The Caltilii
On the western edge of the excavated area is the Serapeum, the Ostian Temple of Serapis. A wealth of inscriptions and works of art related to the cult was found inside and near the building. The shrine was given a specific flavour by the choice of materials for statuettes and for the decoration of walls and floors. Apart from marble: alabaster, granite, basalt, agate and mother of pearl. The buildings on either side of the temple, The House of the Serapeum and the House of Bacchus and Ariadne, were connected with the temple precinct. These buildings must have been used for meetings of the worshippers, perhaps also as dwelling of a priest.
Statuette of Serapis, found in a shop on the Road of the River Mouth.
Photo: Flickr.com, Dan Diffendale.
Alabaster statuette of Isis, found on the Road of the River Mouth.
Photo: Archivio Fotografico Ostia.There is much to tell about the worship of Egyptian deities in Ostia and Portus. The evidence has been collected as a separate topic. Here we will focus on a few families that had a special connection with the cult. According to the local calendar (the so-called Fasti Ostienses) the temple was built by a certain Caltilius. His praenomen must have been Lucius, witness other inscriptions, of his cognomen we only have a trace of the first letter (usually said to be a P, but looking at the images that seems far from certain). The temple was inaugurated on January 24, 127 AD, Hadrian's birthday. It is called templum Sarapi, but inscriptions show that it was dedicated to Jupiter Serapis (sometimes written as Sarapis).
The family name Caltilius occurs quite frequently in Ostia and is rare elsewhere. Therefore it is generally believed that the builder of the Serapeum was one of these Lucii Caltilii. In the years 1856-1859 their family tomb was searched. It was on the Road of the Tombs, outside the Porta Romana, but unfortunately the precise location of the tomb was not specified. A few generations of the family have been recognized. The first members that we hear of are L. Caltilius Hilarus and Caltilia Felicula. They built the tomb. Hilarus was a freed slave "of a woman" (indicated by the symbol Ɔ) and one of the Augustales, so involved in the Imperial cult. Felicula was a freed slave of the family and must have been his wife. In a second inscription Felicula is referred to as avia, grandmother. It also had her portrait, partly lost.
Top.
Funerary inscription CIL XIV 311, Suppl. p. 614.
Caltilia Felicula is called avia.
Photo: Scavi di Ostia, volume IX, Tav. LXXIII, 111.
Left.
Funerary inscription CIL XIV, 310.
Three Caltilii are mentioned: Hilarus, Felicula and Stephanus.
Musée gallo-romain de Lyon-Fourvière, Lyon (France).
Photo: EDR.The portrait of Felicula is one of a series, to which also belong a portrait of Hilarus and a portrait of L. Caltilius Celer, who is called frater, brother of an unknown Caltilius.
Funerary portrait of L. Caltilius Hilarus.
CIL XIV, 311a. Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano.
Photo: Arachne 21590.
Funerary portrait of L. Caltilius Celer.
CIL XIV, 311b. Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Profano.
Photo: Arachne 21586.The first inscription also mentions L. Caltilius Stephanus, another freedman of the family. It has been suggested that this Stephanus was married with Caltilia Moschis, and that she was a daughter of Hilarus and Felicula. On a relief that belongs to the series Moschis is called mater indulgentissima, and on a funerary altar she is depicted together with Stephanus.
Funerary portrait of Caltilia Moschis.
CIL VI, 14259. Roma, via Michelangelo Caetani 32, Palazzo Mattei.
Photo: EDR.
Funerary altar of L. Caltilius Stephanus and Caltilia Moschis.
Malibu, Getty Museum. Photo: Getty Museum.The monuments have a very characteristic style that can with confidence be dated in the period 70-120 AD. It is noteworthy that a Lucius Caltilius is also documented in Pompeii: Lucius Caltilius Pamphilus, freed slave of Lucius, married with Servilia. A funerary inscription set up by Pamphilus for his wife was found in a necropolis of Pompeii. Fragments of the inscription had been known for a long time, but only in 2010 were the name of the husband and wife joined, leading to the headline "Married couple reunited" in the media (NBC, BBC, Daily Mail). It is conceivable that, after the catastrophic events of 79 AD, the surviving members of the family moved from Pompeii to Ostia.
The founding father of the Serapeum was not the only member of the family interested in Egyptian deities. An inscription found on the bank of the Tiber, near the Capitolium, records a dedication (by will) of gold and silver objects to Isis Bubastis by Caltilia Diodora. Bubastis, a city in the Nile delta, was the centre of worship of Bastet, who took the form of a cat. Diodora added that she was bubastiaca. A funerary inscription mentions Caltilia Isidora, "gift of Isis".
The family is still documented in Ostia during the reign of Antoninius Pius. The sarcophagus of a child from the family, L. Caltilius Salutaris, belongs to that period. On the sarcophagus we see Atlas carrying the she-wolf and the twins. The "lupa romana" could be a symbol of citizenship, acquired by the children of freed slaves. The funerary altar of a L. Caltilius Diadumenus has been assigned to the same years.
Sarcophagus of the child L. Caltilius, who died at the age of 7.
Ostia, museum. Photo: Wikimedia, Sailko.
Funerary altar of L. Caltilius Diadumenus.
Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, Florida). Photo: Tampa Museum of Art.It looks as if the family suddenly disappeared from Ostia after the middle of the second century. A group of four freed slaves of the family of the Munatii has the cognomen Caltiliana / Caltilianus, suggesting that as slaves they had moved as property from one family to another. Perhaps the family was struck by the smallpox pandemic that struck the Roman empire so hard during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. In the second half of the second century we find a Lucius Caltilius Myron, son of Lucius, married with Aemilia Nebris, in Salonae (Solin, Croatia). A Lucius Caltilius Tespius is documented in Ravenna.
