Taurobolium

Taurobolium, or Consecration of the Priests of Cybele under Antoninus Pius. Engraving by Bernhard Rode c.1780
Three sides of a taurobolium altar showing bucrania and a sacrificial knife, with a dedication[1] to the Great Idaean Mother of the Gods, from Lugdunum (Lyon)

In the Roman Empire of the second to fourth centuries, taurobolium[2] referred to practices involving the sacrifice of a bull, which after mid-second century became connected with the worship of the Great Mother of the Gods; though not previously limited to her cult, after AD 159 all private taurobolia inscriptions mention the Magna Mater.[3]

  1. ^ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, CIL XIII, 1751.
  2. ^ Franz Cumont derived the word from the epithet of Artemis Tauropolos (whom he identified with Persian Anahita, a connection no longer sustained); see Cumont, "Le Taurobole et le Culte de Bellone", Revue d'histoire et de littérature religieuses, 6.2, 1901.
  3. ^ Rutter 2005: Rutter recognises three phases of the taurobolium, a first phase (c. 135–59) in which the ceremony was not linked to the cult of the Great Mother, a second expansive phase (c. 159–290) west of the Adriatic and a brief third phase (c. 376–390) confined to aristocratic pagan circles.