a cave as well, with irregular contours of tufa and shells embedded in the walls; much like Lourdes grottoes in modern Catholic practice.

The provenance of this dedicatory inscription, the top of which shows that at some later time it was put to Christian use as a baptismal font or a holy water stoup, is unknown. The TCI Guide to Umbria affirms that it was found "on the other side of the Paglia river", and the comune's site states that no one knows, although some people believe it to have come from under the church; my own tempting candidate, without any evidence to back me up, is that it may have been in the little grottoes under the church of the Maestà (q.v.), about 400 m further out of town than S. Maria Vecchia.

Despite what can be read elsewhere online, this is not an altar, but merely a dedicatory inscription, the record of a man's generosity to a religious sanctuary; and Tiberius Claudius Thermodon is not a member of the imperial family, except at most by extension: if — pure supposition — his father had been an imperial slave, on being freed he may have taken the name Tiberius Claudius.

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