"Encyclop�dia Britannica " 1911, under the influence of Sir James George Frazer's " The Golden Bough ", suggested " The taurobolium was probably a sacred drama symbolizing the relations of the Mother and Attis ( q . v . ).
12.
The addition of the " taurobolium " and the institution of an " archigallus " were innovations in the cult of Magna Mater made by Antoninus Pius on the occasion of his " vicennalia ", or twentieth year of reign, in 158-59 . The first dated reference to Magna Mater in a " taurobolium " inscription dates from 160.
13.
The addition of the " taurobolium " and the institution of an " archigallus " were innovations in the cult of Magna Mater made by Antoninus Pius on the occasion of his " vicennalia ", or twentieth year of reign, in 158-59 . The first dated reference to Magna Mater in a " taurobolium " inscription dates from 160.
14.
The best-known and most vivid description, though of the quite different taurobolium as it was revived in aristocratic pagan circles, is the notorious one that has coloured early scholarship, which was provided in an anti-pagan poem by the late 4th-century Christian Prudentius in " Novaesium on the Rhine in Germania Inferior, a blood pit was found in what was probably a Metroon ", Jeremy Rutter observes.
15.
The most-widely accepted reconstruction is that the Venustus " corrector Apuliae et Calabriae " and the " vicarius Hispaniarum " are two different persons; the first, Volusius Venustus, would be a member of the " Ragonii ", belonging to the generation between Lucius Ragonius Venustus consul in 240 and the Lucius Ragonius Venustus who performed a " taurobolium " in 390; the second, Venustus, might have been Nicomachus'father.
16.
The tauroctony should not be confused with a " taurobolium ", which was an actual bull-killing cult act performed by initiates of the Mysteries of Magna Mater, and has nothing to do with the Mithraic Mysteries . " There is no evidence that [ initiates of the Mithraic mysteries ] ever performed such a rite [ i . e . a real bull killing ], and " a priori " considerations suggest that a mithraeum & ndash; any mithraeum & ndash; would be a most impractical place to attempt it ."
