Roman animal sacrifice

thumb|Taurobolium, or Consecration of the Priests of Cybele under Antoninus Pius. Engraving by Bernhard Rode c.1780 thumb|upright=1.5|Three sides of a taurobolium altar showing bucrania and a sacrificial knife, with a dedication to the Great Idaean Mother of the Gods, from [[Lugdunum (Lyon)]] In the Roman Empire of the second to fourth centuries, taurobolium referred to practices involving the sacrifice of a bull, which after mid-second century became connected with the worship of Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods. Though not previously limited to her cult, after AD 159 all private taurobol

The ' or ' was one of the most sacred and traditional rites of Roman religion: the sacrifice of a pig (), a sheep () and a bull () to the deity Mars to bless and purify land ().

In ancient Roman religion, the Fordicidia was a festival of fertility, held on the Ides of April (April 15), that pertained to farming and animal husbandry. It involved the sacrifice of a pregnant cow to Tellus, the ancient Roman goddess of the Earth, in proximity to the festival of Ceres (Cerealia) on April 19.

animal sacrifice to Mars carried out on October 15

Criobolium is the ritual sacrifice of a ram in the cult of Attis and the Great Mother of the Gods. It seems to have been a special ceremony instituted after the rise, and on the analogy of the taurobolium, which was performed in honor of the Great Mother, for the purpose of giving fuller recognition to Attis in the duality which he formed with the Mother. There is no evidence of its existence either in Asia or in Italy before the taurobolium came into prominence (after AD 134). When the criobolium was performed in conjunction with the taurobolium, the altar was almost invariably inscribed to b