In their new interpretation of "The Third Symbol of the Miles Grade on the Floor Mosaic of the Felicissimus Mithraeum in Ostia," Aleš Chalupa and Tomáš Glomb present a convincing argument that this symbol represents a bovine leg. Less satisfying is their conventional historiographical method by which the significance of a target problem is assumed to become clear when located in its historical context, in this case, an assumed but never explicated "symbolic world of the Mysteries of Mithras." As an alternative, I have suggested network theory as providing an empirically based possibility for tracking relationships between Mithraic cells and, thus, between similar imagery. Nevertheless, Chalupa and Glomb are to be commended for their credible identification of the ambiguous image associated with the grade of Miles in the Felicissimus Mithraeum and for reopening, thereby, a larger discussion about explanations for the diffusion of Mithraism and of its (supposedly) analogous Mithraic images throughout the Roman Empire.
The present review is divided into two parts, the first part dealing with the interpretation of the third symbol of the Miles grade on the floor mosaic of the Felicissimus Mithraeum in Ostia, the second with its contextualization within the framework of Roman Mithraism. The interpretation of the third symbol of the Miles grade as a bull's limb offered by Aleš Chalupa and Tomáš Glomb is highly convincing. The contextualization of this new discovery within the framework of Roman Mithraism, however, poses some problems, which are briefly discussed here.
The recognition by Messrs. Chalupa and Glomb that the "military bag" in the Milesframe of the floor-mosaic of the Mitreo di Felicissimo in Ostia is in fact a butcher's cut is an important correction of detail in that it serves to focus attention upon a theme in the iconography of the Roman cult of Mithras that has been wrongly neglected in favour of supposedly more important "mystery" themes. In the light of the sacrificial scene on the altar of Flavius Aper (Poetovio), the interpretation as a bull's hind-quarter rather than shoulder is to be preferred. The scene at Ostia is perfectly in keeping with other evidence suggesting that (junior) Mithraic grades fulfilled specific manual tasks within the cult, in the case of Miles, butchery of sacrificial animals.
This article deals with the identification and interpretation of the third symbol of the Miles grade on the floor mosaic of the Felicissimus mithraeum in Ostia. In previous scholarship, this symbol has usually been identified as a soldier's sling bag or, alternatively, as a Phrygian cap. The authors of this article question these identifications and hypothesize that this object might represent a bull's pelvic limb (i.e. hind-quarter) or, less likely, thoracic limb (i.e. fore-leg). They base their argument on the expert opinion of two veterinarians and also on the fact that a bull's limb is depicted on other Mithraic monuments, notably the altar of Flavius Aper at Poetovio, unlike a soldier's bag. In the second part of the article, the authors tentatively reflect on why the author of this mosaic might have chosen this particular symbol. They suggest either the possibility that this object might have played a role in Mithraic ritual(s) modelled on some episodes from a Mithras myth, or that it refers to the scene of Transitus and thus accentuates the heroic aspect of Mithras' personality in the role of deus invictus.