CIMRM 853 - Remains of Tauroctony. Housesteads, Hadrian's Wall, Britain.
Cumont quotes Hodgson:
The spot was bounded by four walls of common masonry. These walls faced the four chief points of the winds and formed a rectangular area twelve feet eight inches from north to south by ten feet from east to west, and having in the west end a recess thirty inches deep and seven feet long. The east wall to the level of the floor, which was between four and five feet below the surface, was faced on both sides, but the other three especially the west one did not appear to have ever been so on their outsides, which were rough and irregular as if they had originally been built below the level of the ground. The floor was paved with thick sandstone slates of irregular sizes and shapes. Immediately behind the altars there were indications of a passage by stone steps or stairs through the west wall. The cave itself seems to have been a low contemptible hovel, dug out of the hill side, lined with dry walls and covered with turf or straw .... [Hist. North.]
... Though there had been a long continuance of dry weather, the sides and floor of the place were oozy and wet, and upon enquiry I found that a considerable feeder of water used to rise on this spot till about the year 1809, when a drain was made to its north-east corner, where the spring burst off and from whence it has continued to run ever since under cover ... At the time this drain was made, great quantities of stones were also dug out of the foundations of very extensive walls to the east of the room containing the altars. From the information I procured on the spot, I was well satisfied that the doorway in the east wall of this room, communicated with the inside of some apartments which these extensive foundations enclosed. [Arch. Ael.]
Cumont adds that this monument must have been placed in the niche at the west on the plan.
CIMRM entry
853 Relief in limestone, the greater fragment (H. about 2.00) was found before the altars Nos 863-4; the four smaller fragments in the centre of the cult-room (1822).
Hodgson in Arch.Ael. 1822, 283 and 288ff and fig.; Hist. North., 191 Pl.LIV, 17; Bruce, Lap. Sept., 100 No. 192; MMM II No. 273b and fig. 313.
The vaulted relief has the representation of Mithras tauroctone. On the r. side the bnll's foreleg; above it Cautes with upraised torch in Eastern attire; cross-legged. He leans with his l.h. on a stick with an arch-shaped handle. In the upper corner the r. part of a crescent (Luna).
On the smaller fragments we distinguish:
1) A jumping dog.
2) Part of the bull's head.
3) Foremost part of Mithras' arm with the dagger.
4) Piece of Mithras' cloak with a round fibula.
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