Mithras pantocrator from the Villa Altieri
TNMM 475 ↔ CIMRM 334
White marble relief (H. 0.93 Br. 0.74 D. 0.28). About its exact origin we can only make suppositions. We know for sure that Rome is the provenance of the relief, which for the last few centuries has been kept in the Casino of the Villa Altieri, which is next to the mansion of the Villefranche family, Viale Manzoni 41, where it is to be found nowadays.
The monument is concave in form and the back has been worked roughly. Also the front and especially the niche-like background, against which Mithras stands out triumphantly is rough and rocky.
The god is standing on top of the felled beast, which is dying in a convulsive agony. Mithras puts his r. foot victoriously on the square bull’s head. The god is dressed in Eastern attire consisting of the Phrygian cap with two hanging ribbons, a tunica, mantle and long anaxyrides. With his upraised r.h. he grasps a dagger and in the other he holds a globe.
The bull’s attitude is towards the left; the dog and the snake turn their heads towards the bull’s chest, no scorpion at the testicles. The ears, which sometimes shoot up from the bull’s tail and blood, are used here as a frame on the margins of the relief together with two palm-trees which are placed on either side under the ears.
In the upper corners the busts of Sol and Luna. Sol is dressed in a short cape and his long hair is surrounded by a nimbus and seven rays. Luna wears a diadem in her hair; a crescent rises from behind her shoulders.
Right underneath the bust of Sol a lion appears from a den. Below the lion stands the raven looking at Mithras. Next to him a scorpion and under the bird standing Cautes, not cross-legged, with upraised torch in both hands.
Under Luna’s bust a standing crowing cock to the right; underneath it a sitting, mourning Cautopates who points his flamed torch downwards. Above his Phrygian cap an ant.
CIMRM II 334
Will, Rel. Cultuel, 142. T. Nagy in AErt 65, 1958, 111 rightly observes that the bull's tail ends in two parts (probably corn-ears).
References
Codex Coburgensis, 450, 55; Augustinus, Gemmae, PI. II; Hyde, Vet. Pers. Hist., 1, Tab. I; Dupuis, Origine, III, 42 Tab. 17, 3; Drummond, Oed. Jud., PI. XII, 1; de Montfaucon, Ant. Expl., 1 (2) Suppl. 226 and PI. 82, 1; Gruterus, Inscr., I, XXXIV No. 7; Zoega, Abh., 149 No. 20 and 160f; Lajard, Intr., PI. 74 fig. 51; Matz-v. Duhn, III, 141 No. 3755; MMM II 220f No. 54 and fig. 51; RRR III 157, 2; Forrer, MH, 115 fig. 78; Leipoldt, No. 21; Saxl, Taf. I, 6; Vermaseren in Vigiliae Christianae IV, 1950, 142ff and fig. 1; Mithrasdienst in Rome, 22f and PI. 1. See fig. 91 with kind permission of Marchesa G. de Villefranche.
- Vermaseren, Maarten Jozef (1956) Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae
