TAUROPÓLIA. — A Greek festival celebrated in the Attic deme of Ale in honour of Artemis Tauropolos, the ancient goddess of the bull, whose cult came from Asia Minor.
The only information concerning it is found in Menander’s Epitrepontes, in a doubtful gloss by Hesychius, and in Euripides (Iphigen. taurica, V. 1449), who seems to suggest a similarity or relationship Brauronia (v.); from these scant elements it can only be said that the T. was associated with a vigil attended by married women and girls, the latter venerating Artemis with music and dances; and that, as an evident symbol of human sacrifice, a man had to be grazed on the neck with a sword so that blood would flow.
BIBL.: L. Deubner, Attische Feste, Berlin 1932, pp. 208–209. Cesare D'Onofrio