Deities of districts

In Portus we do not hear of districts (vici) and related shrines at crossroads (compita), but a few inscriptions strongly suggest that such divisions did exist. We hear of a "priest of the god Liber Pater of the Bonadienses":

SILVANO SANC[to] P(ublius) LVSCIVS BERGILI ANVS SACERDOS DEI LIBERIS PATRIS BONADIENSIVM SILBANO SANCTO CVI MAGNAS GRATIAS A GO CONDVCTOR AVCVPIORVM	To sacred Silvanus. Publius Luscius Vergilianus, priest of the god Liber Pater of the Bonadienses. To sacred Silvanus, whom I thank very much, as contractor of bird hunting.
Travertine slab. From Portus, Monte Giulio (to the east of the basin of Claudius). Portus, casa dei Torlonia. W. 0.32, h. 0.34. Carcopino 1909, 342-350. EDR106250.

The Bonadienses, "those of Bona Dea", were most likely related to a vicus and a cult at crossroads (compitum). Apparently there was a temple of Liber Pater in this vicus, most likely to the east of Trajan's hexagon. There must of course also have been a shrine or temple of Bona Dea. An aedicula of the seated deity was found at an unspecified location in Portus.

Aedicula with the Bona Dea. W. 0.52, h. 0.82, d. 0.52.
Rome, Villa Albani, inv. nr. 348. Found in Portus. Date: Trajanic.
Morcelli - Fea - Visconti 1869, 61. Calza in NSc 1942, 152. Brouwer 1989, nr. 68.
Photo: Brouwer 1989, Pl. XXIV.

The aedicula is described by Hendrik Brouwer as follows: "The aedicula has four pillars with Corinthian capitals. The front shows a rather deep niche, the two sides have shallower niches. In the front niche a goddess is seated, veiled and dressed in a chiton and mantle; she wears a diadem, and holds in her left arm the cornucopia. The right hand is lost but the pose of the arm is such that it seems probable that the goddess had a bowl in that hand. Traces of the serpent coiling round her arm are clearly visible, but its head drinking from the bowl (we must assume) was broken off together with the hand of the goddess. The figure is seated on a richly ornamented throne with back and arms. Left niche: A bald man in toga stretches out his right hand to the left - the hand itself is lost. By his right foot is a basket. Right niche: Victoria is represented. In her right hand the goddess holds a wreath and in her left a palm. She has wings and wears a chiton and mantle. The aedicula has a base and an architrave, which is heavily damaged. The upper side is flat and plain, from which fact a roof in the form of a pediment may be concluded - now lost." Adolf Greifenhagen adds that the unpolished back shows that the altar stood in front of a wall ("Bona Dea", RM 52 (1937), 227-224: 228, nr. 13).

Another group of people related to a part of Portus was called Traianenses, "those of Trajan":

Ἁγνῆς εὐσέμνοιο σπείρης Τραιανησίων οἵδε ἱερεῖς ἱέρ<ε>ιά τε θεοῦ μεγάλου Διωνύσου Λ(ούκιος) Σουάλιος Λ<ε>ωνίδης καὶ (vacat) καὶ Ἰουλία Ῥουφεῖνα· ἐπὶ παραστάτῃ Σεκούνδῳ	Here, from the holy and venerable speira of the Traianesians, the priests and priestess of the great god Dionysus: Lucius Sualius Leonides and (missing) and Iulia Rufina. From the time of the parastata (assistant to the priest) Secundus.
Marble slab. Rome, Villa Albani. Found in Portus in the years 1863-1869. Date: 171-230 AD. W. 1.20, h. 0.51. IG XIV, 925; EDR118567.

DIANA IOBENS IVB [=TVB(icen)?] TRAIANENSIVM	By order of Diana, trumpeter? of the Traianenses.
Marble slab. Rome, Villa Albani. Found in Portus in 1863-1864. CIL XIV, 4 (see also IG XIV, 925); EDR147035.

Traianenses are also known in Rome. It has been suggested that they lived and worked around the Baths of Trajan (Ross Taylor 1912, 28-29). Here there is an obvious relation to the area around Trajan's hexagon, the Portus Traiani Felicis. The first, Greek inscription informs us that some of the members formed a Bacchic so-called spira (the "coiling, winding line of those of Trajan"), with priests and priestesses. The language indicates that the members came from the east half of the Empire. Spirae, also called thiasi and of which several examples are known in the Empire, had a mystic-orgiastic character, taking their name from frenzied dances in the cult of Bacchus-Dionysus. Names of the ranks were spirarches, orgiophanta, parastata, hierophantes, and archibucolus (Wissowa 1912, 303-304). The second inscription mentions Diana in relation to the Traianenses.

From an unspecified location in Portus comes a marble base with three sides. On each side is a dancing female figure. Between two of the figures is a dog. The Viscontis regard this statue as part of a candelabrum, but it is part of a hekataion, with figures dancing around the triple Hecate on a column, a Hellenistic category of monuments that has been called "der Tanz um die Dreigestaltige". Hecate, the goddess of ghosts, magic and the underworld, was often associated with crossroads. Here the triangular shape of the object points to her association with Diana Trivia, deity of three-forked intersections of roads (from Ostia comes a small altar with the text Deaes Tribiaes sanctaes et loco divino, where the Deae Triviae must be Hecate and Proserpina; Bakker 1994, 123, 199; EDR107504). It may be this Diana who is mentioned in the Latin inscription of the Traianenses.

"Der Tanz um die Dreigestaltige". Date: second half of the second century BC. H. 0.38. Museo Torlonia, inv. nr. 150. Found in Portus.
T. Kraus, Hekate. Studien zu Wesen und Bild der Göttin in Kleinasien und Griechenland, Heidelberg 1960, 140 nr. 26. Photos: Kraus 1960, Pl. 12,1-3.

Whereas (so far) there is no documentation from Portus for compita as shrines of the Lares Compitales, we do have Lares Portus Augusti. One of the members must have been Marcus Antonius Vitalus, who stipulated fines to be paid to the worshippers of these Lares in his funerary inscription. The use of Portus Augusti suggests that the organization was formed during the work of Claudius in Portus. It may be significant that it is also during his reign that we hear of the "first magistri / magistri of the first year" in Ostia.

D(is) M(anibus) M(arcus) ANTONIVS VITALIS ET M(arcus) ANTONIVS M(arci) FILIVS VERVS FECERVNT SIB(i) ET SVIS LIBERTIS LIBERTABVSQVE POSTERISQVAE EORVM QVOD SI QVIS IN HOC MVNIMENTVM VEL INTRA MACERIAM QVAM EIVS POST EXCESSVM M(arci) ANTONI VITALIS VENDERE VEL DONARE ALIOVE QVO GENERE ABALIENARE VOLET AVT CORPVS OSSVAVE ALIENIGERI NOMINIS QVAM TITVLO S(upra) S(cripto) CONTINETVR INTVLERIT TVNC POENAE NOM[in]E IN SINGVLA CORPORA CVLTORIBVS LARVM PORTVS [Augu]STI (sestertium) III M(ilia) N(ummum) H(oc) M(onumentum) H(eredem) E(xterum) [n(on)] S(equetur)

To the spirits of the underworld. Marcus Antonius Vitalis and Marcus Antonius, son of Marcus, Verus made this for themselves and for their freedmen and freedwomen and for the descendants of them. If anyone in this monument or within its precinct, after the death of Marcus Antonius Vitalis, wants to sell or give away or otherwise alienate anything, or introduces a body or bones of a person bearing a name other than that inscribed above, then he shall pay a fine, for each body, to the worshippers of the Lares of the Port of Augustus, of 3000 sesterces. This monument does not follow the heir of another family.

Marble slab. Museum Ostia. Found in 1930 in the Isola Sacra necropolis, probably tomb 95. Date: Hadrianic. W. 1.45, h. 0.61. EDR101488. Photo: EDCS-13100064.

Finally we may mention here two reliefs of what seems to be the Genius of Portus. The first is on a marble relief that was found in 1990 above the door of a tomb on the north part of the Isola Sacra. We see a ship arriving in the harbour, the lighthouse, and a Genius with a turreted headdress, holding a rudder and a patera from which a bull is eating. It is probably the Genius of Portus. The bull is not taken to a sacrifice and may be the Egyptian deity Apis, a reference to the grain that was brought from Alexandria to Rome.

Relief with a ship, the lighthouse of Portus, and a Genius with a bull. W. 0.78, h. 0.33.
Museum Ostia, inv. nr. 49132. Found in the Isola Sacra necropolis, above the entrance of a tomb.
Date: second or early third century AD. Karivieri 2020, cat. nr. 3. Photo: Karivieri 2020, 61 fig. 2.

The second Genius is on a curious marble relief that was excavated in 1797, somewhere in Portus. To the left and right are two Genii, each holding a cornucopiae and a lighthouse. The left Genius stands on a base with a damaged figure, the right Genius on a base with a snake, a Genius Loci. Also on the bases is the Greek text "Good speed to the (Alexandrian grain) fleet" (Εὔπλοια τῷ στόλῳ). The lighthouses must be those of Portus and Alexandria, and the Genii must be those of the two port cities. In between the Genii is a panel with Alpha Omega and Chi Rho. This Christian inscription replaces an older inscription that was completely hacked away.

Relief with Genii holding the lighthouses of Portus and Alexandria. W. 1.12, h. 0.84.
Vatican Museums, Museo Chiaramonti - Galleria Lapidaria. Excavated in 1797 in Portus.
Amelung I.2, p. 222-223 nr. 76c. EDR120079. Photo: Vatican Museums. Vatican Museums info.