CIMRM 831 - Torchbearer(?). White Friars, Chester, Britain

See also CIMRM 830 and CIMRM 832.

CIMRM 831 is accessioned as CHEGM: 1999.6.169 (Haverfield's 169). It was found built into a cellar wall in White Friars in 1853. The museum state: "This is currently listed as 'unlocated' on the museum database but we have recently moved our stones to a more accessible store and have not had chance to fully check and catalogue them since this move. Once we do we will be able to state whether this stone has been lost in antiquity or whether it is still in our care."¹

The correct details may be found in the Richmond-Wright catalogue (1955), entry 169 (and see plate, left):

169, pl. XL. - Block, 12 by 27 by 9in., found in 1853 built into a cellar wall in White Friars; it shows a cross-legged youth, dressed in cloak, tunic and Phrygian cap, holding in his right hand a reversed torch. This is Cautopates, one of the two attendant deities of Mithras, and his occurrence implies the existence at Chester of a mithraeum. Watkin Cheshire 191. CASJ1 i (1857) 431.

The entry in the CIMRM is correct for this item:

831. Stone relief (H. 0.65 Br. 0.265 D. 0.21). Chester, Grosvenor Museum. Together with the preceding No. Watkins, Rom. Chesh., p.191; MMM II p.391 No. 269a and fig. 307; Haverfield, Cat. Grosv. Mus., p.78 f. No. 169. Torchbearer in Eastern attire, cross-legged. With his r.h. he points the torch downwards.

Haverfield's entry (1900) reads:

169. - Figure of a boy, erect. with legs crossed, wearing a Phrygian cap and a tunic to the knees, the left hand on the chest, the right hand holding a staff downwards, carved in low-relief on a rectangular block 26 inches high by 11 inches wide by 8 1/2 inches thick. Found in 1853 built into a cellar wall in White Friars. Such figures are common on Mithraic monuments, where they represent the attendants of the god Mithras. They also occur on sepulchral monuments - not infrequently, for instance, in Germany. At Chester we may parallel them with the small figures on No. 50, figured in the Journal Vol. II., p. 131. M. Cumont, the latest and best authority on Mithraism (Mystéres de Mithra II. p. 391), considers this and the following No. 170, which is like it, to be Mithraic. But no Mithraic inscription has ever been found in Chester, nor any sculpture of the Mithraic Sacrifice, nor anything actually proving the existence here of Mithraic worship. It is safest, therefore, at present to class this stone and Nos. 170-1 as sepulchral. [W. 191.]

Cumont reproduces Haverfield's illustration.

Watkin's entry (1886):

This seems the more probable, as a somewhat similar figure, cross legged, wearing a Phrygian cap, and holding (apparently) an inverted torch, is now in the Museum. It is represented in the annexed woodcut. The stone is 2 feet 2 inches in height, 11 inches broad, and 91 inches thick, and was found in 1853 built into the wall of a cellar in White Friars (on a portion of the site of the building partially excavated in 1884 by Mr. F. Bullin), the figure being in low relief. It was presented to the Chester Archaeological Society by Mr. Edwards, Master of the Blue School.|| || Chester Archaeological Soc. Trans., vol. i, p.431.

Bibliography.

• T.Watkin, Roman Cheshire, 1886, p.191-2.