Marble tauroctony relief in the Froehner Collection

TNMM 852 ↔ CIMRM 2196 & 2197

White marble relief (H. 0.20 Br. 0.26 D.0.045). From the Coll. G. Froehner to the Cabinet des Médailles at Paris. In the personal description of Froehner (in the Library of the Cabinet des Médailles X, p. 4BB) no provenance is given, only "style des sculptures du Danube."

I am grateful to Dr. Jean Babelon for the right to publish this monument. See fig. 604.

Mithras in frontal attitude as a bullkiller in a grotto. The god is naked but in Phrygian cap, flying cloak and a loin-cloth. He grasps the bull by the snout, thrusting the dagger in the bull’s body and he now victoriously stretches out his r. arm (the hand is lost). The dog and the serpent stretch their heads towards the wound; the raven is perched on the grotto’s border; the scorpion is in the usual place. In the l. upper corner the bust of Sol in a crown of eight rays; in the other corner the bust of Luna in crescent. In the upper and lower borders an inscription:

CIMRM 2197

Deo Soli invic(to) Na(barze) Mith[rae] dilfapsam] laram [r]es[tituit] ....ur... [v(otum)] s(olvit) t(ibens) m(erito).

The unusual representation of Mithras is nearly identical to the stucco-group in the S. Prisca-Mithraeum at Rome. So it may originally have come from Rome. Cf. CIMRM I Mon. No. 479.