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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.
2022, Kevin Stoba, “6: A network analysis of the Mithraic tauroctony”, in Anna Collar, editor, Networks and the Spread of Ideas in the Past, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), unnumbered page:
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.
Usage notes
Not to be confused with taurobolium, the ritual sacrifice of a bull, usually to Cybele.
