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Monumentum

Tauroctony relief with ant at the testicles from Rome

Tauroctony relief in the Museo Torlonia, Rome, remarkable for having a large ant grasping the testicles in place of the scorpion, with the raven on Mithras' flying cloak, the dog and serpent near the wound, and the busts of Sol and Luna in the upper corners; no torchbearers represented.

The New Mithraeum

Updated on May 2026

White marble relief (H. and Br. about 1.20). Museo Torlonia. I have not been allowed to study any of the monuments of the Torlonia-Collection. This relief, according to Zoega, dates from the days of Commodus, and may have belonged to a same Mithraeum as well as the two following Nos.Morcelli-Fea-Visconti, Villa Alb., No. 921; Winckelmann, Storia Dis., 30, 1, Pl. XVI; Müller, Mithras, fig. 16; Zoega, Bass., Pl. LVIII; Abh., 148 No. 13 and 126f; Millin, Gall. Myth., XVIII No. 82; Lajard, Pl. LXXVII, 2; MMM II 215 No. 38 and fig. 45; Eitrem in Symb.Osl., 1928, 77, fig. 5.Mithras in the…

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