Decorated marble base with Mithraic scenes from Rome
TNMM 1118 ↔ CIMRM 609
Marble base "von zwei Palmen ins Gevierte, wenig mehr als einen halben Palme dick". At first in the Villa Negroni, afterwards in Museo Borgia at Velletri. This collection is spread over Musea at Naples and Rome, where I did not find it again.
Zoega, Abh., 148 No. 5b and 207ff; MMM II 222 No. 55.
The upper face and the side which touched the wall of the sanctuary are smooth; the three other sides are ornamented with bas-reliefs of mediocre style. On the middle side Sol nude in a floating chlamys on a quadriga urged by bounding horses; the head is lost. In front of the horses a small flaming altar between two men apparently dressed in Oriental fashion. Behind the chariot a naked man with a sword in his hand, and on the ground behind his feet stands a bull (torchbearer with a bull?). The other sides each present two groups.
References
- Vermaseren, Maarten Jozef (1956) Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae