Cautes (the Raised-Torch Torchbearer)

Cautes is the upward-torch member of the dadophoroi (torchbearers); with Cautopates he frames the central tauroctony, the pair generally read as the ascending and descending sun or the equinoxes.

Domains

• rising light

Powers

• to hold the torch raised toward the ascending light

Relations

• twin sibling: Cautopates (the Lowered-Torch Torchbearer)
• subordinate to: Mithras Tauroctonos (the Bull-Slayer)

Sources

• Manfred Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and his Mysteries, trans. Richard Gordon (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000).
• Roger Beck, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).