Mithraic Representations on Pottery

CHAPTER THREE MITHRAIC REPRESENTATIONS ON POTTERY It is clear from the source of pottery finds bearing Mithraic represen tations, catalogued in Appendix B, that both the potters of Lezoux and of Trier were acquainted with Mithraic themes. Finds made at Lezoux, the jar with an applique relief depicting the bull-slaying scene, the stamp for the same relief, and part of the mould for a torchbearer (App. B 1-3), all recovered from the pottery work shops, indicate that the type of Mithras tauroctonos was included among the repertoire of religious themes utilised by the potters at Lezoux in the second century A.D. In the same workshops have been found numerous other reliefs depicting a host of gods and goddesses, Jupiter, Vulcan, Apollo, Diana, Minerva, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Bacchus, and Hercules; indeed, a mould of the goddess Epona was recovered at the same time as the vessel depicting the bull-slaying scene. The latter is not, however, devoted exclusively to the type of Mithras; it also carries reliefs portraying goddesses of abundance. Moreover, the position of the Mithraic torchbearers is unusual; the torchbearer on the left has his torch raised instead of lowered. 1 Although, therefore, the type of Mithras tauroctonos was known at Lezoux, there is no evidence that this vessel was produced specifically for adherents of the cult. From the dating of the pot it seems that the type was in circulation at the beginning of the third century A.D. A number of terracotta reliefs discovered at Trier, for the most part in the pottery workshops, are claimed by Loeschcke to have Mithraic 1 For the positions of the torchbearers cf. L. A. Campbell, Mithraic Iconography and Ideology, Leiden 1968, pp. 30-1; 81-3. Campbell suggests that the reversal of the normal positions is the result of strong South Iranian influence, but Prof. J. R. Harris thinks it may simply depend on conceptions of east-west/right-Ieft i.e. Cautes on the side where the sun is thought to rise. We tend to think of the world as directed towards the north (with east therefore on the right), whereas the ancient Egyptians, for exam ple, thought of the world as directed south (with east therefore on the left). MITHRAIC REPRESENTATIONS ON POTIERY 39 significance. Although this identification is uncertain in the cases of the fragments bearing the relief of a bull and lions and the plate depicting lion, bull's head and corn ears (App. B 8 & 6(b», it is clear from the discovery of fragments depicting the bull-slaying scene and a mould of the same relief (App. B 6(a) & 7) and from the dish with the representa tion of Mithras and Sol at the banquet (App. B 9) that the potters of Trier utilised various Mithraic themes. In Trier, as at Lezoux, the potters had a wide repertoire of religious themes; the clay relief of medaillon shape, depicting the bull-slaying scene, was found together with similar reliefs portraying a Mother Goddess and child and the head of Achelous. However, the present state of evidence seems to indicate that at Trier, unlike Lezoux, the potters utilised a variety of Mithraic types, and by the addition of the two torchbearers in correct position and of the busts of Sol and Luna they reproduced with greater accuracy the scene found on the great stone reliefs of the Rhineland. Moreover, they were acquain ted with the more unusual scene of Sol and Mithras at the banquet. The argument ex silentio must be treated with some caution, but it is striking that in Trier, in contrast to Lezoux, there have been found a number of stone fragments, probably related to the cult of Mithras, and also the structural remains of a Mithraeum with dedicatory altars. The potters of Trier may, therefore, have had a much more immediate contact with Mithraic cult scenes, and may even have fabricated vessels deliberately for the use of the Mithraic community in their own town. The few in dications of date offered for the terracotta fragments would suggest that their fabrication coincided with the life of the Mithraeum towards the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth century A.D. Apart from the potters' workshops of Lezoux and Trier the only other locality which has furnished a certain Mithraic representation on pottery is Alesia. A dish, decorated on the inside with a relief en barbotine, re presenting the bull-slaying scene, and a fragment of moulded relief de picting a torchbearer with torch lowered (App. B 4 & 5), were unearthed from the water channel which ran to the south of a row of colonnades on the north side of the lorum.1 Much pottery has been recovered from this area, the majority of it imported ware from Lezoux (up to the second 1 J. le Gall, Alesia, archiologie et histoire, Paris 1963, pp. 174-5; for plan of excava tions see pp. 123·5. .

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