Julius Caesar and Mithraism

[Laura]

Perseus of Tarsus and the Lion Headed God​

Plutarch says that the origin of Mithraism was Cilician pirates encountered by the Roman general Pompey in 67 BC. These pirates:

…offered strange rites of their own at Olympus, and celebrated there certain secret rites, among which those of Mithras continue to the present time, having been first instituted by them.

However, the archaeology says something just a little different: that the most important cult in Cilicia at that time was devotion to none other than Perseus. Continuing to pull on the thread, Ulansey cites the evidence from antiquity that the city of Tarsus was said to have been founded by Perseus and was named after his “swift tarsos” or foot. Coins from the city show Perseus often in association with Apollo Lykeios. This Apollo is a particular artistic representation of the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right forearm resting on his head as if having just completed a long and difficult task.

Just as Perseus is associated with Apollo, so is Mithras closely associated with the Sun and in Mithraism, the sun is active, playing a part in the tauroctony, the sacred feast, and the ascent to heaven. Another important symbol from the coins of that locale is that of a lion attacking a bull with Perseus standing in the foreground holding his curved knife. As some scholars have suggested, it is the lion-bull combat which eventually morphed into the tauroctony scene, perhaps passing through other stages such as Perseus and the Gorgon, before becoming Perseus disguised as Mithras replacing the lion slaying the bull, all of which we recognize as typical comet disintegration scenarios told and retold and embellished through time. These have nothing to do with the constellation, Leo, which would explain why lions are not normally included in the tauroctony proper. But since lions do, very much, have to do with comets, that explains their association with Mithraism. Also, as it happens, the lion-headed god is has been found in in a cave in the Hohlenstein mountain of the Swabian alps, Germany dating as far back as 30,000 BC. After this artifact was identified, a similar, but smaller, lion-headed sculpture was found, along with other animal figures and several flutes, in another cave in the same region of Germany. This leads to the possibility that the lion-figure played an important role in the mythology of humans of the early Upper Paleolithic.[1]


Certainly, it would be a huge leap of assumption to connect this ancient lion-headed figure found in Germany to the lion-headed god of Mithraism, but Bailey, Clube and Napier have mathematically extrapolated the arrival of the Giant Comet to the inner solar system in paleolithic times, so it would simply show that different cultures at different times depicted comets in similar ways. Take Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of the Egyptians, for example; not to mention the war crown of the Egyptian Pharaoh which produces the effect of a flaring mane about his head, surmounted on the forehead by a cobra, snakes and dragons also being traditionally associated with comets. There is also the Ishtar gate in Babylon that was decorated with a lion, the symbol of the goddess.

---

[1] aurignacien.de

Porphyry wrote that the mithraeum functioned as the place of initiation into a mystery of the “descent and exit of souls” and that it was designed and equipped for this purpose as a “likeness of the universe. The things which the cave contained, by their proportionate arrangement, provided [the] symbols of the elements and climates of the cosmos.[1]

---

[1] De antro nympharum 6, trans. Arethusa edition. Cited by Roger Beck (2000) Ritual, Mythi, Doctrine, and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New Evidence from a Cult Vessel in The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 90, pp. 145-180.
____________________________

The Great Supper of God​

If we consider the emergence of the many rites of sacrifice that appeared around the globe in association with catastrophic encounters with comets and their debris, we can understand that it was probably thought by the many peoples that suffered these encounters that the gods were either angry or hungry and thus, to attempt to prevent random destruction, would instead offer sacrifices to appease or “feed” the god. If sins had been committed bringing on the destruction, someone had to “pay” via sacrifice. Often, it was the king or leader himself who was seen as having sinned in some way leading to withdrawal of the gods’ favor or implementation of smiting, and he was then obliged to submit himself to being sacrificed or someone became a substitute for him, innocent children being among the favored candidates.

There were often massive sacrificial ceremonies that took place all over the world in response to threats by comets and related astronomical and environmental phenomena: the gods “ate” the lives of the sacrificial victims. And thus, I think, the emulation of the Feast of the gods became a symbolic way of assimilating oneself to the god, acquiring his powers, or at the very least associating oneself with him/her/it as a “son” or “daughter.” One is reminded of the striking words of Jesus: “Take, eat, this is my body broken for thee” and “Take, drink, this is my blood shed for thee”. This, of course, takes us dangerously close to human sacrifice and cannibalism. As we’ve already seen, cannibalism was often associated with post-cataclysmic recovery but I don’t think that’s what is indicated here. Rather, it reminds me of “The Great Supper of God” in the New Testament book, Revelation, which is loaded with cometary imagery:

Then [the angel] said to me, Write this down: Blessed are those who are summoned to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me [further], These are the true words (the genuine and exact declarations) of God. ….

After that I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse [appeared]! The One Who was riding it is called Faithful and True, and He passes judgment and wages war in righteousness. His eyes [blaze] like a flame of fire, and on His head are many kingly crowns; and He has a title inscribed which He alone knows or can understand. He is dressed in a robe dyed by dipping in blood, and the title by which He is called is The Word of God. And the troops of heaven, clothed in fine linen, dazzling and clean, followed Him on white horses. From His mouth goes forth a sharp sword with which He can smite (afflict, strike) the nations; and He will shepherd and control them with a staff (scepter, rod) of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath and indignation of God the All-Ruler. And on His garment (robe) and on His thigh He has a name (title) inscribed, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Then I saw a single angel stationed in the sun's light, and with a mighty voice he shouted to all the birds that fly across the sky, Come, gather yourselves together for the great supper of God. That you may feast on the flesh of rulers, the flesh of generals and captains, the flesh of powerful and mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all humanity, both free and slave, both small and great!

Then I saw the beast and the rulers and leaders of the earth with their troops mustered to go into battle and make war against Him Who is mounted on the horse and against His troops. And the beast was seized and overpowered, and with him the false prophet who in his presence had worked wonders and performed miracles by which he led astray those who had accepted or permitted to be placed upon them the stamp (mark) of the beast and those who paid homage and gave divine honors to his statue. Both of them were hurled alive into the fiery lake that burns and blazes with brimstone.

And the rest were killed with the sword that issues from the mouth of Him Who is mounted on the horse, and all the birds fed ravenously and glutted themselves with their flesh. [1]

Nice imagery, eh? Gives an all-new meaning to “The Last Supper”, yes? Reminds me of that great scene in Tennessee William’s play, Suddenly, Last Summer, where Violet Venable recounts how her son, Sebastian, was watching hatching sea-turtles being devoured by birds of prey and claimed, when the feeding frenzy was over that at last, he had seen God. Maybe he was more right than most of us suspect.

If there had been more than one comet in the skies at some point in the past (which is likely according to the science) and there was possibly an encounter, or simply that one of them broke into many pieces and rained chunks and ferruginous material on the earth, red comet dust mixed with rain, it would indeed seem that the god had sacrificed himself – or had been killed or sacrificed in an encounter with another comet-god who had assumed the role of protector as we have seen in the myths. The saving cometary body, would then depart, the sun would return to the dust shrouded earth, and it would be thought that the gods had “feasted” – perhaps on the disintegrated comet body as much as on the deaths of human beings - and been satisfied. Thus, the feast symbolized the departure of the danger and the return to life.

Christianity, on the other hand, brought the event down to earth, historicized it and made human beings responsible for the death of the god-man whose sacrifice (I’ll let you kill me for your sake!) saved them from “sins” which would ultimately allow them to “go to heaven”. This is an example of the “astralizing” effect of the Greek philosophers trying to figure out what certain stories and myths about gods in the skies could have meant in times when the sources of those stories had disappeared from the skies. Christianity, too, arose out of cataclysms: the collapse of the Roman Empire and the subsequent dark age, and its terms were designed to deflect blame away from the ruling hierarchies by granting the promise of a future life in paradise as long as people could endure whatever troubles assailed them on earth with patience and fortitude – including comets, earthquakes, famine, plague, and the rest of the cocktail of god’s wrath they were intended to imbibe and be thankful for being allowed to do so. But that was to come later.

Looking at the “ symbols of the elements and climates of the cosmos” mentioned by Porphyry, we are reminded that the “climate” of the cosmos is how the ancients thought about comets; after all, Aristotle’s Meteorologica was mainly about explaining away the “cosmic weather.”

Water From Rocks and the Word of God​

Classicist, Roger Beck, mentioned above, wrote an interesting article on a cup found in a Mainz mithraeum which he speculated represented initiatory activities in its decorations. The vessel is dated to the first quarter of the 2nd century[2] and is among the earliest pieces of evidence for the Mithras cult on the Rhine Frontier. He argued that each of the two scenes represent the performance of a ritual. What caught my attention was that one of the scenes is supposedly an initiation where the person in the rank of the Father, wearing the Phrygian cap, is in the act of drawing a bow and aiming the arrow straight at the naked figure in front of him, the person being initiated. A third figure is present making a hand gesture with thumb and two fingers (index and middle) extended and the other two fingers folded over the palm. Beck proposes that the activity is designed to convey information on more than one level. In the first place, it is a reenactment of a cult myth that is found in many side scenes in mithraea, something called the “water miracle” where Mithras shoots an arrow at a rock to draw water from it. On another level, it is designed to induce in the initiate a certain state or, at least, represent his passage from one state to another by means of having received certain teachings. The third level was that the performance of the ritual would act as a form of sympathetic magic and change the conditions of the present environment as the conditions of the environment had been changed in the past by the actions of the god.

…the mythic event of the water miracle is replicated in ritual, as a rite of initiation, by the feigned archery of the Father, just as the banquet of Mithras and Sol is replicated by the banquet of the initiates presided over by the Father and the Sun-Runner. … why should the water miracle be chosen as the archetype for an initiation ritual: With the banquet the question scarcely arises; that the celebration of man should replicate the celebration of gods is self-evidently appropriate. The relevance of Mithras’ archery to initiation, however, is not so obvious. …

Scholars, however, are unanimous in the following reading: Mithras shoots at a rock and elicits water from it; the other figures in the scene (sometimes one, sometimes two) serve either to petition Mithras or to receive gratefully (sometimes in cupped hands) the gushing water. The archery is thus interpreted as a victory over drought, an action once performed by the god in mythic time to relieve world-wide aridity and thus performable again in actual time at the behest of his devotees.

…a ritual of initiation that replicates the water miracle is admission into that more abundant life symbolized by the waters elicited by Mithras the bowman. …archery thus becomes a mode of baptism.[3]

That no questions are raised about the banquet is surprising considering the extract from Revelation, above, and what a gods’ banquet might actually be. As for the interesting hand gesture, it has been studied extensively by various scholars and apparently indicates “the presentation of reason through language,” i.e. that something is being spoken during the initiation that carries some weight or that teachings have been given that have led to this initiatory moment. But, what strikes me the most about this event attributed to Mithras is that, once again, we have a correspondence to Moses in the desert striking the rock for water during the protracted, 40 year, Exodus. There were actually two water miracles of Moses: in the first case,[4] he was instructed to strike the rock with his staff; he did and water flowed. In the second instance, 40 years later, he was told to just speak to the rock.[5] But he didn’t, he struck it instead and nothing happened. Then he hit the rock a second time, and finally the water came. It is said that it was for this lack of following instructions exactly, or lack of faith, that Moses was denied entry to the Promised Land which seems pretty harsh to me. Naturally, there’s a whole lot of mental gymnastics that gets performed explaining that nonsense, but what is important is that we are seeing here, instances where striking a rock (or initiate) for water and speaking to a rock (or initiate) are related to each other in a peculiar way. It is as though there is a dual emphasis on action and word that can be done and spoken to re-invigorate or replicate the miracle of getting water from a rock or achieving abundant life; the right ritual, the correct behavior, can align one with the powers of the god. Perhaps the ritual was as simple as reciting the story of the event while it was being re-enacted, or saying the correct words that were alleged to have been spoken by the god at the time; it could have been as complex as a long period of instruction and efforts to achieve self-knowledge before initiation was performed.

Well, that’s the astral religion angle. What about the cometary angle? Could the arrow represent a thunderbolt, as in an electrical discharge that split a rock and water burst forth? A thunderbolt is accompanied by a tremendous crashing sound, i.e. “the voice of god”, so perhaps the comet Moses had lost his vigor after 40 years?

There is another series of interesting connections to this idea of stones releasing water though it is combined with stones that also stop water, and stones with symbols of gods graven on them thus giving them power, possibly the power of “the word”. So, let us make a somewhat deeper digression that will bring a number of elements to light.

Ulansey conjectures that the influence of Aratus in Tarsus may have led to the emphasis on astrology within the Stoic movement. It could very well be that it was from Eudoxus’ 3000 year old astronomical knowledge, combined with the works of Pherecydes and Pythagorus, that the tauroctony of the Mithraic Mysteries derived. But there is more to it than that: in case you didn’t notice, the figures in the tauroctony are reversed from the way they actually appear in the sky. Ulansey proposes:

…on ancient (and modern) star-globes (like the famous ancient “Atlas Farnese” globe) Taurus is always depicted facing to the right exactly like the bull in the tauroctony. This shows that the Mithraic bull is meant to represent the constellation Taurus as seen from outside the cosmos, i.e. from the “hypercosmic” perspective…[6]

Yet we know, for a certainty, that the particular time is important, as I said, from my own arrival at that date via a different path, as well as Ulansey’s interpretation of the equinoxes being delimited via the figures Cautes and Cautopates.

---

[1] Rev 19:9 – 21, Amplified, Zondervan.
[2] Wetterau ware.
[3] Beck (2000), p 151 – 153, excerpts.
[4] Exodus 17:6
[5] Numbers 19:1-22:1 - 20:8
[6] David Ulansey (19914) Mithras and the Hypercosmic Sun, in Studies in Mithraism, John R. Hinnels, ed., Rome.
___________________________________

Hipparchus is central to Ulansey’s theory that precession of the equinoxes was the great secret of the Mystery cult. There is no known connection between Hipparchus and the Stoics except for the fact that he lived at Rhodes and so did Panaetius and Posidonius.

Perhaps the “weighty words” being indicated in the ritual enactment on the Mainz vessel, as well as the word that Moses should have spoken to the rock to produce water, was the “name of the god”? That does seem to be what is indicated by the “Seal of Solomon”, i.e. the Mâgên Dâwîd, being inscribed on the stone that was throne into the well by David.

What was this cult talking about or doing that made it spread and persist the way it did? Why did the emperors of the Roman empire, in 308 AD set up an altar, offer a sacrifice, and repair a mithraeum in Carnuntum in the midst of a crisis when the empire was actually threatened by civil war? And did their participation in the cult of Mithras have anything to do with their actions as emperors? If so, what did that cult teach them? What did they know?

We’ve already learned that Plutarch traced the origin of the Cult of Mithras to Cilician pirates, and Ulansey has revealed that the city of Tarsus there was devoted to Perseus and that there are coins and other artifacts to confirm the relationship. He bases his argument on the fact that there are three kinds of evidence: 1) astronomical consisting in the fact that Perseus occupies a position in the sky analogous to the position of Mithras vis a vis the bull he is slaying. 2) the striking iconographical and mythological parallels between the two figures; 3) the historical and geographical evidence linking the origins of the cult to Cilicia, the site of the Perseus cult.

Okay, I buy it to some extent. What troubles me is the lack of evidence that the Mysteries of Mithras were significant in the Eastern areas surrounding the proposed birthplace. As we have already noted, the concentration of archaeological finds are focused mainly on Germany, Pannonia and Italy. We have also noted in passing, the presence of a lion-headed god figure in Germany back in Paleolithic times, though we can’t propose a connection over that vast a period of time. The similarities between the Babylonian gods, the Phoenician gods, the Jewish-Muslim god-models for David, Solomon and Moses, and Perseus-Mithras are striking.

Ulansey continues his interpretation rather promisingly by saying “since it was astronomical considerations which led us to connect Mithras and Perseus in the first place, it stands to reason that the origins and meaning of that connection must be sought in the context of Mithraic astronomical symbolism.”[1] He then begins to build his argument on the ideas of Beck and Insler, that the constellations represented in the tauroctony are those along the ecliptic at the time of the setting of Taurus in the Spring, that is a sky map that represents how the sky looked at a particular time which the Mithraists wished to commemorate. However, it was apparent that the constellations don’t exactly match up with the zodiac which lie along the ecliptic.

The next idea presented by Ulansey is that of Michael Speidel who argued that the constellations depicted are the ones along the celestial equator rather than the ecliptic. That actually worked. The problem there is that, during Graeco-Roman times, Aries and Libra marked the equinoxes – the points where the celestial equator and the ecliptic cross in spring and autumn - and were thus the two most important equatorial constellations; yet they are not indicated at all, in any way, in the tauroctony. Nevertheless, Ulansey’s realized that the particular constellations would fit exactly if you move the clock back to the time when the equinoxes were in Taurus and Scorpio. Here is a small version of Ulansey’s star map showing the result of doing just that.

---

[1] Ulansey, op. cit., p. 45.
_____________________



The celestial equator (line curving down) with the Spring Equinox in Taurus.


As you see, Perseus, in the upper right, is just above the celestial equator at this moment. Looking at this image for a bit, and playing with the Starry Night program to get the one on my screen to match it revealed that this map shows the spring sky just before dawn about 3000BC at a latitude of about 43° N. That date got my attention because in my book, Secret History, I had proposed a similar date for an event involving the constellation, Taurus, though I had arrived at it from a very different angle following very different clues. The convergence of the result of these two paths was quite startling. Before I compare the two, let’s just continue with Ulansey’s argument.

Ulansey was able to figure out the clues because he knew about the precession of the zodiac so he wondered if the tauroctony scene really did exhibit knowledge of the precession? As he demonstrates, the celestial equator, rather than the ecliptic reveals exactly the series of figures contained within the tauroctony with Taurus at the setting end and Scorpius rising in the east, and the two of them framing Canis Minor, Hydra, Crater, and Corvus: the dog, the serpent, the cup and the raven. So, our intrepid researcher followed the clue of the celestial equator.

Ulansey brings our attention to the fact that the symbol of the cross may actually come from the image of the celestial equator crossing the ecliptic twice a year. In Plato’s Timaeus, we are told how the creator of the universe constructed it out of two circles that were joined “in the form of the letter X”. An example of that is revealed in an early Mithraic monument which shows the Lion-headed god standing on a globe crossed by an X.



However, crosses were revered long before Plato and it was only about 600 AD that the Catholic Church adopted it as the symbol of Christianity; before that, there was the fish. Nevertheless, knowing that there was a “crossing point” where the track of the sun crossed a certain boundary could have been known to the ancients and important, at the very least, as a marker of seasons. But precession of the equinoxes is something else altogether, it is the knowledge of a slow movement of the equinoctial points backward through the zodiac over very, very, long periods of time, like 26,000 years! It is theorized to be due to the earth itself performing a long, slow “wobble” where the north pole of our planet “bows” in a slow, graceful motion like the axis of a spinning top (Newton’s explanation). Of course, when you are observing a spinning top and this slow wobble, you notice that, as the speed of the spinning slows down, the wobble becomes more pronounced until the bowing causes the top to just falls over. Planets don’t do that because they are spinning for reasons other than someone winding them up but it is thought that the same principle applies. I’m not too sure about that myself because I have read more elegant and reasonable explanations for precession such as the proposition that it is due to the entire solar system’s curvilinear motion through space along with the galaxy of which it is a member.[1] But whatever the cause, did whoever create the iconography of the Mithraic mysteries know about precession?

---

[1] W. E. Glanville, (1918) A Possible Relation between Equinoctial Precession and the Sun’s Motion in Space; Comet and Asteroid Notes, Maria Mitchell Observatory, NASA Astrophysics Data System.
_____________________________

Obviously the ancient peoples were aware of the equinoxes themselves simply by watching the sunrise and sunset every day. The great megalithic astronomical observatories, such as Stonehenge, give evidence of this fact. It’s one thing to notice that the sun and zodiac move up and down in relation to the earth and its supposedly fixed position in relation to the fixed stars, and to make note of that point in each year when the sun is at the mid-points, crossing in the spring and autumn, the high point in summer, and the low point in winter. It is quite another to know that this process includes a slow backward movement of that point where the ecliptic and celestial equator meet.

Obviously the ancient peoples were aware of the equinoxes themselves simply by watching the sunrise and sunset every day. The great megalithic astronomical observatories, such as Stonehenge, give evidence of this fact. It’s one thing to notice that the sun and zodiac move up and down in relation to the earth and its supposedly fixed position in relation to the fixed stars, and to make note of that point in each year when the sun is at the mid-points, crossing in the spring and autumn, the high point in summer, and the low point in winter. It is quite another to know that this process includes a slow backward movement of that point where the ecliptic and celestial equator meet. But it is certain, from Ulansey’s analysis, that the tauroctony did, indeed, represent a view of the sky when the equinoxes were in Taurus and Scorpio.



Putting the torchbearers as equinoxes together with the creatures depicted in the scene, confirms Ulansey’s idea that the tauroctony is an image of constellations along the celestial equator at a particular moment in time. He must have also realized that the only period in time when this could have been the image of the night sky just before dawn was over 5000 years ago!

Ulansey’s collecting and connecting of the clues is a brilliant piece of detective work. Figuring out that Mithras is identical to Perseus, locating the cult of Perseus in Tarsus right where the Cilician pirates were based, figuring out the role of the torchbearers as symbols of the equinoxes, and putting that together with the work of previous researchers regarding the sky map is marvelous. He next seeks out the clues regarding who knew about precession, and when, and comes across the interesting fact that the discoverer was associated with the Stoic philosophical school, and that Tarsus, where the Perseus cult was thriving, was a veritable hothouse of Stoics. More than that, the whole scenario of connections just happens to coincide with the time period that Plutarch assigns to the emergence of the Mithras-worshipping pirates. That, of course, is what led him to his idea: that the important thing being conveyed in the tauroctony was the fact that the equinoxes precess, that this was the “great secret”, a new and worshipful cosmic force: the Dreaded Precession! He argues that:

…the god Mithras originated as the personification of the force responsible for the newly discovered cosmic phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes. Since from the geocentric perspective the precession appears to be a movement of the entire cosmic sphere, the force responsible for it most likely would have been understood as being “hypercosmic,” beyond or outside of the cosmos…. Mithras, as a result of his being imagined as a hypercosmic entity, became identified with the Platonic “hypercosmic sun,” thus opening up the way for the puzzling existence of two “suns” in Mithraic ideology.[1]

There are, however, a few problems with this theory not the least of which is the fact that I came to the conclusion that the date in question was very important to the ancients by a singularly different route and chain of clues and discussed it in my book, Secret History. My theory of what the date signified wasn’t much more interesting than Ulansey’s because I didn’t then have the knowledge of cometary disasters as theorized by the numerous scientists whose work I have cited in the previous volume at that time. Indeed, I related the date in question to cataclysmic events involving clusters of comets in a certain sense, but without the refinements that are now possible with the added science on the table.

---

[1] David Ulansey (1994) Mithras and the Hypercosmic Sun; Studies in Mithraism, John R. Hinnels, ed. L’Erma di Brettshneider, Rome, pp. 257-64.

Regarding Ulansey’s conclusion to his wonderful exposition of the evidence, all I can say is that he is a true Platonic “astralizer”.

First of all, just because a scene depicts a specific moment in time over 5000 years ago, does not mean it is a projection backward by someone who figured out precession of the equinoxes. But if it were merely a re-working of more ancient material, where are the antecedents that would suggest the things that have been included in the scene? They could have existed at the time, of course, since so much has been lost. What is most interesting about the tauroctony is how it incorporates elements from a wide variety of what appear to have been Mesopotamian myths. It’s like a hybrid determined to not be misunderstood and I suspect that there was a very serious reason for this because, certainly, there was no need to create a mystery religion around precession. The knowledge about precession was not being hidden and there is no reason that it could not be openly discussed in the various philosophical schools that existed at the time. What is more, the idea that it is focused on a “hypercosmic sun” is way too Platonic and not enough Stoical to pass muster.

But still, there is the fact that whoever came up with this hybrid mystery cult most certainly did intend for the information about the equinoxes to carry weight and, more than anything else, that suggests that it was recording an event of extreme importance, a date. Because, in point of fact, that was what the Babylonians used “astrology” for in the beginning: as a means of recording time. So, my suggestion is that someone had access to certain information gained from studying ancient texts. That information was supplemented by the discovery that the equinox precesses. Perhaps understanding of precession enabled that person to figure out something very important from those texts, including a date. Were they then able, utilizing their knowledge of astronomy, able to re-create the night sky in images by precessing the sky map? Another question that this raises is: did the person who figured out the code from more ancient sources also figure out that such an event was in the future and was the tauroctony not just a record of the past, but a warning for the future? That sort of thing would truly be worthy of creating a new mystery religion. But that is just speculation.

So the question for us here is this: if the tauroctony of the Mithraic Mysteries was a record of a cataclysmic event – the very event that I dated in Secret History via a different pathway - did the person or persons who either created or modified and propagated this cult know about the event in any detail? Did they also, in the process of accessing the records and knowledge from which they constructed their hybrid cult, also discover a method of prediction, and formulate a theory about amelioration? And finally, was this information known to the Roman Emperors, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius Chlorus and possibly Galerius and Constantine?

 

[Laura]

Here, I want to include the excerpt from Secret History that discusses the same time period depicted in the Tauroctony.

______________________________

Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC, gives us a description of Britain based, in part, on the voyage of Pytheas of Massilia, who sailed around Britain in 300 BC.

As for the inhabitants, they are simple and far removed from the shrewdness and vice which characterize our day. Their way of living is modest, since they are well clear of the luxury that is begotten of wealth. The island is also thickly populated and its climate is extremely cold, as one would expect, since it actually lies under the Great Bear. It is held by many kings and potentates, who for the most part live at peace among themselves.[1]

Diodorus then tells a fascinating story about the Hyperboreans that is extracted from the work of Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 BC – c. 476 BC) and which was obviously of legendary character already when he was writing:

Of those who have written about the ancient myths, Hecateus and certain others say that in the regions beyond the land of the Celts (Gaul) there lies in the ocean an island no smaller than Sicily. This island, the account continues, is situated in the north, and is inhabited by the Hyperboreans, who are called by that name because their home is beyond the point whence the north wind blows; and the land is both fertile and productive of every crop, and since it has an unusually temperate climate it produces two harvests each year.

Now, it seems that Diodorus is describing the same location, but we notice that the climate is so vastly different in the two descriptions that we can hardly make the connection. However, let us just suppose that his description of Britain was based on the climate that prevailed at the time he was writing, and the legendary description of the Hyperboreans was based on a previous climatic condition that was preserved in the story. Diodorus stresses that he is recounting something very ancient as he goes on to say:

The Hyperboreans also have a language, we are informed, which is peculiar to them, and are most friendly disposed towards the Greeks, and especially towards the Athenians and the Delians, who have inherited this goodwill from most ancient times. The myth also relates that certain Greeks visited the Hyperboreans and left behind them costly votive offerings bearing inscriptions in Greek letters. And in the same way Abaris, a Hyperborean, came to Greece in ancient times and renewed the goodwill and kinship of his people to the Delians.

Diodorus’ remark about the relations between the Hyperboreans and the Athenians is most peculiar. Herodotus expounds upon the relationship of the Hyperboreans to the Delians:

Certain sacred offerings wrapped up in wheat straw come from the Hyperboreans into Scythia, whence they are taken over by the neighbouring peoples in succession until they get as far west as the Adriatic: from there they are sent south, and the first Greeks to receive them are the Dodonaeans. Then, continuing southward, they reach the Malian gulf, cross to Euboea, and are passed on from town to town as far as Carystus. Then they skip Andros, the Carystians take them to Tenos, and the Tenians to Delos. That is how these things are said to reach Delos at the present time. [2]

The legendary connection between the Hyperboreans and the Delians leads us to another interesting remark of Herodotus who tells us that Leto, the mother of Apollo, was born on the island of the Hyperboreans. That there was regular contact between the Greeks and the Hyperboreans over many centuries is the claim here, but for modern historians, it is highly questionable. Herodotus has another interesting thing to say about the Hyperboreans and their sending of sacred offerings to Delos:

On the first occasion they were sent in charge of two girls, whose names the Delians say were Hyperoche and Laodice. To protect the girls on the journey, the Hyperboreans sent five men to accompany them … the two Hyperborean girls died in Delos, and the boys and girls of the island still cut their hair as a sign of mourning for them… There is also a Delphic story that before the time of Hyperoche and Laodice, two other Hyperborean girls, Arge and Opis, came to Delos by the same route. …Arge and Opis came to the island at the same time as Apollo and Artemis… [3]

Herodotus mentions at another point, when discussing the lands of the “barbarians,” “All these except the Hyperboreans, were continually encroaching upon one another’s territory.” Without putting words in Herodotus’ mouth, it seems to suggest that the Hyperboreans were not warlike at all.

A further clue about the religion of the Hyperboreans comes from the myths of Orpheus. It is said that when Dionysus invaded Thrace, Orpheus did not see fit to honor him but instead preached the evils of sacrificial murder to the men of Thrace. He taught “other sacred mysteries” having to do with Apollo, whom he believed to be the greatest of all gods. Dionysus became so enraged; he set the Maenads on Orpheus at Apollo’s temple where Orpheus was a priest. They burst in, murdered their husbands who were assembled to hear Orpheus speak, tore Orpheus limb from limb, and threw his head into the river Hebrus where it floated downstream still singing. It was carried on the sea to the island of Lesbos. Another version of the story is that Zeus killed Orpheus with a thunderbolt for divulging divine secrets. He was responsible for instituting the Mysteries of Apollo in Thrace, Hecate in Aegina, and Subterrene Demeter at Sparta. And this brings us to a further revelation of Diodorus regarding the Hyperboreans:

And there is also on the island both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple, which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape. Furthermore, a city is there which is sacred to this god, and the majority of its inhabitants are players on the cithara; and these continually play on this instrument in the temple and sing hymns of praise to the god, glorifying his deeds… They say also that the moon, as viewed from this island, appears to be but a little distance from the earth and to have upon it prominences, like those of the earth, which are visible to the eye. The account is also given that the god visits the island every nineteen years, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished, and for this reason the Greeks call the nineteen-year period the “year of Meton”. At the time of this appearance of the god he both plays on the cithara and dances continuously the night through from the vernal equinox until the rising of the Pleiades, expressing in this manner his delight in his successes. And the kings of this city and the supervisors of the sacred precinct are called Boreades, since they are descendants of Boreas, and the succession to these positions is always kept in their family.

I would like to note immediately how similar the above story of the Maenads murdering their husbands is to the story of the daughters of Danaus murdering their husbands on the wedding night connected to the story of the massacre at the Cloisters of Ambrius attributed much later to Hengist and Horsa. Keeping in mind that the Danaans were the family of the hero Perseus who cut off the head of Medusa, while comparing this to the beheading of Orpheus and his “singing” head floating down the river. The two themes, wives murdering husbands and a significant beheading are startling enough to give us pause. Was an original legend then later adapted to a different usage, assimilated to a different group or tribe? More than once?

In any event, we have discovered a most interesting little collection of things all in one place. First a “round temple” on an island that can only be Britain, may be describing Stonehenge (or its precursor) and the way in which it was utilized by a group of people (playing harps and singing). Next we see that Diodorus is suggesting that the 19-year lunar calendar is a product of the Hyperboreans and that it relates to a period in which the “return of the stars” is accomplished. Could it be that the “return of the stars” was actually the “return of the comets”?

There is an additional puzzle here. What did it mean that every nineteen years a god “dances” from the vernal equinox until the rising of the Pleiades? This suggests to us a very specific date is being recorded in this myth. The heliacal rising of the Pleiades does not happen every 19 years. So, aside from telling us about a regular event that occurred every nineteen years, the myth has recorded something else very significant, the date of which is internal to the myth. When did the Pleiades rise just before the sun on the vernal equinox?

There are many who assume that a “heliacal rising” means that a star or constellation is in conjunction with the sun. But this is probably not correct. The ancients were practicing observational astronomy. Otto Neugebauer, in his many studies regarding what the ancients did or did not know about science and mathematics, noted the following:

When we watch the stars rise over the eastern horizon, we see them appear night after night at the same spot on the horizon. But when we extend our observation into the period of twilight, fewer and fewer stars will be recognizable when they cross the horizon, and near sunrise all stars will have faded out altogether. Let us suppose that a certain star S was seen just rising at the beginning of dawn but vanished from sight within a very short time because of the rapid approach of daylight. We call this phenomenon the “heliacal rising” of S, using a term of Greek astronomy. Let us assume that we use this phenomenon as the indication of the end of “night” and consider S as the star of the “last hour of night.” […] We may continue in the same way for several days, but during this time a definite change takes place. […] Obviously, after some lapse of time, it no longer makes sense to take S as the indicator of the last hour of night. But there are new stars that can take the place of S. Thus year after year S may serve for some days as the star of the last hour, to be replaced in regular order by other stars. [4]

In order to observe a heliacal rising of a star or group of stars, they must rise long enough before the sun to be “observed,” because as soon as the sun rises, the stars can no longer be seen. The heliacal rising of the Pleiades would have to occur at least 36 minutes before the sun comes up, in order to be seen. So, the real question seems to be: when did the Pleiades rise around half an hour before the sun, at the time of the equinox? When were the Pleiades the stars of the “last hour of the night”, and what might have been the significance of this event?

Certain “standard” texts, written by individuals who have not taken into account the observational nature of a heliacal rising, have given 2300 BC as the date, because this was when the Pleiades were conjunct the Sun on the Vernal equinox. However, after careful calculations of my own, it appears that the date of the actual heliacal rising of the Pleiades, in the terms that Neugebauer has given us, occurred on April 16, 3100 BC.

There is an even greater mystery here regarding the Pleiades. In the cave of Lascaux, there is a prehistoric image of an Auroch, which is the largest picture in the whole assembly of images, and is painted almost entirely on the ceiling of the cave. Above the back of the Auroch, a strange figure of a cluster of six floating points can be seen. The distribution of the dots does not seem to be haphazard, but rather shows a clear structural element. It looks, in fact, like an exact portrayal of the constellation Taurus with the star cluster of the Pleiades placed precisely as they actually relate to the constellation. The Navajo in America have also portrayed the Pleiades in exactly this same six-star arrangement in modern times, as handed down to them by their ancestors.[5]

The constellation Taurus was originally a complete image of a bull in the sky. The Babylonians called it the heavenly bull, and the Pleiades were recognized as the “bristle on the neck of the bull.” At some point, the bull was cut in half to create Aries and Cetus, the whale.

---

[1] Diodorus of Sicily, English translation by C. H. Oldfather, Loeb Classical Library, Volumes II and III. London, William Heinemann, and Cambridge, Mass., USA, Harvard University Press, 1935 and 1939. All quotes from Diodorus are from the same translation.
[2] Herodotus, The Histories, Book IV, trans. Aubrey De Selincourt, revised John Marincola (London: Penguin 1972) p. 226
[3] Herodotus, The Histories, pp. 226-227.
[4] Neugebauer, op. cit.
[5] Chamberlain, Von Del, “Navajo Constellations in Literature, Art, Artifact and a New Mexico Rock Art Site”, Archaeoastronomy 6 (1-4):48-58, 1983.
__________________End Excerpt____________________

So, it appears that the same date is being described in the ancient tales of the Hyperboreans that we find concealed in the elements of the tauroctony. The question is, of course, was the tauroctony intended to convey any deeper messages? And what about the fact that it was said that Mithraism began with pirates in Cilicia? How in the world do all these disparate elements fit together, assuming they do? Did the originators of Mithraism even know what they were doing or were they just repeating something without insight?

 

[PERLOU]

Merci beaucoup LAURA pour vos textes que j'ai copier/coller en Français pour pouvoir les lire tranquillement...
Quelle érudition vous avez, je vous admire et vous suis infiniment reconnaissante de partager vos savoirs avec nous...
Une petite abeille reconnaissante...

Thank you very much LAURA for your texts that I copied/pasted in French to be able to read them quietly...
What erudition you have, I admire you and I am infinitely grateful to you for sharing your knowledge with us...
A grateful little bee...

 

[Laura]

Now, let's take up the Pirate Story:

A Pirate Tale​

In Rome, Pompey was the rock star of his day; all the people believed that the gods smiled on him. He had an interesting background since his father was a general in the Social War who was widely hated by everyone and was marvelously killed by a lightning bolt! But Pompey junior was eminently loveable and cute and Plutarch even remarks on his lovely hair! We are told how, at the age of 23, Pompey decided he wanted to be a general and have an army so he set about acquiring one. Once he had assembled and trained his soldiers, he set out to perform deeds of military derring-do so as to impress the real general, Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Apparently he did a pretty good job because when he and the great general finally met, the latter stood up and uncovered his head.

A civil war was in progress between parties that wanted to maintain the traditional oligarchy and those who wanted to increase the power of the plebs and Pompey came in on the side of the oligarchy. Sulla made good use of Pompey and his army, sending him here and there, and Pompey always seemed to have good fortune and to do everything right. He is said to have sorted out a whole mess in Africa in 40 days, after which he went big game hunting! When he returned to Rome, he tried to enter the city riding in a chariot drawn by four elephants but they wouldn’t fit through the gate. At one point, Pompey campaigned for an unworthy individual who won the office of consul and Sulla reportedly said to him:

I see, young man, that you rejoice in your victory; and surely it was a generous and noble thing for Lepidus, the worst of men, to be proclaimed consul by a larger vote than Catulus, the best of men, because you influenced the people to take this course. Now, however, it is time for you to be wide awake and watchful of your interests; you have made your adversary stronger than yourself.[1]

He was right, of course, and Pompey soon found himself commanding an army against Lepidus and Brutus. Pompey seems to have been a person who, once he figured out which side his bread was buttered on, could strategically exploit the situation to his own advantage. This often stimulated him to search for solutions to problems that avoided as much unnecessary risk or waste as possible. This comes through rather clearly in his military tactics. He knew he would win, strategically, if he could get the opponent to stand and fight, but he was never interested in pursuing an enemy who used delaying or evasive tactics. There were some stories about him that showed a very ugly side of his character, but it’s hard to evaluate their validity. Anyway, I’m going to skip over all the fascinating details of the life of Pompey and get to the point about the pirates. The whole story strikes me as very peculiar and it takes up a lot of space in Plutarch’s biography of Pompey considering there was actually very little action! I’ve broken the text into numbered paragraphs for ease of discussion by number after you read the story.

1) The power of the pirates had its seat in Cilicia at first, and at the outset it was venturesome and elusive; but it took on confidence and boldness during the Mithridatic war because it lent itself to the king's service. … the Romans were embroiled in civil wars at the gates of Rome, the sea was left unguarded, and gradually drew and enticed them on until they no longer attacked navigators only, but also laid waste islands and maritime cities. And presently men whose wealth gave them power, and those whose lineage was illustrious, and those who laid claim to superior intelligence, began to embark on piratical craft and share their enterprises, feeling that the occupation brought them a certain reputation and distinction.

2) There were also fortified roadsteads and signal-stations for piratical craft in many places, and fleets put in here which were not merely furnished for their peculiar work with sturdy crews, skilful pilots, and light and speedy ships; nay, more annoying than the fear which they inspired was the odious extravagance of their equipment, with their gilded sails, and purple awnings, and silvered oars, as if they rioted in their iniquity and plumed themselves upon it.

3) Their flutes and stringed instruments and drinking bouts along every coast, their seizures of persons in high command, and their ransomings of captured cities, were a disgrace to the Roman supremacy. For, you see, the ships of the pirates numbered more than a thousand, and the cities captured by them four hundred.

4) Besides, they attacked and plundered places of refuge and sanctuaries hitherto inviolate, such as those of Claros, Didyma, and Samothrace; the temple of Chthonian Earth at Hermione; that of Asclepius in Epidaurus; those of Poseidon at the Isthmus, at Taenarum, and at Calauria; those of Apollo at Actium and Leucas; and those of Hera at Samos, at Argos, and at Lacinium. They also offered strange sacrifices of their own at Olympus, and celebrated there certain secret rites, among which those of Mithras continue to the present time, having been first instituted by them.

5) But they heaped most insults upon the Romans, even going up from the sea along their roads and plundering there, and sacking the neighbouring villas. Once, too, they seized two praetors, Sextilius and Bellinus, in their purple-edged robes, and carried them away, together with their attendants and lictors. They also captured a daughter of Antonius, a man who had celebrated a triumph, as she was going into the country, and exacted a large ransom for her.

6) But their crowning insolence was this. Whenever a captive cried out that he was a Roman and gave his name, they would pretend to be frightened out of their senses, and would smite their thighs, and fall down before him entreating him to pardon them; and he would be convinced of their sincerity, seeing them so humbly suppliant. Then some would put Roman boots on his feet, and others would throw a toga round him, in order, forsooth, that there might be no mistake about him again. And after thus mocking the man for a long time and getting their fill of amusement from him, at last they would let down a ladder in mid ocean and bid him disembark and go on his way rejoicing; and if he did not wish to go, they would push him overboard themselves and drown him.

7) This power extended its operations over the whole of our Mediterranean Sea, making it unnavigable and closed to all commerce. This was what most of all inclined the Romans, who were hard put to it to get provisions and expected a great scarcity, to send out Pompey with a commission to take the sea away from the pirates.

8) Gabinius, one of Pompey's intimates, drew up a law which gave him, not an admiralty, but an out-and-out monarchy and irresponsible power over all men. For the law gave him dominion over the sea this side of the pillars of Hercules, over all the mainland to the distance of four hundred furlongs from the sea. These limits included almost all places in the Roman world, and the greatest nations and most powerful kings were comprised within them. Besides this, he was empowered to choose fifteen legates from the senate for the several principalities, and to take from the public treasuries and the tax-collectors as much money as he wished, and to have two hundred ships, with full power over the number and levying of soldiers and oarsmen.

9) When these provisions of the law were read in the assembly, the people received them with excessive pleasure, but the chief and most influential men of the senate thought that such unlimited and absolute power, while it was beyond the reach of envy, was yet a thing to be feared. Therefore they all opposed the law, with the exception of Caesar; he advocated the law, not because he cared in the least for Pompey, but because from the outset he sought to ingratiate himself with the people and win their support. The rest vehemently attacked Pompey. And when one of the consuls told him that if he emulated Romulus he would not escape the fate of Romulus, he was near being torn in pieces by the multitude.

10) Moreover, when Catulus came forward to speak against the law the people had regard enough for him to be quiet for some time; but after he had spoken at length in Pompey's praise and without any disparagement of him, and then counselled the people to spare such a man and not expose him to successive wars and perils, asking, "Whom else will you have if you lose him?" all with one accord replied, "Thyself." Catulus, accordingly, since he could not persuade them, retired; but when Roscius came forward to speak, no one would listen to him. He therefore made signs with his fingers that they should not choose Pompey alone to this command, but give him a colleague. At this, we are told, the people were incensed and gave forth such a shout that a raven flying over the forum was stunned by it and fell down into the throng. From this it appears that such falling of birds is not due to a rupture and division of the air wherein a great vacuum is produced, but that they are struck by the blow of the voice, which raises a surge and billow in the air when it is born aloft loud and strong.

11) For the time being, then, the assembly was dissolved; but when the day came for the vote upon the law, Pompey withdrew privately into the country. On hearing, however, that the law had been passed, he entered the city by night, feeling that he was sure to awaken envy if the people thronged to meet him. But when day came, he appeared in public and offered sacrifice, and at an assembly held for him he managed to get many other things besides those already voted, and almost doubled his armament. For five hundred ships were manned for him, and a hundred and twenty thousand men-at‑arms and five thousand horsemen were raised. Twenty-four men who had held command or served as praetors were chosen from the senate by him, and he had two quaestors. And since the prices of provisions immediately fell, the people were moved to say in their joy that the very name of Pompey had put an end to the war.

12) However, he divided the waters and the adjacent coasts of the Mediterranean Sea into thirteen districts, and assigned to each a certain number of ships with a commander, and with his forces thus scattered in all quarters he encompassed whole fleets of piratical ships that fell in his way, and straightway hunted them down and brought them into port; others succeeded in dispersing and escaping, and sought their hive, as it were, hurrying from all quarters into Cilicia. Against these Pompey intended to proceed in person with his sixty best ships. He did not, however, sail against them until he had entirely cleared of their pirates the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Libyan Sea, and the sea about Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, in forty days all told. This was owing to his own tireless energy and the zeal of his lieutenants.

13) But the consul Piso at Rome, out of wrath and envy, was interfering with Pompey's equipment and discharging his crews; Pompey therefore sent his fleet round to Brundisium, [Brindisi on the Adriatic coast] while he himself went up by way of Tuscany to Rome. On learning of this, the citizens all streamed out into the road, just as if they had not escorted him forth only a few days before. What caused their joy was the unhoped for rapidity of the change, the market being now filled to overflowing with provisions. As a consequence Piso came near being deprived of his consulship, and Gabinius had the requisite law already written out. But Pompey prevented this, as well as other hostile acts, and after arranging everything else in a reasonable manner and getting what he wanted, went down to Brundisium and set sail.

14) But though his immediate business was urgent and he sailed past other cities in his haste, still, he could not pass Athens by, but went up into the city, sacrificed to the gods, and addressed the people. Just as he was leaving the city, he read two inscriptions, each of a single verse, addressed to him, one inside the gate:
"As thou knowest thou art mortal, in so far thou art a god;"
and the other outside:
"We awaited, we saluted, we have seen, and now conduct thee forth."

15) Some of the pirate bands that were still rowing at large begged for mercy, and since he treated them humanely, and after seizing their ships and persons did them no further harm, the rest became hopeful of mercy too, and made their escape from the other commanders, betook themselves to Pompey with their wives and children, and surrendered to him. All these he spared, and it was chiefly by their aid that he tracked down, seized, and punished those who were still lurking in concealment because conscious of unpardonable crimes.

16) But the most numerous and powerful had bestowed their families and treasures and useless folk in forts and strong citadels near the Taurus mountains, while they themselves manned their ships and awaited Pompey's attack near the promontory of Coracesium in Cilicia; here they were defeated in a battle and then besieged. At last, however, they sent suppliant messages and surrendered themselves, together with the cities and islands of which they were in control; these they had fortified, making them hard to get at and difficult to take by storm.

17) The war was therefore brought to an end and all piracy driven from the sea in less than three months, and besides many other ships, Pompey received in surrender ninety which had brazen beaks. The men themselves, who were more than twenty thousand in number, he did not once think of putting to death; and yet to let them go and suffer them to disperse or band together again, poor, warlike, and numerous as they were, he thought was not well.

18) Reflecting, therefore, that by nature man neither is nor becomes a wild or an unsocial creature, but is transformed by the unnatural practice of vice, whereas he may be softened by new customs and a change of place and life; also that even wild beasts put off their fierce and savage ways when they partake of a gentler mode of life, he determined to transfer the men from the sea to land, and let them have a taste of gentle life by being accustomed to dwell in cities and to till the ground. Some of them, therefore, were received and incorporated into the small and half-deserted cities of Cilicia, which acquired additional territory; and after restoring the city of Soli, which had lately been devastated by Tigranes, the king of Armenia, Pompey settled many there. To most of them, however, he gave as residence Dyme in Achaea, which was then bereft of men and had much good land.

19) Well, then, his maligners found fault with these measures, and even his best friends were not pleased with his treatment of Metellus in Crete. Metellus, a kinsman of the Metellus who was a colleague of Pompey in Spain, had been sent as general to Crete before Pompey was chosen to his command; for Crete was a kind of second source for pirates, next to Cilicia.

20) Metellus hemmed in many of them and was killing and destroying them. But those who still survived and were besieged sent suppliant messages to Pompey and invited him into the island, alleging that it was a part of his government, and that all parts of it were within the limit to be measured from the sea. Pompey accepted the invitation and wrote to Metellus putting a stop to his war. He also wrote the cities not to pay any attention to Metellus, and sent them one of his own officers as general, namely, Lucius Octavius, who entered the strongholds of the besieged pirates and fought on their side, thus making Pompey not only odious and oppressive, but actually ridiculous, since he lent his name to godless miscreants, and threw around them the mantle of his reputation to serve like a charm against evil, through envy and jealousy of Metellus. For not even Achilles played the part of a man, men said, but that of a youth wholly crazed and frantic in his quest of glory, when he made a sign to the rest which prevented them from smiting Hector: "Lest some one else win honour by the blow, and he come only second" …whereas Pompey actually fought in behalf of the common enemy and saved their lives, that he might rob of his triumph a general who had toiled hard to win it. Metellus, however, would not give in, but captured the pirates and punished them, and then sent Octavius away after insulting and abusing him before the army.

21) When word was brought to Rome that the war against the pirates was at an end, and that Pompey, now at leisure, was visiting the cities, Manlius, one of the popular tribunes, proposed a law giving Pompey all the country and forces which Lucullus commanded, with the addition, too, of Bithynia, which Glabrio had, and the commission to wage war upon Mithridates.

And so ends the pirate story. That story is just loaded with strangeness and I want to address a couple of points with my comments numbered to match the relevant paragraphs of the tale.

1) These are very odd claims about the pirates: it seems to be listing three different classes of individuals taking part in this movement: 1) the wealthy and powerful; 2) the aristocratic; 3) intellectuals of some sort. At that time, the people most likely to claim “superior intelligence” were, of course, philosophers. Were philosophers engaged in piracy? What can this possibly mean? And why were these people allied with Mithridates? Why does Plutarch drop this clue and then just move on without mentioning names?

2) This sounds totally crazy, almost like a parallel world. Supposedly this state of affairs arose because, after the destruction of Carthage, the end of the Seleucid (Greek) Empire, and Ptolemaic Egypt going down the tubes fast, there a power vacuum in the Mediterranean. So it is said that pirates emerged as the naval power, organized themselves and pretty much took over the shipping lanes. Yet, prior to this, we hear not a word about pirates or grain shipments that were stolen or anything like that. Right out of the blue, in the bio of Pompey, we have a lengthy discussion of pirates who have gilded sails, purple awnings, and silvered oars?!

Did you ever have the feeling that someone was talking in code right in front of you and you know they are trying to convey something important but you just can’t quite get it? That’s the feeling I get from Plutarch in this whole impossible tale. And this requires a discursus on the topic of Anthony and Cleopatra which includes mention of gilded sails, purple awnings, and silvered oars.

When Jacques Amyot translated Plutarch’s Lives into French in 1559, he reintroduced the story of Cleopatra to a new generation of artists, writers, and playwrights. Translated from the French into English by Thomas North in 1579 (and directly from the Greek by Dryden in 1683), Plutarch was a major source for the Roman plays of Shakespeare, as one can see in this comparison when Antony first glimpses Cleopatra in her royal barge.

"Therefore when she was sent unto by divers letters, both from Antonius himself and also from his friends, she made so light of it and mocked Antonius so much that she disdained to set forward otherwise but to take her barge in the river of Cydnus, the poop whereof was of gold, the sails of purple, and the oars of silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the sound of the music of flutes, howboys, cithernes, viols, and such other instruments as they played upon in the barge. And now for the person of herself: she was laid under a pavilion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddess Venus commonly drawn in picture; and hard by her, on either hand of her, pretty fair boys apparelled as painters do set forth god Cupid, with little fans in their hands, with the which they fanned wind upon her. Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them were apparelled like the nymphs Nereides (which are the mermaids of the waters) and like the Graces, some steering the helm, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of which there came a wonderful passing sweet savour of perfumes, that perfumed the wharf's side, pestered with innumerable multitudes of people." (Plutarch, Life of Marcus Antonius (XXVI) (North trans.))

In the autumn of 41 BC, Antony, who had assumed control of Rome's eastern provinces after the Battle of Philippi, summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus in Cilicia ostensibly to reprimand her for the support she was suspected of having given to Cassius before the battle but, in fact, to secure a base and source of supplies for a planned campaign against Parthia.

But this meeting was to be quite different.

"Their acquaintance was with her when a girl, young and ignorant of the world, but she was to meet Antony in the time of life when women's beauty is most splendid, and their intellects are in full maturity. She made great preparation for her journey, of money, gifts, and ornaments of value, such as so wealthy a kingdom might afford, but she brought with her her surest hopes in her own magic arts and charms.... On her arrival, Antony sent to invite her to supper. She thought it fitter he should come to her; so, willing to show his good-humour and courtesy, he complied, and went. He found the preparations to receive him magnificent beyond expression, but nothing so admirable as the great number of lights; for on a sudden there was let down altogether so great a number of branches with lights in them so ingeniously disposed, some in squares, and some in circles, that the whole thing was a spectacle that has seldom been equalled for beauty. The next day, Antony invited her to supper, and was very desirous to outdo her as well in magnificence as contrivance; but he found he was altogether beaten in both, and was so well convinced of it that he was himself the first to jest and mock at his poverty of wit and his rustic awkwardness. She, perceiving that his raillery was broad and gross, and savoured more of the soldier than the courtier, rejoined in the same taste, and fell into it at once, without any sort of reluctance or reserve." (Plutarch, Life of Antony (Dryden trans.)

7) Right here my antennae are quivering. Was there, in fact, a famine lurking about? Well, we’ll leave that as just a speculation, but as I noted above, so far, other than Rome cannibalizing itself, I haven’t come across any mention of failure to obtain grain or other goods until this sudden pirate problem appeared. Was it really pirates or something else?

9) As we will see in a moment, being compared to Romulus was a strange remark, especially the allusion that Romulus had been torn in pieces by the multitude. According to everything I’ve read, that was actually the fate of Dionysius and Orpheus, not Romulus. According to the legend, Romulus was taken up to heaven fully clothed and armed speaking as he went! What is more, Plutarch knew it because he wrote about it in his life or Numa Pompilius! Caesar’s approval also stands out as odd, and certainly not for the reason Plutarch gives: that he was currying public favor. So, short discursus on Romulus:

According to the legend, Romulus mysteriously disappeared in a storm or whirlwind, during or shortly after offering public sacrifice at or near the Quirinal Hill.[23] A "foul suspicion" arises that the Senate

...weary of kingly government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of Romulus toward them, had plotted against his life and made him away, so that they might assume the authority and government into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine honors to Romulus, as to one not dead, but translated to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him, as he ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him by the name of Quirinus.[24]

Livy repeats more or less the same story, but shifts the initiative for deification to the people of Rome:

Then a few voices began to proclaim Romulus's divinity; the cry was taken up, and at last every man present hailed him as a god and son of a god, and prayed to him to be forever gracious and to protect his children. However, even on this great occasion there were, I believe, a few dissenters who secretly maintained that the king had been torn to pieces by the senators. At all events the story got about, though in veiled terms; but it was not important, as awe, and admiration for Romulus's greatness, set the seal upon the other version of his end, which was, moreover, given further credit by the timely action of a certain Julius Proculus, a man, we are told, honored for his wise counsel on weighty matters. The loss of the king had left the people in an uneasy mood and suspicious of the senators, and Proculus, aware of the prevalent temper, conceived the shrewd idea of addressing the Assembly. 'Romulus', he declared, 'the father of our city descended from heaven at dawn this morning and appeared to me. In awe and reverence I stood before him, praying for permission to look upon his face without sin. Go, he said, and tell the Romans that by heaven's will my Rome shall be capital of the world. Let them learn to be soldiers. Let them know, and teach their children, that no power on earth can stand against Roman arms. Having spoken these words, he was taken up again into the sky"[25]

Livy assumes Romulus' murder was no more than a dim and doubtful whisper from the past; in the circumstances, Proculus' declaration is wise and practical because it has the desired effect. Cicero's seeming familiarity with the story of Romulus' murder and divinity must have been shared by his target audience and readership.[26] Dio's version, though fragmentary, is unequivocal; Romulus is surrounded by hostile, resentful senators and "rent limb from limb" in the senate-house itself. An eclipse and sudden storm, "the same sort of phenomenon that had attended his birth", conceal the deed from the soldiers and the people, who are anxiously seeking their king. Proculus fakes a personal vision of Romulus' spontaneous ascent to heaven as Quirinus and announces the message of Romulus-Quirinus[1][2]

Coming back to our comments on the tale:

10) Quintus Lutatius Catulus (149-87 BC) was consul of the Roman Republic in 102 BC, and the leading public figure of the gens Lutatia of the time. His colleague in the consulship was Gaius Marius, but the two feuded and Catulus sided with Sulla in the civil war of 88–87 BC. When the Marians regained control of Rome in 87, Catulus committed suicide rather than face prosecution. Catulus was distinguished as an orator, poet and prose writer, and was well versed in Greek literature. He wrote a history of his consulship (De consulatu et de rebus gestis suis) in the manner of Xenophon. A non-extant epic on the Cimbrian War, sometimes attributed to him, was more likely written by Archias.[3] Catulus's contributions to Latin poetry are considered his most significant literary achievements. He is credited with introducing Hellenistic epigram to Rome and fostering a taste for short, personal poems that comes to fruition with the lyric oeuvre of Valerius Catullus in the 50s BC. Among his circle of literary friends, who ranged widely in social position and political sympathies, were Valerius Aedituus, Aulus Furius, and Porcius Licinius.[4]

Pliny lists him among distinguished men who wrote short poems that were less than austere (versiculi parum severi).[5] Only two epigrams by Catulus have been preserved, both directed at men. Cicero preserves two of Catulus's couplets on the celebrated actor Roscius, who is said to make an entrance like a sunrise: "though he is human, he seems more beautiful than a god."[6]

Of all the things Plutarch has written in this strange story, this one takes the prize. We have a Raven killed by sound now, following a mis-connected legendary death of the founder of Rome, following purple sails, silver oars, and so forth.

12) We can recall here that he sorted out Africa in forty days and then went hunting. Amazing, this guy, yes? He practically walks on water!

---

[1] Plutarch, Life of Numa Pompilius.
[2] Livy, 1.16, trans. A. de Selincourt, The Early History of Rome, 34-35)
[3] Suetonius, De Grammaticis 3; Edward Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 75.
[4] Gian Biaggio Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 138–139
[5] Pliny, Epistula 5.3.5.
[6] Mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 1.79).


Now, going in another direction, trying to pin down those damn pirates, it seems that Rome already sent a navy, commanded by a praetor named Marcus Antonius Creticus, as early as 104 BCE, the grandfather of Mark Antony of Antony and Cleopatra fame! At that time, the Roman navy did not take any real measures against the pirates. As a consequence, the Baleares and Crete became pirates' nests, and - at a later stage - western Cilicia. Desperadoes from all countries flocked to these regions and started a new life as pirate. The wars between the Romans and king Mithridates VI of Pontus (89-82) destabilized Asia Minor and gave the Cilician pirates extra power. (This story is told by Appian of Alexandria, Mithridatic wars, 92-97.)

Typically, the pirates attacked the slow trading vessels and captured the crew. The large and unwieldy grain ships, which carried hundreds of tons of Egyptian wheat to Italy, were among their favorite targets. Usually, the captives were brought to the island Delos in the Aegean sea, the center of the international slave trade. It is recorded that on at least one occasion, no less than 10,000 people were sold on a single day. They were now transported to Italy and found work at the plantations of the rich Roman senators and knights.

Rich captives were not sold, but kept as hostages. Usually, the family of the captive paid a ransom. For example, when Julius Caesar was seized in 79, he paid 25 talents (500 kg) of silver. Four years later, he was captured again. This time, Caesar demanded that the ransom was to doubled (after all, he was an aristocrat) and promised to punish his captors. After the ransom had been paid, Caesar manned some ships, defeated the bandits and had them crucified.

Although the Roman elite benefited from the pirates' activities, sometimes, they sent out soldiers to punish them. Usually, these attempts to restore order were half-hearted. In 74, the son of the already mentioned Marcus Antonius, also called Marcus Antonius, received special powers to fight against the pirates of Crete. After he had expelled them from the western Mediterranean, he invaded their base in the winter of 72/71. However, he was defeated, died soon after, and no one really cared about pursuing the war. (His son was Marc Antony, the successor of Julius Caesar.)

At about the same time, Publius Servilius Vatia was sent out to reduce Cilicia, and he gained some remarkable successes: he defeated the pirates at sea and cleared Lycia and Pamphylia (77). In the following year, he invaded Cilicia proper, and he was ready to strike against the pirates' base at Coracesium ("crow's nest"; modern Alanya), when a new war against Mithradates broke out, which was to last for ten years (73-63).

After the outbreak of this war and the defeat of Marcus Antonius at Crete, the pirates had a brief respite. They increased their power and may have negotiated with Spartacus, the leader of an army of runaway slaves that invested the Italian countryside in 73-71 and wanted to leave the country. In the same period, the Cilician pirates attacked the coasts of Italy, showing their contempt for the Romans.

The Romans now understood that the Cilician pirates were not an isolated group of desperadoes, but a powerful ally of Mithradates of Pontus. One of the consuls of 69, Quintus Caecilius, and three legions were sent to Crete, which was treated cruelly and declared a Roman province (67).

In the same year, a tribune named Gabinius proposed a law that the Roman general Gnaeus Pompey should be given extraordinary powers to fight against the pirates, who were by now threatening the food supply of Rome. Pompey was to receive enormous quantities of money, 20 legions, 500 ships, and authority equal to that of provincial governors for 75 kilometers inland. It was a drastic but necessary measure, and although the Senate tried to prevent that one man became so influential, the People's Assembly accepted the Lex Gabinia.

Immediately, the price of wheat at Rome, which had risen to unprecedented levels, returned to normal levels: Pompey was expected to put an end to the pirates' activities. He did not disappoint the people. He appointed thirteen legates (assistants) and divided the Mediterranean sea in thirteen sections; with a mobile force of sixty ships, he drove the pirates into the arms of the legates. Later, he claimed that he had liberated the western Mediterranean in only forty days, and this is probably true: most pirates had decided to return to the east.

Now, Pompey could turn his attention to Cilicia proper. He defeated the pirates near their capital Coracesium and took this mountain fortress, after which he could launch mopping-up operations. After three months, he was master of the situation.

Pompey's victory was less spectacular than he presented it. The secret of his success was, of course, that the Cilician pirates had already been defeated by Publius Servilius Vatia. Their actions along the Italian shores were caused by the fact that they could no longer safely use Cilicia as their base. They were adrift. Pompey understood this, and offered the defeated pirates a new life: he settled them in towns far from the sea, where they could become farmers.

Pompey's extraordinary powers were to last three years, but the war was already over. In Rome, the tribune Manilius proposed that the war against Mithradates, the ally of the pirates, should now be entrusted to Pompey. The successful general took over the army of general Lucullus and put an end to the Third Mithradatic war. Later, he invaded Judaea; after all, among the Cilician pirates had been Jews. Pompey captured Jerusalem (63 BCE; more), and on his way back to Italy, he visited Crete, where he settled the situation.

This was the end of piracy in the Mediterranean. The Cilician pirates would have been a footnote in the history of the Roman empire, were it not that the expedition against them marked the rise of Pompey. For almost twenty years, he was unchallenged as the first man in Rome. Moreover, his extraordinary command had shown the road to the future: Julius Caesar was to use legates during the war in Gaul, and Octavian was to do the same when he organized the Roman empire. (Jona Lendering, http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/cilicia/cilician_pirates.html)


Coming back to the claim that Julius Caesar had been captured by pirates and held for ransom:

In chapter 2 of his Life of Julius Caesar, the Greek author Plutarch of Chaeronea (46-c.120) describes what happened when Caesar encountered the pirates. The translation below was made by Robin Seager.

First, when the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty. Then, when he had sent his followers to the various cities in order to raise the money and was left with one friend and two servants among these Cilicians, about the most bloodthirsty people in the world, he treated them so highhandedly that, whenever he wanted to sleep, he would send to them and tell them to stop talking.

For thirty-eight days, with the greatest unconcern, he joined in all their games and exercises, just as if he was their leader instead of their prisoner. He also wrote poems and speeches which he read aloud to them, and if they failed to admire his work, he would call them to their faces illiterate savages, and would often laughingly threaten to have them all hanged. They were much taken with this and attributed his freedom of speech to a kind of simplicity in his character or boyish playfulness.

However, the ransom arrived from Miletus and, as soon as he had paid it and been set free, he immediately manned some ships and set sail from the harbor of Miletus against the pirates. He found them still there, lying at anchor off the island, and he captured nearly all of them. He took their property as spoils of war and put the men themselves into the prison at Pergamon. He then went in person to [Marcus] Junius, the governorof Asia, thinking it proper that he, as praetor in charge of the province, should see to the punishment of the prisoners. Junius, however, cast longing eyes at the money, which came to a considerable sum, and kept saying that he needed time to look into the case.

Caesar paid no further attention to him. He went to Pergamon, took the pirates out of prison and crucified the lot of them, just as he had often told them he would do when he was on the island and they imagined that he was joking. (The outlaw trail: evidence for Cilician pirates along the Turkish coast, http://www.clarku.edu/activelearning/departments/vpa/townsend/townsendd.cfm)

Professor Rhys Townsend's research Professor Rhys Townsend and undergraduate Ed Connor '01 are on the outlaw trail. More specifically, as participants in the ongoing Rough Cilicia Regional Archaeological Survey Project begun in 1996, they're looking for evidence of Cilician pirates active in the 2nd century B.C. in the area of Pamphylia on the southern Turkish coast. Ancient documents named cities around the Bay of Pamphylia as being associated with pirates from the region of Cilicia (east of the bay) who raided the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean. Townsend and Connor are looking for confirming physical evidence in an area where archaeological exploration is still in its infancy.

Types of evidence

Townsend and his colleagues are collecting data to investigate three theories that might lend support to the stories of pirate activity in this region on the periphery of the Roman Empire.

French archaeologist André Tchernia proposed that, at a market on the island of Delos, the pirates might have traded slaves for amphoras of wine and oil from Italy. Presumably they would have brought the amphoras back to their bases around Pamphylia where remnants would be available for discovery.

Perhaps pirate architecture might still remain which could be distinguished by reason of its more primitive, locally-styled nature from that of the Greco-Roman colonists. Also, the Roman-era writer Plutarch spoke of "castles and fortifications in the Tauros Mountains" constructed by pirates.

Perhaps the pirate community exploited local forests to supply timber for the shipbuilding industry. If so, over time the edge of the forest would have gradually receded to the interior and been replaced by agriculture and small villages. Evidence of settlement ages becoming progressively younger the farther from the coast would support this theory.

Townsend and his colleagues emphasize that their research is not yet complete. Little survey work had been done previously in this part of Turkey, and while some information from earlier archaeologists was available, a picture of the region's settlement over time is still being constructed. However, a few conclusions regarding the pirate community have been suggested:

No material evidence was found to support Tchernia's wine for slaves theory. No remnants of amphoras were found dating to Italy for that time period. In fact, the discovery of what appears to be ancient kilns, coupled with knowledge of agriculture at the time suggests that the inhabitants of the region were able to produce locally what was needed in the way of oil, wine and amphoras.

While evidence for settlement during and prior to the pirate era was found, some structures in the survey area have proven difficult to date with confidence or to categorize according to style. So far it has not been possible to identify any architecture as being "pirate" as distinct from that of other inhabitants. However, an area along the southwest portion of the bay provides evidence of hill forts, which perhaps correspond with those mentioned by Plutarch.

Data collection related to the deforestation theory has still to be completed.

Townsend notes that pirate remains may be rarer and more difficult to identify than those of legitimate inhabitants. Because of its outlaw status, a pirate society would naturally strive to remain hidden from those in authority or others who might be in a position to betray their whereabouts. The mountainous and forested terrain would allow the pirates opportunities for concealment, and the need to move periodically their bases of operation might preclude the establishment of permanent or sophisticated structures. Townsend emphasizes that no evidence was found that would cast doubt on the existence of the Cilician pirates, but the trail of outlaws is clearly a challenging one to follow, especially after a lapse of two millennia.

 

[Laura]

Now, Ulansey proposes that, since Hipparchus “discovered” the precession of the equinoxes about 60 years before Plutarch says there were Cilician pirates involved in the Mithraic Mysteries during the time of Pompey’s campaign against them, that it may have been that this information had been passed to the Stoics who dominated the philosophical world of Tarsus where the Perseus cult held sway. As it happens, the great Stoic scientist and astrologer, Posidonius (135 – 51 BC) had spent time living on the island of Rhodes, and Hipparchus, though born in Nicaea in Bithynia, spent most of his working life on the island of Rhodes. Perhaps there is a clue in Posidonius???

Posidonius​

(c. 135 BC - 51 BC) He was acclaimed as the greatest polymath of his time, because he came near to mastering all the knowledge of his time, similar to Aristotle and Eratosthenes. He attempted to create a unified system for understanding the human intellect and the universe which would provide an explanation of, and a guide for, human behavior. Unfortunately, only fragments of his vast body of work have survived. He was born into a Greek family in Apamea on the Orontes river in northern Syria. He was educated in Athens where he studied under Panaetius, the head of the Stoic school. In about 95 BC, he settled in Rhodes where he became a citizen and was active in public life including serving as ambassador to Rome. He also made journeys throughout the Roman world and beyond to conduct his research, visiting Greece, Hispania, Italy, Sicily, Dalmatia, Gaul, Liguria, North Africa, and on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. He wrote a geographic treatise on the lands of the Celts which has since been lost, but which is referred to extensively (both directly and otherwise) in the works of Diodorus of Sicily, Strabo, Caesar and Tacitus' Germania.

Posidonius's extensive writings and lectures gave him authority as a scholar and made him famous everywhere in the Graeco-Roman world, and a school grew around him in Rhodes. Posidonius wrote on physics (including meteorology and physical geography), astronomy, astrology and divination, seismology, geology and mineralogy, hydrology, botany, ethics, logic, mathematics, history, natural history, anthropology, and tactics. His studies were major investigations into their subjects.

For Posidonius, philosophy was the dominant master art and all the individual sciences were subordinate to philosophy, which alone could explain the cosmos. All his works, from scientific to historical, were inseparably philosophical. Although a firm Stoic, Posidonius was, like Panaetius and other Stoics of the middle period, eclectic. He followed not only the older Stoics, but Plato and Aristotle. He was the first Stoic to depart from the orthodox doctrine that passions were faulty judgments and posit that Plato's view of the soul had been correct, namely that passions were inherent in human nature. In addition to the rational faculties, Posidonius taught that the human soul had faculties that were spirited (anger, desires for power, possessions, etc.) and desiderative (desires for sex and food). Ethics was the problem of how to deal with these passions and restore reason as the dominant faculty. Posidonius upheld the Stoic doctrine of Logos, which ultimately passed into Judeo-Christian belief. Posidonius also affirmed the Stoic doctrine of the future conflagration.

He accepted the Stoic categorization of philosophy into physics (natural philosophy, including metaphysics and theology), logic (including dialectic), and ethics. These three categories for him were, in Stoic fashion, inseparable and interdependent parts of an organic, natural whole. He compared them to a living being, with physics the meat and blood, logic the bones and tendons holding the organism together, and finally ethics – the most important part – corresponding to the soul. His philosophical grand vision was that the universe itself was similarly interconnected, as if an organism, through cosmic "sympathy", in all respects from the development of the physical world to the history of humanity.[1][2][3]

In Stoic physics, Posidonius advocated a theory of cosmic "sympathy" (sumpatheia), the organic interrelation of all appearances in the world, from the sky to the earth, as part of a rational design uniting humanity and all things in the universe, even those that were temporally and spatially separate. Although his teacher Panaetius had doubted divination, Posidonius used the theory of cosmic sympathy to support his belief in divination - whether through astrology or prophetic dreams - as a kind of scientific prediction. Posidonius advanced the theory that the Sun emanated a vital force which permeated the world.

In his Histories, Posidonius continued the World History of Polybius. His history of the period 146 - 88 BC is said to have filled 52 volumes. Posidonius saw events as caused by human psychology; while he understood human passions and follies, he did not pardon or excuse them in his historical writing, using his narrative skill in fact to enlist the readers' approval or condemnation.

For Posidonius "history" extended beyond the earth into the sky; humanity was not isolated each in its own political history, but was a part of the cosmos. His Histories were not, therefore, concerned with isolated political history of peoples and individuals, but they included discussions of all forces and factors (geographical factors, mineral resources, climate, nutrition), which let humans act and be a part of their environment.

Posidonius' writings on the Jews were probably the source of Diodorus Siculus' account of the siege and possibly also for Strabo.[4][5][6] Some of Posidonius' arguments are refuted by Josephus in Against Apion. Ulansey writes about him:

The question of the extent of Posidonius’ influence has been the subject of great debate over the past sixty or seventy years, which have seen, writes A. A. Long, “an endless series of theories about this enigmatic figure.” Posidonius “has been found lurking behind countless statements in Cicero, Seneca, and many other writers who never mention his name. Not unlike Pythagoras, Posidonius has turned up to explain anything and everything. Stoic and Platonist, rationalist and mystic, superficial and penetrating, reactionary and original – these are but a few of the alleged contradictions which surround Posidonius.” The current situation in Posidonius scholarship is summed up by John Dillon:

Posidonius is at the moment recognized, certainly, as the dominant intellectual figure of his age, whose researches in the areas of history, geography, mathematics and the sciences formed the basis of many later works, and who, in philosophy, was at least the vehicle if not the propounder of certain ideas, such as Cosmic Sympathy, which were most influential in later times, but the tendency to refer later developments back to him wholesale has not been brought under control. [7][8]

Augustine reported that Posidonius was “very much given to astrology” and called him “the philosopher-astrologer” who “asserts that the stars rule fate”. Cicero informs us that Posidonius’ knowledge of astronomy was so vast that he was able to construct an orrery which is a mechanical, moving, representation of the planets. The famous Antikythera mechanism discovered in 1900 in a wreck off the Greek island of the same name, and dated to 125 BC, revealed that it was constructed to exhibit the diurnal motions of the sun, moon and the five planets then known. As it happens, it was also heliocentric.

---

[1] Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, 7.39-40
[2] Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, 7.19.
[3] Cicero, De Divinatione, (On Divination), ii. 42
[4] Shemuel Safrai, M. Stern -The Jewish people in the first century: Historical geography p1124 1988 "Most scholars hold that Diodorus, from book thirty-three of his work onwards, depended on Posidonius, ..."
[5] Russell E. Gmirkin Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic histories p54 - 2006 "Jewish misanthropy was also a feature in Posidonius's account of the Jews, though in a less extreme form.126 Diodorus Siculus, Library 40.3.4b likely derived from Posidonius, whose history may have been consulted by Pompey.. "
[6] Bezalel Bar-Kochva The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature: The Hellenistic Period 2009 p440 "Posidonius of apamea (d) The Anti-Jewish Libels and Accusations in Diodorus and Apion We have seen in chapters 11–12 that Posidonius used Moses and Mosaic Judaism to portray his own religious, social, and political ideals "
[7] John Dillon, (1977) The Middle Platonists, Cornell University Press, pp. 106-107.
[8] Ulansey, p. 72.
___________________

Athenodoros Cananites​

Athenodorus, a student and friend of Posidonius, was born in Canana near Tarsus and lived between c. 74 BC and 7 AD. His father was Sandon, an Orphic philosopher mentioned in the Suda. His grandfather may have been Hellanicus, the Orphic philosopher of the late 2nd century mentioned by Damascius.[1] Two things immediately catch the eye, the first being the name of Athenodorus’ father, Sandon.

Tarsus, most famous today as the birthplace of St. Paul, was already an important town in the Hittite Empire of the second millennium BC and the continued presence in the Roman period of the worship of the Hittite god Sandan in Tarsus illustrates the persistence of local customs in the city under a succession of foreign rulers. … perhaps the most significant aspect of life in Tarsus in Hellenistic and Roman times was the existence there of a very important intellectual community, which Sir William Ramsay felt comfortable calling a “university.”[2]

Sandan, AKA Sandas, was the Anatolian lion god who was associated with a horned lion and resided in a pyre surmounted by an eagle. He was also associated with Marduk. In ceremonies, an image of the god was placed inside a pyre and set on fire. He appears on coins of Tarsus during the time of the Roman Empire.

---

[1] Born in Damascus c. AD 458, died after AD 538, known as "the last of the Neoplatonists," he was the last head of the School of Athens. He was one of the pagan philosophers persecuted by Justinian in the early 6th century, and was forced for a time to seek refuge in the Persian court, before being allowed back into the empire. His surviving works consist of three commentaries on the works of Plato, and a metaphysical text entitled Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles.
[2] Ulansey, p. 68. - Strabo, xiv. 14

The second thing that catches our eye is, of course, the reference to Orphism. As we’ve already covered in the section on Pythagoras, the mysticism of the Pythagoreans appears to be quite close to the Orphic tradition. Also recall that Pythagoras was closely linked to Pherecydes of Syros, credited with being the first Greek to teach reincarnation. He was the author of that fascinating book, Pentemychos about the “five sanctuaries”. Recall that it was said that the book was thought to embody some sort of esoteric teaching about recesses, pits, caves, doors, gates, and so forth relating to the comings and goings of souls.

Orphism appears to have been a hybrid set of religious beliefs formed in the crucible of relations between the Greeks and the Thracians. That immediately brings to mind the fact that, Antisthenes, the student of Socrates and the teacher of Diogenes of Sinope, was the child of an Athenian father and a Thracian mother. That may mean nothing, or it may mean that Antisthenes was imbued with Orphism from childhood and those teachings may have informed his ideas that he passed on to his students, eventually to Zeno who founded the Stoic line of philosophers. We can’t prove it, but we can’t reject it out of hand, either.

Plato referred to “Orpheus-initiators though, as with the Eleusinian mysteries, the full teachings and rites are unknown. Orphism differed from popular Greek cults in several ways including the belief in divine human souls that were doomed to reincarnation; prescribing an ascetic life as one of the ways, along with secret rites and practices, as a way of becoming free of reincarnation; teaching that certain bad deeds would be punished in the afterlife; and finally, the system and beliefs were based on secret, sacred writings that revealed the origins of the gods and human beings. Since we do know that the figure, Orpheus, was said to have descended into Hades and returned, we can assume conditionally that the writings were attributed to him. These beliefs can be detected as far back as the 6th century BC. [1]

Apparently, Tarsus was a veritable hotbed of intellectual ferment. According to Strabo:

The people of Tarsus have devoted themselves so eagerly , not only to philosophy, but also to the whole round of education in general, that they have surpassed Athens, Alexandria, or any other place that can be named where there have been schools and lectures of philosophers. But it is so different from other cities that there the men who are fond of learning are all natives, and foreigners are not inclined to sojourn there; neither do these natives stay there, but they complete their education abroad; and when they have completed it they are pleased to live abroad and but few go back home… [2]

Athenodorus accompanied Augustus to Rome in 44 BC and lived there for many years. Around 15 BC, he returned to Tarsuas where he became the intellectual and political leader of the city until his death. In 44 BCE, he seems to have followed Octavian to Rome and continued mentoring him there. He is reputed there to have openly rebuked the Emperor, and to have instructed him to recite the alphabet before reacting in anger. Later, Athenodorus returned to Tarsus, where he was instrumental in expelling the government of Boëthus and drafting a new constitution for the city, the result of which was a pro-Roman oligarchy. He also assisted Cicero in writing his De Officiis and it has been suggested that his work may have influenced Seneca and Saint Paul. Following his death, an annual festival and sacrifice was held in Tarsus in his honor.[3]

Ulansey points out that, not only was Athenadorus, the pal of Augustus, a Stoic, he was closely associated with Posidonius, having been his student. And, the lifetime of Posidonius just happens to correspond with the period during which we suspect the Mithraic Mysteries must have originated.

And as the leader of the Stoic school during this period – indeed, as “the dominant intellectual figure of his age “ – Posidonius must have had an enormous influence among the Stoics in Tarsus… We may assume, therefore, that during the first half of the first century BC – that is, the time of the formation of the Mithraic mysteries – Stoicism in Tarsus was marked by the same interest in astrology and cosmology which had always been traditional Stoic concerns but which were just at this time being renewed and strengthened by Posidonius. We may also assume that Tarsian Stoics were particularly open to this aspect of Posidonius’ work owing to the prestige which the Stoic Aratos, author of the gospel of astral lore, the Phaenomena, must have enjoyed in his native territory.[4]

Orpheus​

Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music, his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld, and his death at the hands of those who could not hear his divine music. As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, opera, and painting. Some ancient Greek sources note Orpheus's Thracian origins.[5]

The most famous story in which Orpheus figures is that of his wife Eurydice (sometimes referred to as Euridice and also known as Agriope). While walking among her people, the Cicones, in tall grass at her wedding, Eurydice was set upon by a satyr. In her efforts to escape the satyr, Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and suffered a fatal bite on her heel. Her body was discovered by Orpheus who, overcome with grief, played such sad and mournful songs that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus travelled to the underworld and by his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth on one condition: he should walk in front of her and not look back until they both had reached the upper world. He set off with Eurydice following, and, in his anxiety, as soon as he reached the upper world, he turned to look at her, forgetting that both needed to be in the upper world, and she vanished for the second time, but now forever.

---

[1] Backgrounds of Early Christianity by Everett Ferguson,2003,page 162,"Orphism began in the sixth century B.C"
[2] Strabo, trans. Horace Leonard Jones (1929) Harvard University Press, Cambridge; vol 6, p. 347.
[3] Pliny the Younger (1909–14). "LXXXIII. To Sura". In Charles W. Eliot. Letters, by Pliny the Younger; translated by William Melmoth; revised by F. C. T. Bosanquet.. The Harvard Classics. 9. New York: P.F. Collier & Son.
[4] Ulansey, p. 73.
[5] Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (Routledge, 2007)



Orpheus among the Thracians. Side of an Attic bell-krater c. 440 BC. Note the Phrygian type cap on the central figure and the curved knife in the hand of the woman on the right.

Orpheus' descent to the Underworld is paralleled in other versions of a worldwide theme: the Japanese myth of Izanagi and Izanami, the Akkadian/Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, and Mayan myth of Ix Chel and Itzamna. The Nez Perce tell a story about the trickster figure, Coyote, that shares many similarities with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.[1] This is but one theme present in a larger "North American Orpheus Tradition" in American Indian oral tradition.[2] The myth theme of not looking back, an essential precaution in Jason's raising of chthonic Brimo Hekate under Medea's guidance,[3] is reflected in the Biblical story of Lot's wife when escaping from Sodom. More directly, the story of Orpheus is similar to the ancient Greek tales of Persephone captured by Hades and similar stories of Adonis captive in the underworld. However, the developed form of the Orpheus myth was entwined with the Orphic mystery cults and, later in Rome, with the development of Mithraism and the cult of Sol Invictus.

According to a Late Antique summary of Aeschylus's lost play Bassarids, Orpheus at the end of his life disdained the worship of all gods save the sun, whom he called Apollo. One early morning he went to the oracle of Dionysus at Mount Pangaion to salute his god at dawn, but was ripped to shreds by Thracian Maenads for not honoring his previous patron (Dionysus) and buried in Pieria.[4] Here his death is analogous with the death of Pentheus[5]. For this reason it is sometimes speculated that the Orphic mystery cult regarded Orpheus as a parallel figure to or even an incarnation of Dionysus himself, due to their many parallels, such as their similar journeys into Hades and identical deaths (in the case of Dionysus Zagreus). A view supported by the conjectured Thracian belief that their kings were regarded as the incarnations of Dionysus which would have included King Oeagrus, and his heir Orpheus, as well as the foundation or reform of the Dionysian Mysteries by Orpheus.[6]

His head and lyre, still singing mournful songs, floated down the swift Hebrus to the Mediterranean shore. There, the winds and waves carried them on to the Lesbos shore, where the inhabitants buried his head and a shrine was built in his honour near Antissa; there his oracle prophesied, until it was silenced by Apollo.[7] [8] Another account relates that he was struck with lightning by Zeus for having revealed the mysteries of the gods to men.[9]



The lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses, and was placed among the stars. The Muses also gathered up the fragments of his body and buried them at Leibethra below Mount Olympus, where the nightingales sang over his grave. After the river Sys flooded Leibethra, the Macedonians took his bones to Dion. Orpheus' soul returned to the underworld where he was reunited at last with his beloved Eurydice.[10]

Immediately when night came the god sent heavy rain, and the river Sys (Boar), one of the torrents about Olympus, on this occasion threw down the walls of Libethra, overturning sanctuaries of gods and houses of men, and drowning the inhabitants and all the animals in the city. When Libethra was now a city of ruin, the Macedonians in Dium, according to my friend of Larisa, carried the bones of Orpheus to their own country.[11]

A number of Greek religious poems in hexameters were attributed to Orpheus, only two examples survived whole: a set of hymns composed at some point in the second or third century AD, and an Orphic Argonautica composed somewhere between the fourth and sixth centuries AD. Earlier Orphic literature, which may date back as far as the sixth century BC, survives only in papyrus fragments or in quotations. In addition to serving as a storehouse of mythological data along the lines of Hesiod's Theogony, Orphic poetry was recited in mystery-rites and purification rituals.

---

[1] Lopez, Barry Holstun. Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping With His Daughter: Coyote Builds North America. Avon Books, 1977, pp. 131-134.
[2] Wise, R. Todd, A Neocomparative Examination of the Orpheus Myth As Found in the Native American and European Traditions.UMI Press,1998
[3] Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, book III: "Let no footfall or barking of dogs cause you to turn around, lest you ruin everything", Medea warns Jason; after the dread rite, "The son of Aison was seized by fear, but even so he did not turn round..." (Richard Hunter, translator).
[4] Apollodorus (Pseudo Apollodorus), Library and Epitome, 1.3.2. "Orpheus also invented the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been torn in pieces by the Maenads he is buried in Pieria."
[5] Pentheús was a king of Thebes. His father was Echion, the wisest of the Spartoi. His mother was Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, and the goddess Harmonia. His sister was Epeiros. Much of what is known about the character comes from the interpretation of the myth in Euripides' tragic play, The Bacchae.
[6] Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, 9.30.1,The Macedonians who dwell in the district below Mount Pieria and the city of Dium say that it was here that Orpheus met his end at the hands of the women. Going from Dium along the road to the mountain, and advancing twenty stades, you come to a pillar on the right surmounted by a stone urn, which according to the natives contains the bones of Orpheus.
[7] A site proposed as the oracle of Orpheus in Antissa was identified in the early 21st century; see Harissis H.V. et al. "The Spelios of Antissa; The oracle of Orpheus in Lesvos" Archaiologia kai Technes 2002;83:68-73 (article in Greek with English abstract)
[8] Flavius Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 4.14.
[9] Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Introduction 4; Encyclopædia Britannica - 1911 Edition, Orpheus
^ Kathleen freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Harvard University Press (1948), p. 1.
[10] The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in Cultural Context by Marcele Detienne, ISBN 0-8018-6954-4, page 161
[11] Pausanias, Description of Greece, Boeotia, 9.30.1 [11]
____________________

The Derveni papyrus, found in Derveni, Macedonia (Greece) in 1962, contains a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem in hexameters, a theogony concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, written in the second half of the fifth century BC. Fragments of the poem are quoted making it "the most important new piece of evidence about Greek philosophy and religion to come to light since the Renaissance". The papyrus dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe's oldest surviving manuscript. The historian William Mitford wrote in 1784 that the very earliest form of a higher and cohesive ancient Greek religion was manifest in the Orphic poems.[1]

What has been sorted out by scholars is that the Orphic theogonies are genealogical works similar to the Theogony of Hesiod, but the details are different due, possibly, to Near-Eastern influence. The central story is this: Dionysus (in his incarnation as Zagreus[2]) is the son of Zeus and Persephone; Zeus gives his inheritance of the throne to the child, as Zeus is to leave due to Hera's anger over a child being born by another mother; Titans are enraged over the proclamation of attendance and under Hera's instigation decide to murder the child, Dionysus is then tricked with a mirror and children's toys by the Titans who murder and consume him. Athena saves the heart and tells Zeus of the crime who in turn hurls a thunderbolt on the Titans. The resulting soot, from which sinful mankind is born, contain the bodies of the Titans and Dionysus. The soul of man (Dionysus factor) is therefore divine, but the body (Titan factor) holds the soul in bondage. Thus it was declared that the soul returns to a host ten times, bound to the wheel of rebirth.

There are two Orphic stories of the rebirth of Dionysus, in one of which it is the heart of Dionysus that is implanted into the thigh of Zeus; the other where he has impregnated the mortal woman Semele resulting in Dionysus's literal rebirth. Many of these details differ from accounts in the classical authors. Firmicus Maternus, a Christian author, gives a different account with the book "On the Error of Profane Religions". He says that Jupiter (Zeus) originally was a (mortal) king of Crete, and Dionysos was his son. Dionysos was murdered, and cannibalized. Only his heart was salvaged by Athena. A statue of gypsum (the same substance the Titans used to disguise themselves) was then made to look like Dionysos and the heart is placed within.[3]

---

[1] Richard Janko, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, (2006) of K. Tsantsanoglou, G.M. Parássoglou, T. Kouremenos (editors), 2006. The Derveni Papyrus (Florence: Olschki) series "Studi e testi per il "Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini", vol. 13).
[2] In Greek a hunter who catches living animals is called zagreus, Karl Kerenyi notes, and the Ionian word zagre signifies a "pit for the capture of live animals"Karl Kerenyi, Dionysos: Archetypal image of indestructible life, (Princeton University Press) 1976:esp. pp 80–89.
[3] Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum 6.4
_______________________________

The following extract brings out this point as well as shedding some light on Porphyry’s remarks about Mithraism teaching a doctrine of the ascent and descent of souls:

The survival of pagan beliefs is yet clearer in later Greek and Latin versions of Zoroastres’ intercourse with heaven. Already in the fourth century BC, Dinon of Kolophon, author of a great historical work on Persia, beguiled by an obvious etymology, had stated that Zoroastres was “one that sacrificed to the stars;” and Hermodoros, probably the Syracusan pupil of Platon, was content with the same explanation. Dion Chrysostomos in a speech delivered at Prousa during the year 102 – 103 AD goes into greater detail. Zoroastres – he says – lived the life of a recluse on a certain mountain. Fire came down upon his mountain from above, so that it kindled and continued to burn. Thereupon the king of Persia and his notables drew near, wishing to worship the god. Zoroastres emerged scatheless from the fire, bade the king to be of good cheer and offer sacrifices as one that had come to the place where th god was. From that time onward, Zoroastres associated only with the Magoi, who could understand the god and knew how to serve the divine. …

The popular etymology of Zoroastres, combined with the notion that celestial fire descended upon him, was further amplified along the lines of Greek belief. According to the Clementine Homilies, the Magian Nebrod (Nimrod), wishing to become king, by his magic arts forced a certain star to grant him the kingdom. The star did so, but poured out upon him the royal fire in the form of lightning. Nebrod, killed by the lightning, was renamed Zoroastres since a “living stream from the star” had fallen upon him. His contemporaries, supposing that his soul had been fetched by the thunderbolt on account of his friendship with God, buried his remains, built a temple at the grave in Persia, where the fire had fallen, and worshipped the man as a god. Following their example, others in that region buried victims of thunderbolts as friends of God, built temples in their honour, and set up portrait statues of them.

The Clementine Recognitions give us the same statement in a somewhat earlier form. Mesraim (Mizraim), son of Cham (Ham), was the first to study magic. He gave much attention to the stars and wishing to be thought a god, pretended to produce sparks from them, till at length he was burnt by the demon, whom he had too often invoked. His contemporaries regarded him as a friend of God, carried up to heaven on a thunderbolt. They therefore built him a tomb, changed his name to Zoroaster, the “Living Star,” and worshipped him as such. Hence many persons still honour victims of lightning with tombs and respect them as being friends of God. Rufinus’ account is followed in the sixth century by Saint Gregory of Tours.

The Chronicon Paschale of the seventh century, together with the Byzantine historians Kedrenos, (c. 1100 AD) and Glykas (c. 1120 AD), states that Zoroastres the famous Persian astronomer, when about to die, prayed to Orion that he might be destroyed by the fire of heaven, and told the Persians to take up his burnt bones and preserve them, as the retention of sovereignty depended upon their safe-keeping. The lexicographers Souidas in the tenth century and “Zonaras” in the twelfth repeat the same tale with slight variations.

Even the twentieth century has not wholly outgrown the old-world view. In Makedonia it is thought that, if any one struck by lightning is immediately removed from the spot, where the accident befell him to a distance of forty paces, he will recover. Why” Because he is no longer within the domain or range of the divine power, no longer in Elysium.

The word elysion, which thus signifies both the spot struck by lightning and the abode of the divinized dead, is presumably related to elysie, a “way”. The term is remarkable and its applicability is not at once clear. We must suppose that the Greeks recognized a definite “way” from earth to heaven, along which those honored by the summons of Zeus might pass. …

What was this “road of Zeus”, this “gleaming way?” If I am not mistaken, it was the broad path of dim and distant splendor that stretches across the abyss of the midnight sky… the Milky Way…. All the world over it has been regarded as a celestial track. … this track is often held to be the road traversed by the gods or the souls of men….

The Pythagoreans indeed were much exercised about the Milky Way. Most of them took it to be a “way” of some sort. One group said that it was the track made by a star, which had fallen from its proper position at the time of Phaethon’s catastrophe. Others saw in it a burnt pathway marking the sun’s original course. … Three writers steeped in neo-Platonic lore, and drawing perhaps from a single source, ascribe to Pythagoras himself the belief that the Milky Way is the road by which souls come and go.[1]

It seems that the author above hasn’t considered the zodiacal cloud and light explained by Astronomers, Clube and Napier as follows:

Often overlooked by modern scholars, the zodiacal cloud is a discus-shaped swathe of comet dust through which the planets constantly move and whose most concentrated region is visible in good climates close to the Sun after dusk and before dawn. At the present time it can be seen as a pillar of light no less bright than the Milky Way, the pillar appearing close to the vertical in equatorial latitudes. If the zodiacal light were at one time much brighter, and contained decaying comets within it, then it would be seen to contain structure, and the Earth in the course of its orbit would run through these structures, or “hoops of fire”, sometimes to spectacular effect. …

Indeed, if they understood meteors and fireballs correctly, as the products of dying comets in hoop-like orbits that were no longer visible, there would have been a quite natural awareness of “hidden stars” coming between us and the Moon. …

The disintegration of a major comet or its offshoots injects a large mass of dust into the zodiacal cloud, and since the latter is seen by reflected sunlight, the result is a temporary increase in its observed brightness. Rare giant comets, orbiting in the inner planetary system with periods of only a few years, are a likely major source of such debris although no such active comet is visible at the present time. These early accounts may nevertheless be understandable as attempts to describe the process by which an active comet of this kind periodically enhanced the zodiacal light at some past epoch, creating clouds of debris which slowly spread along the constellations. In fact, there are several indications that the earliest references to the Milky Way are descriptions of an intense zodiacal light and that it, too, was able to reach below the Moon. …

Jets issuing from rotating wheels of fire; bodies coming between Moon and Earth; temporary “worlds” forming in the plane of the zodiac: it seems reasonable to conclude that the earliest philosophers were describing, perhaps from the experience of their forebears, an essentially correct association between cometary disintegration products and the formation of a luminous dust cloud in the plane of the ecliptic, albeit one which was also supposed to come between us and the Moon. We are beginning to see, perhaps, hints of a night sky which was not the one we see now; and perhaps even clues to the nature of the … gods and their thunderbolts…[2]

The celestial “stones” had particular abodes, as in regions of the sky that they frequented due to observations of their orbits of return. Those regions may contain constellations that were initially given names that were later changed after the name was transferred to the comet and then, finally, to a planet.

Where, when and how the Mithraic Mysteries spread to Rome is still hotly debated. According to Clauss, the first evidence is the 1st century AD and it is true, the unique underground temples or Mithraea appear suddenly in the archaeology in the last quarter of the 1st century AD.[3] However, Plutarch says that in 67 BC, the pirates of Cilicia (province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing the “secret rites” of Mithras. According to C.M.Daniels, the Carnuntum inscription is the earliest Mithraic dedication from the Danube region, which along with Italy is one of the two regions where Mithraism first struck root.

The considerable movement [of civil servants and military] throughout the empire was of great importance to Mithraism, and even with the very fragmentary and inadequate evidence that we have it is clear that the movement of troops was a major factor in the spread of the cult. Traditionally there are two geographical regions where Mithraism first struck root: Italy and the Danube. Italy I propose to omit, as the subject needs considerable discussion, and the introduction of the cult there, as witnessed by its early dedicators, seems not to have been military.

Before we turn to the Danube, however, there is one early event (rather than geographical location) which should perhaps be mentioned briefly in passing. This is the supposed arrival of the cult in Italy as a result of Pompey the Great's defeat of Cilician pirates, who practiced 'strange sacrifices of their own... and celebrated certain secret rites, amongst which those of Mithras continue to the present time, have been first instituted by them'. (ref Plutarch, "Pompey" 24-25) Suffice it to say that there is neither archaeological nor allied evidence for the arrival of Mithraism in the west at that time, nor is there any ancient literary reference, either contemporary or later. If anything, Plutarch's mention carefully omits making the point that the cult was introduced into Italy at that time or by the pirates.

Turning to the Danube, the earliest dedication from that region is an altar to Mitrhe (sic) set up by C. Sacidus Barbarus, a centurion of XV Appolinaris, stationed at the time at Carnuntum in Pannonia (Deutsch-Altenburg, Austria). The movements of this legion are particularly informative.[4]

The article explains that the Roman Legion designated as “XV Appolinaris” was originally based at Carnuntum, but between 62-71 transferred to the east to fight in the Armenian campaign, and then was sent to put down the Jewish uprising. In other words, this legion was part of the army that was in Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of the temple that I have proposed may have been due to a Tunguska-like event. If that was the case, then it would explain the turn to Mithraism which possibly taught the true meaning of the “gods” to its initiates. In any event, this particular Roman legion was then sent back to Carnuntum for the years 71- 86, and was intermittently involved in the Dacian wars between 86-105, then back to Carnuntum during the years 105-114, and finally garrisoned in Cappadocia in 114. Cappadocia is located in central Anatolia adjacent to Cilicia from whence the pirates mentioned above came. Phrygia is also found there.

---

[1] Arthur B. Cook (1925) Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Cambridge University, Vol. II, pp. 33-37 excerpts.
[2] Clube & Napier (1990) pp. 79-82, excerpts.
[3] Beck, R., "The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of their Genesis", Journal of Roman Studies, 1998, 115-128. p. 118.
[4] C. M. Daniels, "The Roman army and the spread of Mithraism" in John R. Hinnels, Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies, vol. 2, 1975, Manchester UP, pp.249-274.
__________________________________

Many meeting places, monuments and artifacts relating to the cult have been found within the area of the Roman Empire. The underground temples are decorated with numerous scenes showing Mithras being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun). There are about 1000 inscriptions, 700 examples of the bull-killing scene (tauroctony), and about 400 other assorted monuments. However, there are no written narratives or theology from the religion so scholars must utilize the images, the inscriptions, and the few references in Greek and Latin literature to attempt to interpret what the whole thing was about. And, of course, as far as I can tell, all of them are working without taking the astronomical phenomena described by Baillie, Clube, Napier and Bailey and others into account.[1]

Consider that Mitras was “born from a rock”. The most prominent deities in Mithraic scenes found in the underground mithraea decorations were, Sol[2] and Mithras. Their actions were reenacted following which, the initiates held a sacramental banquet, replicating the feast of Mithras and Sol, at a table draped with the hide of a newly slain bull. The main feasts were held in mid-summer, late June, early July, which links them with the Taurid meteor showers of summer, the same time period in which the Tunguska event occurred. An inscribed bronze plaque records a Mithraic festival of commemoration taking place on 26 June 184. (The Tunguska event occurred on June 30th.) The fact that the Temples of Mithra were underground reminds us of the painted caves of Europe where our paleolithic ancestors may have taken refuge during periods of cometary activity and the many paintings of bison may have been early representations of cometary bodies since roaring bulls and lions both are associated with comets. The cave-temples are often located near springs or streams and ritual basins for washing and/or baptism were incorporated into the structure.

The Feast of Mithras and the Sun is not fully understood by scholars except that they note that it was one of the main rituals of the cult. We should note as a point however, if we are considering a Comet hypothesis, we may wish to think about the horrible destruction that could be wrought by such events and how a feast may figure in such a scenario.

---

[1] Ulansey, David (1991). Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries. New York: Oxford UP. p. 3. "However, in the absence of any ancient explanations of its meaning, Mithraic iconography has proven to be exceptionally difficult to decipher."
[2] One wonders about Constantine’s claim that his father was a worshipper of Sol Invictus; was this because Constantius Chlorus was an initiate at the 6th grade, the tutelary deity of which was Sol?
___________



Coming back, finally, to Diocletian and his colleagues, we note that our emperors who met at Carnuntum must have been initiates of the Mithraic Mysteries. I would also suggest that Constantius Chlorus had been an initiate as well and this may have been one of the things that bound the emperors together. We can infer from the fact that Diocletian did not seek to create a material blood dynasty, yet that he and Maximian both adopted their caesars after appointment, that he had in mind something rather different: a dynasty of gods, related by selection, adoption, and initiation. This suggests that Diocletian’s imposition of an oriental form of totalitarianism related more to the concept of the king/emperor as the representative of the god and responsible to the god only, than to the idea of control for control’s sake. What he was setting up was much more like the concept of Hittite and Homeric kingship as described by Trevor Bryce:

If anything, the kings were as little known to most of their own subjects as they are to us. … they lived in Oz-like seclusion from the general populace behind the walls of the acropolis… Of course when the king came forth at the time of festival processions, the in habitants of the capital may have caught a distant glimpse of him in the midst of his entourage…Even on his regular and often lengthy military campaigns there was probably little scope for any camaraderie … The royal pavilion was no doubt well segregated from the camps of the common soldiers…

Much of it had to do with keeping the king free from contamination. The obsessive concern with ensuring that he was totally removed from all forms of contact with any persons or objects likely to cause defilement must have established an impassable barrier between him and the great majority of his subjects… Even the king’s shoes and chariot could be made only from the leather of animals slaughtered in the palace precincts and prepared under the strictest conditions of hygiene…

While in a physical sense the king seems to have been kept well insulated from the majority of his subjects, in an administrative sense he maintained close personal involvement in the affairs and daily activities of his kingdom. A great many of the officials and functionaries throughout the land were directly accountable to him, and reported regularly to him. … the kind himself [made] most of the decisions on even the most routine matters… There can be no doubt that in the management of the affairs …the king’s role was very much a hands-on one. He was chief priest of his people, the gods’ deputy on earth… He was commander-in-chief of the … armies… He deputized for the Sun God as the supreme earthly judge of his people, and personally sat in judgment on disputes… Encapsulated in these duties is the classic threefold functions of kingship in the Near East, as well as in Homeric society, which combines the king’s religious, military, and judicial roles.

[A] quality of kingship which, though not strongly emphasized in our texts, does surface from time to time. It is the quality of mercy or compassion. … Hattusili I declared his nephew unfit to succeed him for lack of this quality. … It is the quality which a king sought to instill in those charged with judicial responsibilities, instructing them to protect the weak and vulnerable members of society. … it may well reflect an important element in the ideology of kingship, albeit one which finds little explicit recognition in the record of royal qualities and achievements.[1]

A statement by Porphyry[2] reveals to us that those individuals initiated into the “Lion grade” of the Mithraic seven levels of initiation must “keep their hands pure from everything that brings pain and harm and is impure”, which tells us that important moral requirements were imposed on initiates. The Lion grade was ther fourth level and the tutelary deity was Jupiter and we notice that Diocletian always claimed Jupiter as his guide. In the Suda under the entry "Mithras", it states that "no one was permitted to be initiated into them (the mysteries of Mithras), until he should show himself holy and steadfast by undergoing several graduated tests."[3] This may be a key to the behaviors and actions of Diocletian and his initiated emperors.[4] In respect of very early references to Mithras, R. D. Barnett has argued that the royal seal of King Saussatar of Mitanni from c. 1450 BC. depicts Mithras in the bull-dominating posture (tauroctonos):

I ... see these figures or some of them in the impression of the remarkable royal seal of King Saussatar of Mitanni (c. 1450 BC great-great-grandfather of Kurtiwaza), the only royal Mitannian seal that we possess....Mithra--tauroctonos, characteristically kneeling on the bull to despatch it. We can even see also the dog and snake ... below him are twin figures, one marked by a star, each fighting lions ... below a winged disc between lions and ravens, stands a winged, human-headed lion, ...[5]

In a statue erected by Antiochus I (69-34 BC), Mithras is shown wearing a Phrygian cap and is depicted sitting on a throne with other deities and the king himself. "The gods are represented in a sitting position on a throne and are: Apollo-Mithras; Tyche-Commagene; Zeus-Ahura-Mazda; Antiochus himself and finally Ares-Artagnes." [6][7] Notice that all of these are associated with comet imagery. Vermaseren also reports the finds relating to a Mithras cult in 3rd century BC Fayum, Egypt.[8]

So, just what was going on? I’ve suggested that Lactantius has conflated Diocletian’s reorganization of the tax system and the Praetorian guard and used it to conceal the fact that something very unsettling was going on in Italy, at the very least, possibly more widespread than that, and that this opened the way for the ambitions of Maxentius. Examining the terms used by Lactantius to describe the fictional event suggested to me that it might be an epidemic, though the story of putting people onboard ships and sinking them was a bit of a puzzle. Was the sea misbehaving in some way (as it was in 311, further on)? Were there storms, fireballs, falls of rocks from the sky, “thunderbolts” or what? Was it this sort of thing that the emperors were reacting to when they restored the mithraeum at Carnuntum and possibly engaged in some sort of Mithraic ceremonials?

---

[1] Trevor Bryce (2004) Life and Society in the Hittite World, Oxford; Chapter: King, Court and Royal Officials, selected excerpts, pp.11 through 31.
[2] The philosopher Porphyry (3rd-4th century AD) gives an account of the origins of the Mysteries in his work De antro nympharum (The Cave of the Nymphs). Citing Eubulus as his source, Porphyry writes that the original temple of Mithras was a natural cave, containing fountains, which Zoroaster found in the mountains of Persia. To Zoroaster, this cave was an image of the whole world, so he consecrated it to Mithras, the creator of the world. Later in the same work, Porphyry links Mithras and the bull with planets and star-signs: Mithras himself is associated with the sign of Aries and the planet Mars, while the bull is associated with Venus.
[3] Clauss, The Roman cult of Mithras, p.102. The Suda reference given is 3: 394, M 1045 Adler.
[4] Clauss, M., The Roman cult of Mithras, p.144-145
[5] R D Barnett (1975). John R Hinnells. ed. Mithraic studies: proceedings of the first International congress of Mithraic studies, Vol. II. Manchester University Press ND. pp. 467–468.
[6] Lewis M. Hopfe, "Archaeological indications on the origins of Roman Mithraism", in Lewis M. Hopfe (ed). Uncovering ancient stones: essays in memory of H. Neil Richardson, Eisenbrauns (1994), pp. 147-158. p. 156.
[7] Vermaseren, M. J. (1956), Corpus inscriptionum et monumentorum religionis mithriacae, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, CIMRM 29, "Head of a beardless Mithras in Phrygian cap, point of which is missing."
[8] R D Barnett (1975). John R Hinnells. ed. Mithraic studies: proceedings of the first International congress of Mithraic studies, Vol. II. Manchester University Press ND. pp. 467–. "According to Vermaseren, there was a Mithras cult in the Fayum in the third century BC, and according to Pettazzoni the figure of Aion has its iconographic origin in Egypt."

 

[Pierre]

Manfred Clauss, in The Roman cult of Mithras, p.23-4 states that Mithraism was never official supported by the Roman state:

And, at the same time, this other source claims the contrary:

In the first Christian century there were at Rome associations of the followers of Mithra, probably organized as burial associations, in accordance with a common device of that period employed to acquire a legal status. The growth and importance of the cult in the second century are marked by the literary notices; Celsus opposed it to Christianity, Lucian made it the object of his wit. Nero desired to be initiated; Commodus (180-192) was received into the brotherhood; in the third century the emperors had a Mithraic chaplain; Aurelian (270-275) made the cult official; Diocletian, with Galerius and Licinius, in 307 dedicated a temple to Mithra; and Julian was a devotee.

Maybe both sources are correct if we factor in the missing link Sol Invictus (source):

By the late second century, Mithraism had attracted the support not only of a range of government officials but even of the emperor himself. Commodus, emperor from c.e. 180 to 192, was initiated into the sect, and a frieze at Ephesus shows the sun taking his father, Marcus Aurelius, up to heaven in a chariot escorted by the moon and stars. Commodus was the first of a succession of Roman emperors for whom popular worship of the sun as the supreme body in the heavens affirmed their own earthly powers. (An interesting comparison can be made here with the role of sun worship in Inca society.) Caracalla, emperor from c.e. 212 to 217, seems to have portrayed himself as the son of the sun god; and the mother of Aurelian (c.e. 270-275) was believed, at least by some, to be a priestess of the sun. The culmination came in c.e. 274, when, under Aurelian, the cult of Sol Invictus became the official state religion of the empire.

So was Sol Invictus equal to Mithra? The same Clauss who denied that Mithraism was a state religion wrote:

Clauss, p.146: "Roman Mithras is the invincible sun-god, Sol Invictus. This is the burden, repeated a hundred times over, of the votive inscriptions from the second to the fourth centuries AD, whether in the form Sol Invictus Mithras, or Deus Sol Invictus Mithras, or Deus Sol Mithras, or Sol Mithras. There do not seem to be any significant regional or temporal variations among such formulae. In the very earliest epigraphic evidence for the Roman cult of Mithras, the god is already invoked as Sol Invictus Mithras. These facts are confirmed by the numerous votive offerings to Sol, Deus Sol, Sol Invictus, and Deus Invictus Sol which were put up in mithraea."

So Mithra is Sol Invictus, right? It's not so simple according to Clauss:

Clauss, p.147: "On the other hand, however, Mithras and Sol are two separate deities, as can amply be demonstrated."; p.148: "Mithras is Sol, and at the same time Sol is Mithras' companion. Paradoxical relationships of this kind are to be found between many deities in antiquity. People in the ancient world did not feel bound by fixed credos and confessions which had to be consistent to the last detail: in the area of religion, a truly blessed anarchy held sway."

A way to solve this paradox is, maybe to acknowledge that religions morph over time. In Persian Mazdeism, Mithra and Mazda are two separate entities. At the birth of Roman Mithraism, Mithra and Sol are two entities. During the late Roman Empire, have Mithra and the Unconquered Sun fused into one entity?

 

[dennis]

Don't know if this is relevant to the discussion but two years ago this study came out.

Second Alignment Plane of Solar System Discovered​

A study of comet motions indicates that the Solar System has a second alignment plane. Analytical investigation of the orbits of long-period comets shows that the aphelia of the comets, the point where they are farthest from the Sun, tend to fall close to either the well-known ecliptic plane where the planets reside or a newly discovered “empty ecliptic.” This has important implications for models of how comets originally formed in the Solar System.
...
The Solar System does not exist in isolation; the gravitational field of the Milky Way Galaxy in which the Solar System resides also exerts a small but non-negligible influence. Arika Higuchi, an assistant professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Japan and previously a member of the NAOJ RISE Project, studied the effects of the Galactic gravity on long-period comets by using analytical investigation of the equations governing orbital motion. She showed that when the Galactic gravity is taken into account, the aphelia of long-period comets tend to collect around two planes. First the well-known ecliptic, but also a second “empty ecliptic.” The ecliptic is inclined with respect to the disk of the Milky Way by about 60 degrees. The empty ecliptic is also inclined by 60 degrees, but in the opposite direction. Higuchi calls this the “empty ecliptic” because initially it contains no objects, only later being populated with scattered comets, and because it is symmetrical with the ecliptic about the plane perpendicular to the Galactic plane through the intersection of the ecliptic plane and the Galactic plane (just like the focus and the empty focus of an ellipse).

Second Alignment Plane of Solar System Discovered | CfCA - Center for Computational Astrophysics

A study of comet motions indicates that the Solar System has a second alignment plane. Analytical investigation of the orbits of long-period comets shows that the aphelia of the comets, the point where they are farthest from the Sun, tend to fall close to either the well-known ecliptic plane...

www.cfca.nao.ac.jp

here is the paper:

ShieldSquare Captcha

 

[thorbiorn]

In the following Wikipedia entry for an image of the 'Phrygian cap on a pole', someone wrote:



The full-page Wiki entry for 'Phrygian cap' displays various countries (almost all of them Caribbean and Latin American) that have the 'Phrygian cap on a pole' incorporated into their coat of arms. If it's true that the Phrygian cap was 'confused' for the pileus, then all these modern republics followed the French republicans' mistake!

Still, while the designers of these modern coats of arms probably didn't make any connection with Caesar, they have (unconsciously) symbolically linked their 'freedom from the Spanish Empire' with a symbol marking the assassination of Caesar.

In any event, we're still left with the Roman Mithras (and Attis!) wearing a Phrygian cap, not a freed slave's pileus.

What this would mean is that the information in the quote in Pierre's first post is inaccurate. It said:

Known as the “Eid Mar” or the “Ides of March,” the coin bears a heroic portrait of Brutus with the inscription BRVT IMP, which casts him as a military victor […]On the reverse, the coin features two daggers—thought to represent Brutus and his co-conspirator, Gaius Cassius—and a Phrygian cap [20]

Maybe it is "thought to represent" a Phrygian cap, but it is not a close match, or is that the coin? This is more evident when compared with other hats and helmets.
First the cap in the coin:

which is the similar to one used in the Wiki about pileus, where it is listed under Rome

Pileus between two daggers, on the reverse of a denarius issued by Brutus to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March

Next, compare the above model with older ancient Greek helmets, as seen in the following photo from the Wiki about Pileus (hat). The above hat appears to be closer to the one described as "pileus helmet with an olive branch" but less pointed, similar to the "Chalcidian helmet" bottom right.

Ancient Greek helmets. Top line, from left to right: Illyrian type helmet, Corinthian helmet.
Bottom line, from left to right: Phrygian type helmet, Pileus helmet with an olive branch ornament, Chalcidian helmet. Staatliche Antikensammlungen

In the Wiki about pileus, they say:

The pileus (Ancient Greek: πῖλος, pîlos; also pilleus or pilleum in Latin) was a brimless felt cap worn in Ancient Greece, Etruria, Illyria (Pannonia),[1][2][3][4] later also introduced in Ancient Rome.[5] The pileus also appears on Apulian red-figure pottery.

And:

The Roman pileus resembled the Greek pilos and was often made of felt.[8] In Ancient Rome, a slave was freed in a ceremony in which a praetor touched the slave with a rod called a vindicta and pronounced him to be free. The slave's head was shaved and a pileus was placed upon it. Both the vindicta and the cap were considered symbols of Libertas, the goddess representing liberty.[27] This was a form of extra-legal manumission (the manumissio minus justa) considered less legally sound than manumission in a court of law.[citation needed]

One 19th-century dictionary of classical antiquity states that, "Among the Romans the cap of felt was the emblem of liberty. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaved, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus."[28] Hence the phrase servos ad pileum vocare is a summons to liberty, by which slaves were frequently called upon to take up arms with a promise of liberty (Liv. XXIV.32). The figure of Liberty on some of the coins of Antoninus Pius, struck A.D. 145, holds this cap in the right hand.[29]

And there is an image:

John Wilkes depicted by Hogarth with the cap of Liberty on a pole, as it was sometimes carried in public demonstrations during the 18th century

So the relation with the Phrygian hat and liberty wasn't even solid in the 18th century. For context, Wilkes lived from 1725 to 1797, so fashion may have changed around the French Revolution, or were there other reasons.
The Wiki on the Phrygian cap has:

Although Phrygian caps did not originally function as liberty caps, they came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty first in the American Revolution and then in the French Revolution.[2] The original cap of liberty was the Roman pileus, the felt cap of emancipated slaves of ancient Rome, which was an attribute of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. In the 16th century, the Roman iconography of liberty was revived in emblem books and numismatic handbooks where the figure of Libertas is usually depicted with a pileus.[3] The most extensive use of headgear as a symbol of freedom in the first two centuries after the revival of the Roman iconography was made in the Netherlands, where the cap of liberty was adopted in the form of a contemporary hat.[4] In the 18th century, the traditional liberty cap was widely used in English prints, and from 1789 also in French prints; by the early 1790s, it was regularly used in the Phrygian form.

It is used in the coat of arms of certain republics or of republican state institutions in the place where otherwise a crown would be used (in the heraldry of monarchies). It thus came to be identified as a symbol of republican government. A number of national personifications, in particular France's Marianne, are commonly depicted wearing the Phrygian cap. Scientists pointed to the cultural and historical relationship of the Phrygian cap with the kurkhars — the national female headdress of the Ingush people.[5]

Now, why the Phrygian cap would gain prevalence during the American Revolution is another question. Was there in the use of a hat styled after the Phrygian helmet also an identification with the time of Alexander the Great, considering, that the Wiki about the Phrygian helmet mentions:

The Phrygian helmet is prominently worn in representations of the infantry of Alexander the Great's army, such on the contemporary Alexander sarcophagus.[6] The Phrygian helmet was in prominent use at the end of Greece's classical era and into the Hellenistic period, replacing the earlier 'Corinthian' type from the 5th century BC

The US empire has followed Alexander the Great in some ways, but maybe the Phrygian hat was just, or also a matter of fashion. It looks a fancy compared to a normal hat.

 

[Gaby]

Perhaps understanding of precession enabled that person to figure out something very important from those texts, including a date. Were they then able, utilizing their knowledge of astronomy, able to re-create the night sky in images by precessing the sky map? Another question that this raises is: did the person who figured out the code from more ancient sources also figure out that such an event was in the future and was the tauroctony not just a record of the past, but a warning for the future? That sort of thing would truly be worthy of creating a new mystery religion. But that is just speculation.

So the question for us here is this: if the tauroctony of the Mithraic Mysteries was a record of a cataclysmic event – the very event that I dated in Secret History via a different pathway - did the person or persons who either created or modified and propagated this cult know about the event in any detail? Did they also, in the process of accessing the records and knowledge from which they constructed their hybrid cult, also discover a method of prediction, and formulate a theory about amelioration?

It's all so fascinating.

Here's some complementary reading about Secret History and the metonic cycle, FWIW.

Session 25 August 2006

August 25, 2006 Laura, Ark, Perceval, Andromeda, Mr. Scott, Guest:SD, Atriedes, Alana, Galahad Q: Hello? A: Over the rainbow. Q: Who do we have with us this evening? A: Ronnjia Q: And where do you transmit through? A: Cassiopaea/Leo. Q: What does “Over the rainbow” refer to? A...

cassiopaea.org

19 Year Cycle Lunar Standstill Upcoming

Back when Secret History was going through its first edits, Frank J (QFG researcher) was quite fascinated by the discussion of the 19 year cycle. He decided to do some research. The graphs and things he included in his paper aren't included in the following, but they aren't necessary. What...

cassiopaea.org

 

[Laura]

After going back through all my notes and writing on the topic, even with the smattering of additional information posted on this thread, I don't think we can eliminate a connection between the assassins of Julius Caesar and cult of Mithra, or the use of the cult by said assassins to promote some sort of ideology.

We have the following items. I can't call them facts because we don't know clearly what is truth or fiction in all this:

Plutarch said that the Cilician pirates were practicing this strange worship.
There is a strong connection between Pompey and the pirates in several ways.
Mark Anthony's grandfather and possibly father had some sort of relationship with the pirates.
Plutarch said that the pirates abducted Julius Caesar and held him for ransom.
Caesar crucified the pirates that abducted him.
Pompey fought against Caesar.
Plutarch made a reference to the pirates that he repeated in his story about Cleopatra.
Mark Anthony was not available to help Caesar at the time of his assassination.
Caesar moved to the foot of Pompey's statue as he was dying.
Mark Anthony took up Cleopatra and fought against Rome.
Roman Mithraism spread via the army.

There's a whole heck of a lot we do not know. There is certainly space in there for some prestidigitation. And we well know that something that begins with one ideology can shift over time via the infiltration of pathological types, until it becomes something altogether different. Witness the transformation of the Left in our own times.

Is the image of the Tauroctony a representation of the assassination of Julius Caesar? It could certainly have been used as such by Roman republicans who survived the proscriptions of Octavian, Anthony and Lepidus. There were many, like Tacitus, who saw what was going on when Octavian took the reins of government all the while pretending he was NOT doing that. The army made and unmade emperors from very early on and there were quite a number of emperors who were taken out by the army. So, even if there was a large faction of army veterans who worshipped Julius Caesar, there could very well have been a faction that worshipped Mithras and used the cult to conceal their anti-Caesar inclinations. And in later times, during the reign of Augustus and those who followed him, the cult of Mithra could have concealed anti-imperialists. And who knows what the ideology had devolved to by the time of Diocletian?

 

[Pierre]

What this would mean is that the information in the quote in Pierre's first post is inaccurate. It said:

Indeed it looks like a pileus, not a Phrygian cap. At the time the symbolism between the two was different. The pileus was a symbol of liberty while the Phrygian had different meanings depending the location and time.

We find the cult of Cybele associated with the Phrygian cap:

By the 4th century BC (early Hellenistic period) the Phrygian cap was associated with Phrygian Attis, the consort of Cybele, the cult of which had by then become graecified.

And Aenas, one of the alleged ancestor of Julius Caesar is depicted wearing a Phrygian cap:



Aeneas mourning his lover. In these scenes, a bearded Aeneas is fully clothed, with dark skin and a Phrygian cap, while Dido has lighter hair and is naked save for a floating scarf that hides nothing.

But then, Brutus and co. replaced the pileus by the Phrygian cap as the symbol of liberty:

In late Republican Rome, a soft felt cap called the pileus served as a symbol of freemen (i.e. non-slaves), and was symbolically given to slaves upon manumission, thereby granting them not only their personal liberty, but also libertas— freedom as citizens, with the right to vote (if male). Following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Brutus and his co-conspirators instrumentalized this symbolism of the pileus to signify the end of Caesar's dictatorship and a return to the (Roman) republican system.[7]

These Roman associations of the pileus with liberty and republicanism were carried forward to the 18th century, until when the pileus was confused with the Phrygian cap, then becoming a symbol of those values.[8]

We find the same confusion the Phrygian cap and the pileus in quote commenting Brutus' coin.

What was real symbolism attached to Phrygian cap in Mithraism?

 

[BHelmet]

“Mithras is Sol, and at the same time Sol is Mithras' companion. Paradoxical relationships of this kind are to be found between many deities in antiquity.”

Deities in antiquity? How about the Triune God of “modern” Christianity? God in three persons. These mind-numbing paradoxical theological relationships are with us to this day.

 

[T.C.]

Naturally, there’s a whole lot of mental gymnastics that gets performed explaining that nonsense, but what is important is that we are seeing here, instances where striking a rock (or initiate) for water and speaking to a rock (or initiate) are related to each other in a peculiar way. It is as though there is a dual emphasis on action and word that can be done and spoken to re-invigorate or replicate the miracle of getting water from a rock or achieving abundant life; the right ritual, the correct behavior, can align one with the powers of the god. Perhaps the ritual was as simple as reciting the story of the event while it was being re-enacted, or saying the correct words that were alleged to have been spoken by the god at the time; it could have been as complex as a long period of instruction and efforts to achieve self-knowledge before initiation was performed.

Just wanted to mention on this note that the third degree in Freemasonry is concerned with the initiate re-enacting the death of Hiram Abif, the architect of Solomon’s Temple. Hiram is leaving the temple one day when three builders accost him and demand to know the password of a master mason. Abif refuses and the first ruffian hits him - the 3rd degree candidate for initiation - on one side of the head with a mason’s maul. Abif stumbles over to the second ruffian, who demands the password. Again Abif/the candidate refuses and he is hit on the other side of the head. Finally, the same thing happens with the third ruffian who strikes Abif in the middle of the forehead and kills him. At this point, the candidate is made to safely fall backwards to the floor, is wrapped in a shroud, and from this position is ‘raised’ to the degree of a master mason using the grip/handshake of the third degree, and given the password or sacred word of the third degree.

Traditionally, there was supposed to be a year between each initiation for a Freemason, to give them time to better themselves in different ways and show they were a good person. Meaning this 3rd degree would be done after two years in the organisation.

 

[thorbiorn]

This post discuses the Phrygian hat and its connotations as a symbol of freedom, followed by thoughts on the Phrygian hat as a common or ceremonial heard gear, and finally a couple of excerpt suggesting that there were connections in the ancient world that might influence the truthfulness of what we are presented with.

But then, Brutus and co. replaced the pileus by the Phrygian cap as the symbol of liberty:

In late Republican Rome, a soft felt cap called the pileus served as a symbol of freemen (i.e. non-slaves), and was symbolically given to slaves upon manumission, thereby granting them not only their personal liberty, but also libertas— freedom as citizens, with the right to vote (if male). Following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Brutus and his co-conspirators instrumentalized this symbolism of the pileus to signify the end of Caesar's dictatorship and a return to the (Roman) republican system.[7]

These Roman associations of the pileus with liberty and republicanism were carried forward to the 18th century, until when the pileus was confused with the Phrygian cap, then becoming a symbol of those values.[8]

We find the same confusion the Phrygian cap and the pileus in quote commenting Brutus' coin.

The source of the above quote is from the Wiki about the Phrygian Cap under the heading: "From Phrygian cap to liberty cap". In the notes under 7 mentions "a cap", but does not specify.

7. Cf. Appian, Civil Wars 2:119: "The murderers wished to make a speech in the Senate, but as nobody remained there they wrapped their togas around their left arms to serve as shields, and, with swords still reeking with blood, ran, crying out that they had slain a king and tyrant. One of them bore a cap on the end of a spear as a symbol of freedom, and exhorted the people to restore the government of their fathers and recall the memory of the elder Brutus and of those who took the oath together against ancient kings."

And from the first post in the thread:

Following the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC, Brutus and his co-conspirators instrumentalized this symbolism of the pileus [Phrygian cap] to signify the end of Caesar's dictatorship and a return to the (Roman) republican system[15]

Following 15 it says

"[15] Stefano Carpani (2022) “Individuation and Liberty in a Globalized World” Taylor & Francis"

Maybe it is from Stefano and Carpani, but the wording is the same as in the Wiki. And the Wiki gives a reference that doesn't really support the statement, as it only says: "One of them bore a cap on the end of a spear as a symbol of freedom," so there is no mention of a Phrygian cap.

If the Wikis we have quoted are correct, then the Phrygian cap entered only late with the American and French revolutions. In my last post, I had posted the image from the mid-18th century of the English politician with this stick and cap, but it was a cap that did not resemble a Phrygian cap.

It is not so much that Brutus and Co championed the use of the Phrygian hat, but rather that they appropriated the common hat and stick used at the time in a ceremony to mark a transition from slave to free man, to become a symbol of the transition from a tyranny to a free society. In a way, it is not so unlike various symbols and colours that become mascots and signs of modern day colour revolutions. That someone would later associate the Phrygian cap with the symbol of political freedom to the extent that it appeared on flags and shields should perhaps raise questions about the intentions, if we can't accept the possibility it was a mere coincidence, which I think it might have been.

Was the Phrygian cap used by some as a ceremonious gear because it was a tradition?
That may be a trivial question, with a trivial answer (Yes), but I will try to address it as if it wasn't hoping to discover details. So to answer this question, one could say, that many religious groups have a particular kind of hat. Sometimes a piece of clothing is used as a tradition, even when there is no longer a good reason: Take the example of the Ruff (clothing).

A ruff is an item of clothing worn in Western, Central, Northern Europe and in Spanish America from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century. The round and flat variation is often called a millstone collar after its resemblance to millstones for grinding grain.

By the start of the seventeenth century, ruffs were falling out of fashion in Western Europe, in favour of wing collars and falling bands. The fashion lingered longer in the Dutch Republic, where ruffs can be seen in portraits well into the seventeenth century, and farther east. The ruff remained part of the ceremonial dress of city councillors (Senatoren) in the cities of the Hanseatic league and of Lutheran clergy in Denmark, Norway, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland.

And today, see the picture of the priest to the right, there is this situation, where it distinguishes the priest from the community, as the service is being performed.

Ruffs remain part of the formal attire of bishops and ministers in the Church of Denmark and the Church of the Faroe Islands and are generally worn for services. The Church of Norway removed the ruff from its clergy uniform in 1980, although some conservative ministers, such as Børre Knudsen, continued to wear them. Ruffs are optional for boy sopranos in Anglican church choirs.[6]

In the above example, the present day use in the Church of Denmark there is no higher reason, except tradition and conservative values. It does not make any difference for the Church performance or theology, though one can say that it ties back to the time of the Lutheran Reformation, which gave rise to this piece of clothing and used at the time it distinguished the Reformed Church from the Catholic. Perhaps that is also the situation with the Phrygian cap in late Roman Mithraism.

From the Wiki on the Phrygian hat, there was:

In the early Hellenistic world
By the 4th century BC (early Hellenistic period) the Phrygian cap was associated with Phrygian Attis, the consort of Cybele, the cult of which had by then become graecified. At around the same time, the cap appears in depictions of the legendary king Midas and other Phrygians in Greek vase-paintings and sculpture.[6] Such images predate the earliest surviving literary references to the cap.

Initially, the Phrygian hat was associated with a particular group of people, but just as baseball hats may have begun in one country the fad spread, or it was projected onto them as a mean of identification, for the Greeks it was associated with barbarians.

By extension, the Phrygian cap also came to be applied to several other non-Greek-speaking peoples ("barbarians" in the classical sense). Most notable of these extended senses of "Phrygian" were the Trojans and other western Anatolian peoples, who in Greek perception were synonymous with the Phrygians, and whose heroes Paris, Aeneas, and Ganymede were all regularly depicted with a Phrygian cap. Other Greek earthenware of antiquity also depict Amazons and so-called "Scythian" archers with Phrygian caps. Although these are military depictions, the headgear is distinguished from "Phrygian helmets" by long ear flaps, and the figures are also identified as "barbarians" by their trousers.

The Romans took over the extended understanding of the Phrygian cap.

In the Roman world
The Greek concept passed to the Romans in its extended sense, and thus encompassed not only to Phrygians or Trojans (which the Romans also generally associated with the term "Phrygian"), but also the other near-neighbours of the Greeks. On Trajan's Column, which commemorated Trajan's epic wars with the Dacians (101–102 and 105–106 AD), the Phrygian cap adorns the heads of Dacian warriors. The prisoner, accompanying Trajan in the monumental, 3 m tall statue of Trajan in the ancient Turkish city of Laodicea, is wearing a Phrygian Cap. Parthians appear with Phrygian caps in the 2nd-century Arch of Septimius Severus, which commemorates Roman victories over the Parthian Empire. Likewise with Phrygians caps, but for Gauls, appear in 2nd-century friezes built into the 4th century Arch of Constantine.

If the above use of the Phrygian hat was general and attributed to near-neighbours of the Greeks up until the second century, it gradually became associated with Mithraism. Below it gives the interval of first to fourth century for ceremonial use. So there was an overlap during the first and second century, where there was both everyday and ceremonial use of the Phrygian hat.

The Phrygian cap reappears in figures related to the first to fourth century religion of Mithraism. This astrology-centric Roman mystery cult (cultus) projected itself with pseudo-Oriental trappings (known as perserie in scholarship) in order to distinguish itself from both traditional Roman religion and from the other mystery cults. In the artwork of the cult (e.g. in the so-called "tauroctony" cult images), the figures of the god Mithras as well as those of his helpers Cautes and Cautopates are routinely depicted with a Phrygian cap. The function of the Phrygian cap in the cult are unknown, but it is conventionally identified as an accessory of its perserie.

When they write that "The function of the Phrygian cap in the cult are unknown.", but there may not be a deeper meaning except that of distinguishing an officiating priest from those that are not, or distinguishing a believer from those that are not.

The Wiki mentions, that in the tradition of the early church, the three wise men wore Phrygian hats. Perhaps that is a way of crediting the Phrygian hat community with knowledge.

Early Christian art (and continuing well into the Middle Ages) build on the same Greco-Roman perceptions of (Pseudo-)Zoroaster and his "Magi" as experts in the arts of astrology and magic, and routinely depict the "three wise men" (that follow a star) with Phrygian caps.

As I was looking for a map of the Roman Empire, I found a French map with the different religious practices in the late Roman Empire. Mithraism is the red colour, and there were quite a few spots.

The above map may not be representative of reality, as the archaeological work may have differed in quantity and quality in the area depicted.

Roman and Greek propaganda and disinformation?
When analysing the question of the Phrygian hat and its possible meaning, there is the problem that there can be ancient propaganda and disinformation at work too. Today, the British, Americans, Israelis, Chinese, Iranians, French, Russians, Indians have their reporters and contacts spread out across the world. What if it was like that in the old days also? And were there transnational mostly private groups equivalent to secret societies or influential, closed, invite-only type of "think tanks".? At least, I have been wondering why the Greek enforcer were not Roman or Latin enforcers in the following transcript:

Session 7 November 1994

November 7, 1994 Frank and Laura Q: (L) Hello who do we have with us tonight? A: Goonian. Q: (L) Are you a discarnate? A: No. Q: (L) Where are you from? A: Cassiopaea. Q: (L) Are you ready for our questions? A: Yes. Q: (L) I would like to know what is the origin and meaning...

cassiopaea.org

Q: (L) Who wrote the book of Matthew?

A: Greek enforcers.

Q: (L) What are Greek enforcers?

A: Like your FBI.

Q: (L) Who wrote the book of Mark?

A: Same.

Q: (L) Luke and John?

A: Same?

Q: (L) Acts?

A: Same?

Q: (L) Are any books of the New Testament written by who they claim to be written by?

A: No. Remember this is 70% propaganda.

Q: (L) Is 30% then the truth or the actual teachings?

A: Close. Enough you must decipher from instinct through meditation.

Is it possible what we know of Mithraism is similarly clouded, after all the Phrygian cap was kind of associated with barbarians for quite a period of time.

In another session, there was a hint that people in power, or with power, might have networked also in the old days.

Session 16 October 1994

October 16, 1994 Frank, Laura, V___ Q: Hello. A: Hello. Music is Good. Q: (L) Can you give us your name? A: Cederra. Q: (L) I would like to know what is the origin of the Freemasons? A: Osirians. Q: (L) Can you tell us when the original Freemasons formed as a society? A: 5633...

cassiopaea.org

Q: (L) On the subject of the 666, I was given an insight into this several years ago as to another meaning of it, is that interpretation also correct?

A: Maybe. VI is 6 in Roman Numerals. S was 6 in ancient Egypt. A was 6 in Sanskrit. VISA, see, is 666. Interesting that to travel for extended periods one needs a "visa" also, yes?

Next is a map of Alexander the Greats Empire, which might have connected Greece with Sanskritian traditions nearer to India, as well as with Egypt and Rome.


Below is a map from the Wiki of the Roman Empire, 117 AD. Obviously, Egypt and Rome are within, and the connection with India could be maintained via ship through the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. It is quite possible there were well travelled, learned people who could think of 666 and much more. Probably some of them could tell us more about the Julius Caesar and Mithraism.

 

[Alejo]

I wanted to share a few thoughts that I had on this in the past few days, it may or may not have any value whatsoever, I just found them curious and figured I'd post them here.

The whole thing with the bull, it struck me that it is an interesting animal to sacrifice, mock and identify with Caesar. The thing with the bull is that it is often (or exclusively) seen as dangerous, deadly and worthy of the bull fighting that has gone on for so long, because they're so dangerous, and they objectively are, you do not mess with a bull.

But, then I thought, they're not predators, bull's probably posses the strength that a lion does, or a tiger. The capacity for harm that a lot of predators have, but the bull isn't one. And it may not have had anything to do with selecting the image at all, maybe whoever picked it simply wanted a strong and menacing beast to put on the shields, but it is interesting that much like the bull, Caesar was not a predator, but it didn't mean he was harmless, in fact, he was dangerous, but he wasn't out there looking for prey, which everyone who assassinated him most certainly were.

Which was probably part of the reason to take him out, he wasn't one of them, not a predator so their ideas would never resonate with him. And it made me think, one does not have to turn into a predator in order to be dangerous. it was an interesting idea.

Now, the other thing that occurred to me, and I have not looked into this at all, but it is interesting that down through history, the image that we're given for "evil" is often accompanied by horns, and I was wondering if this was perhaps by design, in the same vein of Mithraism.