Tauroctony from Târgușor

TNMM 641 ↔ CIMRM 2306 & 2307

In 1958, the La Adam cave, located some thirty kilometres from the Black Sea coast near Târgușor in the province of Moesia Inferior, yielded a number of inscriptions and reliefs, including a set of four dedications in Greek by the same individual, Flavius Horimos, a freedman and administrator of the country estate of a certain Flavius Macedo.

In addition to several inscribed bases of poor quality, the steward, who was also Pater of Mithras, had given the god a well-crafted tauroctonic relief sculpted by a man called Phoibos, from Nicomedia in Bithynia. The dedication extends over three beautifully engraved lines, inscribed beneath the relief. Another, shorter dedication, which mentions the religious title of the dedicator, has been engraved, in a much cruder manner, in the right-hand field of the relief, between the tauroctone and Cautopates.

The various Mithraic monuments on the site are made of local limestone. In three of his dedications, Hôrimos addresses the θεòς ἀνίκητος Mithra. It is unlikely that a mithraeum was built in one of the rooms of this imposing cave, where no trace of one has been found despite numerous excavations. Instead, these various monuments from nearby sites must have been brought together at some point in the cave for safekeeping.