CIMRM Supplement - Tauroctony. Cincinnati, USA
4) Relief in limestone (H. 0.625, W. 0.952. Th. 0.178) said to have been found in the Via Praenestina inside or outside Rome and now in Boston, the Cincinnati Art Museum, accession no 1968: 112. Mithras in the usual dress and attitude as bullslayer. Girt tunica manicata with the sheath of a dagger; the god is looking at the wound. Dog. snake and scorpion; no raven; no torchbearers. The bull's tail does not end in ears of corn. In the upper left corner and on the rocky background there is the bust of Sol whose head is surrounded by thirteen rays. The bust of Luna is almost completely missing as well as the hindquarters of the dog. Date: Antonine period. Published by R. L. Gordon in Journal of Mithraic Studies I. 1976, 166-186 with Plate. See Pl. XXV.
In Rome, Mithras was a sun god, and in Persia, he was a god of the morning sun.
In Rome, Mithras was a sun god, and in Persia, he was a god of the morning sun. • The Roman Mithras appears in history in the late 1st C AD, and disappears by the late 4th C AD. • No ancient source preserves the mythology of the god. All of our information comes from depictions on monuments, and the limited mentions of the cult in literary sources. • The temples of Mithras were always an underground cave, featuring a relief of Mithras killing the bull.
