This article is a response to Aleš Chalupa and Tomáš Glomb's article "The Third Symbol of the Miles Grade on the Floor Mosaic of the Felicissimus Mithraeum in Ostia: A New Interpretation". Their interpretation is viewed from a theoretical perspective. Charles Sanders Peirce's theory of signs is applied not only to the historical evidence but mainly to the authors' interpretive attempt. The term "sign" is suggested as more accurate than the term "symbol". Thus, Chalupa and Glomb's interpretation of the third sign of the Miles grade, as it is displayed on the Felicissimus mosaic, might be structured according to the ascent from the iconic to the indexical, and from the indexical to the symbolic interpretive level. It is suggested that an appropriate theoretical framework might support their interpretation and surmount the weaknesses of their argumentation.
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.
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.