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Origin and history

The Taurobolic altars of Die, in the Drôme, are ancient vestiges linked to the cult of the goddess Cybelus and his paredron Attis. These altars commemorate tauroboles, sacrifices of bulls, and crioboles, sacrifices of rams, practiced in honor of these deities. Four of these altars are exhibited at the Die Museum, while others are embedded in buildings or held by private individuals. These monuments, carved in stone blocks extracted from a quarry close to Die, illustrate the importance of this cult in the region, especially along the Rhône valley as far as Lyon.

Die, formerly Dea Augusta Vocontiorum, was the capital of the Gaulish people of the Voconca. In the 2nd or 3rd century, it became a Roman colony and a major centre of Cybel worship, gradually replacing the local worship of the goddess Andarta. The taurobolic altars, often decorated with symbols such as bulls' and rams' heads, cymbals, tympanons and caducées, bear witness to this religious transition. Their iconography also reflects the association of the cult of Cybel with that of Mercury, linked to Andarta.

Among the preserved altars, Titus Helvius Marcellinus and Valeria Decumillia (late 2nd-early 3rd century) are particularly remarkable. Found in the garden of Guyon House, he bears an inscription dedicated to the health of the emperor and mentions the priest Attius, son of Attianus. Another altar, discovered Place de la République, dates from 198-209 and was erected by the Res Publica Vocontiorum in honor of the Emperors Septime Severus, Caracalla and Geta. These monuments, classified since 1886, offer valuable insight into the religious practices and social organization of the region under the Roman Empire.

Other altars, such as that of the farm of Salières (late 2nd century) or that of Saint-Auban (now in a private collection in Ollioules), present similar sets, with sacrificial animal heads and ritual instruments. An altar dated 245, now lost, mentioned Emperors Philip the Arab and Otacilia Severus, as well as local priests like Junius Titus and Blattius Paternius. These inscriptions reveal the links between imperial power, local elites and Eastern cults in Roman Gaul.

The quarry from which the stone blocks come was identified near Die, confirming the local origin of these monuments. Their current dispersal — some embedded in walls (as in Die's court), others exposed or lost — reflects their reuse over the centuries. These altars, classified as historical monuments, constitute a major epigraphic and religious heritage to understand the integration of Eastern cults into Gallo-Roman society.

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