Tauroctony relief from Ladenburg

TNMM 290 ↔ CIMRM 1275

Relief in red sandstone (H. 0.86 Br. 0.79 D. 0.20), found at Mannheim before 1599. At first at Ladenburg, from 1763 at Mannheim in the Grossherz. Antiquarium, now in the Zeughaus. We are very grateful to Dr. L. W. Bühm, the Director of the Reiss Museum, for the photograph. See fig. 334.

Mithras only in a flying cloak grasps the bull by one of the horns in order to kill him. A small part of the bull’s snout is lost; above it the raven; no scorpion. A standing frontal figure dressed in shoulder cape holds the bull’s tail with his l.h. and with his r.h. he lifts a curved object (Cautes). He is not cross-legged. Behind him a boar and under his feet a row of seven altars. Underneath the main scene is a large serpent holding its head above a krater. Next to it an altar above which a standing person holds an incense-box. He has a jug in his l.h. In the r. bottom corner sits a dog, which raises its head towards Mithras.

The relief shows a singular organisation of the traditional elements of bullfighting, with some missing and others added, all in a very crude style. Mithras, dressed simply in a chlamydia, holds the bull’s right horn in his left hand and brandishes the dagger in his right, preparing to strike the bull in the stomach. The raven rests on (above?) the bull’s head. The dog is in the lower right corner, sitting outwards but turning his head to face Mithras. The snake is in the other corner, its head turned towards the mouth of a crater.

To the left of Mithras stands a naked man, wearing a cloak over his shoulders, holding a bull’s tail in his left hand and an elongated object (pedum?) in his right hand. Behind him runs another animal, possibly a lion, sculpted by a craftsman who had never seen one. Below this duo are seven small altars. Next to the dog is another figure making a libation on an altar, unless he is approaching the crater with a goblet to fill it. Sol and Luna do not appear in the upper corners, and the scorpion is missing, as are the dadophores, unless they are to be found in the two male figures accompanying Mithras.

The figure standing next to Mithras could indeed be compared to Cautes by comparing this relief with representations of the Tauroctony, where a dadophore is also seen holding the tail of the bull ending in a spike [see TNMM 164 and TNMM 176], and the figure holding a goblet in his right hand could be compared to Cautopates. F. Cumont and E. Schwertheim have put forward the unconvincing idea that it could be Hercules, whose cult was practised at Lopodunum.