The Mithraic evidence documented in Etruria reflects the circulation of cults through urban centres, elite environments and communication networks linking the region to Rome and northern Italy. The province contributed to the broader religious landscape of central Roman Italy.
Mithraic monuments of Etruria
Mitreo di Sutri
The Mithraeum of Sutri was built inside a rocky hill that also hosted the Roman theatre of the city.
CIMRM 653
Mitreo di Vulci
The Mithraeum of Vulci is remarkable because of his high benches and the arches below them.
Mitreo di Cosa
The Mithraeum was inserted into the basement of the basilica-theater by the 3rd century.
Tauroctony on display in Boston
This fragmentary relief depicts Mithras killing the bull in the usual manner, remarkably dressed in oriental attire.
CIMRM 607
Heliodromus inscription of Cerveteri
This inscription by a certain Memmius Placidus is the first ever found signed by a Heliodromus.
Tauroctony from Pisa
This white marble relief of Mithas killing the sacred bull was found embedded in the building of a noble family in Pisa.
CIMRM 663
Petrogeny from Florence
The sculpture of the birth of Mithras in Florence included the head of Oceanus.
CIMRM 666
Mitreo di Capodimonte
The Mithraeum of Visentium, near Capodimonte in Viterbo, was carved grotto-style into a tuff cliff overlooking the waters of Lake Bolsena, just a few dozen metres away.
Sculpted head from Florentia
Head formerly associated with Mithraic material but interpreted by Margarete Bieber as a dying Giant.
CIMRM 667
Statue of Cautes dedicated by Hymnus
Marble statuette of the torchbearer Cautes bearing the votive inscription HYMNUS INBICTO, probably produced during the second or third century CE and preserved in an old European collection.
CIMRM 645
Cippus of Myron the slave, dedicated for Prunicianus, from Arezzo
A small marble cippus found in an old wall near the church of San Niccolò in Arezzo (ancient Arretium), bearing a dedication by Myron, a slave, to the Invincible Holy and Safe god for the welfare of his master Prunicianus.
CIMRM 658
Inscription of L. Avillius Rufinus from near Vicus Matrini
A brief dedicatory inscription carved in the lower corner of the tauroctony relief from near Vicus Matrini on the Via Cassia in Etruria, recording L. Avillius Rufinus as dedicant.
CIMRM 656
Brothers attested in Etruria
Places in Etruria
Arretium
Arezzo is a city and comune in Italy and the capital of the province of the same name located in Tuscany.
Caere
Caere is the Latin name given by the Romans to one of the larger cities of southern Etruria, modern Cerveteri, some 50-60 kilometres north-west of Rome.
Luna
Carrara is a town and comune in Tuscany, in northern Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there.
Pisa
Pisa is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea.
Rusellae
Rusellae was an important ancient town of Etruria, Italy, which survived until the Middle Ages before being abandoned.
Soriano Nel Cimino
Soriano nel Cimino is a town and comune in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, central Italy.
Sutrium
Sutri is an Ancient town, modern comune and former bishopric in the province of Viterbo, about 50 kilometres from Rome and about 30 kilometres south of Viterbo. The modern comune of Sutri has a few more than 5,000 inhabitants.
Torrita
Torrita di Siena is a comune in the Province of Siena in the Italian region of Tuscany, located about 80 kilometres southeast of Florence and about 40 km southeast of Siena.
Vicus Matrini
San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore is a mountain hill town in the province of Pescara, part of the Abruzzo region in central Italy.
