Tauroctony

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A Roman bas-relief of the tauroctony in the Louvre, 2nd or 3rd century conforming to the standard Mithraic depiction: in the upper corners are Helios with the raven, and Luna

A statue, rather than the more common fresco, of the tauroctony in the Vatican Museum. Note that Mithras is looking toward the bull instead of away, a stance rarely seen in the tauroctony.

A tauroctony is an artistic depiction of the legendary hero and ancient religious icon Mithras ritually slaying a bull. The actual act of sacrifice itself is known as taurobolium.

The highly standardized iconic depiction was developed in the school of sculptors active in Pergamum circa 200 BCE, possibly adapting the standardized representation of Alexander (Untersteiner1946, et al.) It shows Mithras stabbing a bull: from the wound grains of wheat flow, lapped by a dog and a serpent, while a scorpion attacks the bull's testicles; two smaller figures, the celestial twins of light and darkness (Cautes and Cautopates, with lit and extinguished torches) aid Mithras. Mithras kneels on the bull's shoulder, looking away behind him, not directly at his act. His open cape flows back, revealing its starry lining.

Some, notably David Ulansey, believe this symbolism is based on the precession of the equinoxes, and that the Scorpion represents the constellation Scorpio and the bull represents Taurus. However this theory is still contentious as it requires backdating the existence of Mithraism to the period 4000BC to 2000BC, whereas the earliest evidence for its existence comes from only circa 200BC.

The tauroctony, in its firmly established iconic formula, served among other well-known Hellenistic sculptures to inspire Neoclassicism. The image was adapted for a Prix de Rome sculpture of The Madness of Orestes by Raymond Bathélmy (1860); the prize-winning plaster model remains in the collection of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where it was included in the 2004 travelling exhibition "Dieux et Mortels" [link].

See also

• Taurobolium
• Mithraism
• Taurus

External links

• [Mithra References Page]
• [The Mithraic Mysteries by David Ulansey] Scientific American, December 1989 (vol. 261, #6), pp. 130-135.
• [Mithraism by Roger Beck] from the [The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies]
• Mario Untersteiner, 1946. La fisiologia del mita ("The Physiology of Myth") (Milan: Bocca). Quoted in Joseph Campbell, 1964. Occidental Mythology: the Masks of God p 257.

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