Meaning of tauroctony | Babel Free

Definitions

A depiction (typically in relief or sculpture) of Mithras killing a bull; associated with the practice of Mithraism (as a cult) in the Roman Empire.

historical

Equivalents

Examples

“In any event, if, as I am arguing, the tauroctony represents the astronomical situation which obtained during the epoch in which the spring equinox was in Taurus, the fact that the summer solstice was in Leo during that epoch provides a convincing explanation for the occasional presence of the figure of a lion in the tauroctony.”

“The central icon, ever present in Mithras temples throughout the Roman Empire, is the tauroctony, or bull-slaying.”

“Tauroctonies featuring Mithras' regular clothes but with a crown instead of a cap would belong to a further cluster. A tauroctony would then also be assigned to other clusters for its patterns of features relating to the torchbearers, to the animals, and so on.”

CEFR level