Tauroctony from Santa Maria Capua Vetere
TNMM 169 ↔ CIMRM 181
In a brown cave-vault Mithras kills the white bull, whose tail ends in three golden-yellow ears. The god is dressed in red eastern attire with a green piping decorated and yellow ornaments. The sheath at his side and the shoes are yellow. On his head with dark curly hair, the front of which is damaged, he wears a red Phrygian cap with a green piping similar to those on the other garments. The inside of the flying cloak is adorned with seven stars on an azure firmament. The raven, represented as a dove, is perched on the rocky ledge. A brown dog leaps against the bull in order to lick the blood from the wound; a big greenish snake is creeping over the ground and turns its head in the same direction; a yellow scorpion is at the genitalia.
On either side a torchbearer with a red Phrygian cap, yellow anaxyrides and red foot-wear. In the l.h. a bow; in the r.h. a torch. Not cross-legged. Cautes on the l. side has a star on his cap and he wears underneath his red cloak a yellow chiton trimmed at the bottom with meandering hem. Cautopates (r), however, is dressed in a greyish chiton with a similar green meandering hem, but moreover on his breast a green tabula-ornament.
In the corners of the cave-vault two heads with greenish hair: a bearded head with two red horns on the front (l) and a female head (r), the r. eye of which is damaged (Oceanus and Terra).
On the azure vault, the bust of Sol, with in his r. h. a gilded whip or sceptre, and around his shoulders a dark red cape. Around his reddish hair a radiate crown with seven rays, one of which darts out towards Mithras. On the other side (r) the head of Luna in a crescent and with a diadem in the brown hair.
References
Minto, l.c., 359ff and Pl. XVII; AA 1926. fig. 21; Saxl, 74; Reitzenstein in ARW 1930, 42ff and fig. 10; Campanile, l.c. fig. 2. See fig. 52.
- Vermaseren, Maarten Jozef (1956) Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae
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