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Rare Ancient Wooden Throne Found in Herculaneum

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Author Topic: Rare Ancient Wooden Throne Found in Herculaneum  (Read 1898 times)
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Bianca
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« Reply #15 on: December 04, 2007, 06:25:20 pm »



Herculaneum
Inlaid marble floor


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herculaneum
« Last Edit: December 04, 2007, 06:26:23 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #16 on: December 04, 2007, 06:38:09 pm »

Cybele- Attis Cult
The Magna Mater of all living creatures was especially the goddess of the wilder aspects of nature. She was worshipped in the depths of virgin forests and on the tops of mounntains, and her cult titles named her the "Mountain Mother," and the "Divinity of the Mountains," not to mention such local appellations as "Dindymene," or the "Idaean Mother." Even Cybele, the familiar literary designation of the Great Mother, was, according to Strabo and Diodorus, derived from a mountain or range of mountains. "A grove I had upon the mountains' crest, whither men brought me offerings," said the goddess herself in describing one of her favorite haunts, "a pine forest beloved for many years, dim with dusky firs and trunks of maple." Anacharsis the Scythian was a typical devotee of the Magna Mater, for he worshiped her in a place "full of trees." She was also the "Mistress of Wild Beasts, and lions were her constant companions in literature and in art. The author of the fourteenth Homeric Hymn addressed the Mother of the Gods as one who "is glad in the cry of wolves and fiery-eyed lions, and in echoing hills, and woodland haunts." Thus she appeared as the goddess of all natural life, particularly in its wild and untamed aspects.

With her was associated a hero-divinity called Attis who personified the life of the vegetable world particularly. The pine tree was peculiarly his own and played a prominent part in his annual ritual. His priests were tattooed with an ivy-leaf pattern. Statues represented him crowned with fruits and holding ears of corn in his hand. He was himself addressed as the "reaped green (or yellow) ear of corn" in the hymn of Hippolytus, and the myth of his sufferings was interpreted now as the harvesting of ripened grain or again as the fading of spring flowers. His devotees in their feasts, while they might eat the stalks and upper parts of plants, were forbidden to eat seeds and the roots of vegetables for in these the divine life of their god was especially manifested. Above all, the great festival of Attis, held at the time of the vernal equinox, took the form of a mystery drama which obviously represented the reviving of the vegetable world at that season of the year.

Around these two divinities, the Great Mother and the god of vegetation, there grew up a confused tangle of myths in explanation of their cult rites. Various writers, pagan and Christian, gave different versions of the Cybele-Attis myth. Pausanias recounted two very different renderings of the legend. One of these was repeated by the Christian writer Arnobius, on the authority of a certain Timotheus. In detail the final edition was much more elaborate than the earlier rendition by Pausanias. Diodorus also recounted the Cybele-Attis myth with one or two singular omissions, while Firmicus Maternus gave a markedly euhemeristic interpretation of the legend. The accounts by Ovid, bv the philosopher Sallust, and by the Emperor Julian were similar to each other at points, yet differed in important respects from the other renderings of the legend.

The specific variations in all these diverse statements do not concern us, for certain significant elements were common to all the various versions. In each instance the relationship of Cybele and Attis was essentially the same, and their experiences were much the same throughout. According to the myth, the goddess-mother loved the youthful, virgin-born shepherd Attis with a pure love. But Attis died, either slain by another or by his own hand. In the latter instance, he was unfaithful to the Great Mother and in a frenzy of regret he emasculated himself and died. The goddess-mother mourned her dead lover and finally affected his restoration. Thus, in the end, the mortal Attis became deified and immortal. These were the main elements in the developed myth which bulked largest in the mind of the devotee as he participated in the rites of the cult.

The whole myth was palpably transparent. Attis, the god of vegetation grown to youthful beauty, is loved by Mother Earth. But the flowers of springtime faded and the fruits of summer are harvested. Nature is despoiled of her vegetation. Attis dies. Then the Mother mourns her dead plant life and remains in sorrow during autumn and winter. But with returning springtime vegetation revives and the youthful god Attis is restored to life. These familiar natural phenomena, dramatized in the ritual of the Cybele-Attis cult, became the basis on which the devotees of the Magna Mater developed their personal religious experiences.

II
The primitive locus of this nature worship was in the uplands of Anatolia. In a general way legends agree in locating the rise of the Cybele-Attis cult in the area covered by Galatia, Phrygia, and Lydia.

Our clearest index to the personal religious experience of the devotees of the Great Mother is found in a study of cult ritual. Because of their public character we possess the most extensive information concerning the annual spring festival of Attis, and the Taurobolium of the Magna Mater--ceremonials that had the official sanction of the Roman state. In considering the spring festival which Claudius incorporated as a part of the established religion of the Empire, it is important to bear in mind that it most it was but in elaborition of rites that had long been practiced in Asia Minor. We are specifically informed that the Roman ritual was celebrated Phrygio more. It may reasonably be assumed, therefore, that the Roman ceremonies were not essentially different from their Asian originals.

The prelude to the annual festival began on the Ides of March. On the second festival day, which was designated Arbor intrat in the calendar of Philocalus, the guild of dendrophori, or tree bearers, were in charge of the ceremonial. It was the duty of the dendrophori to cut down a pine tree in the woods and bear it with due pomp to the temple of Cybele. The perennial pine was a natural embodiment of Attis, the spirit of vegetation. According to legend, it was under a pine tree that he had mutilated himself and died. He had himself been transmuted into a pine tree and carried in this form into the cave of Cybele where the goddess mothered her dead lover; hence the pine tree borne by the dendrophori into the temple of Cybele was regarded as the corpse of Attis dead and treated with divine honors. It was swathed with fillets of wool as the body of Attis had been. Its branches were hung with garlands of violets, the flowers that sprang from his blood. From the middle of the stem was suspended an image of young man, who was doubtless Attis himself.' The ritual fact was that the dead god was brought with funeral pomp to the temple of the Magna Mater.

The following day was one of fasting when the devotees of Attis mourned their god. It was a peculiar fast, however; Jerome called it "a gluttonous abstinence, when men ate pheasants in order not to contaminate cereals." Meats, in general, were allowed, but fruits and vegetables were forbidden. This prohibition extended to wine also. The vegetable abstinence was a natural one. As the cutting down of the pine tree symbolized that the god of vegetation was dead, so the vegetable world shared in the defunct condition of the god. To partake of vegetables and cereals at such a season would be to violate the bruised and broken body of a god. This fast probably began with the fifteenth of March, and it had its influence as a physical preparation for the excessive emotionalism of the rites which marked the climax of the festival.

These rites came on the twenty-fourth of March, a day that was called, significantly enough, the "Day of Blood." At this time the Great Mother of the Gods inspired her devotees with a frenzy surpassing that which the followers of Dionysus knew. It was a madness induced not by wine, but by the din of crashing music, the dizzy whirling of the dance, and the sight of blood. The music which accompanied these rites was wild and barbaric, made by clashing cymbals and blatant horns, shrilling flutes and rolling drums. It was maddening music, noisy and savage. Lucian vividly described the wild tumult made by the Galli on Mount Ida blowing their horns, pounding their drums, and clashing their cymbals. Music of this kind--the Anatolian prototype of modern jazz--was popularly known as Phrygian music.

To the accompaniment of these barbaric strains a dance was staged. With wagging heads and streaming hair, the devotees of the Great Mother whirled their bodies round and round in a dizzy dance, shouting and singing as they gyrated. Apuleius pictured such a dance performed in a Thessalian village by the mendicant priests of the Syrian goddess.

"They went forth with their arms naked to their shoulders, bearing with them great swords .... shouting and dancing like mad persons to the sound of the pipe ..... They began to howl all out of tune and hurl themselves hither and thither, as though they were mad. They made a thousand gests with their feet and their heads; theywould bend down their necks and spin round so that their hair flew out in a circle; they would bite their own flesh; finally every one took his two-edged weapon and wounded his arms in different places."

This cruel custom of lacerating one's own flesh during the frenzied ritual was a distinctive characteristic of the Great Mother's cult. Slashing their arms with knives, or gashing their bodies, the worshipers sprinkled with their own blood the sacred tree that was Attis. When Martial was casting about for a comparison to make vivid the dangerous habits of a certain barber he could think of nothing more to the point than these bloody rites of the Great Mother. "He who desires not yet to go down to Stygian shades, let him, if he be wise, avoid barber Antiochus. White arms are mangled with knives less cruel when the frenzied throng raves to Phrygian strains," he declared. To the modern mind this sanguine rite seems cruel in the extreme. It is probable, however, that the devotees, wrought up to a very high pitch of excitement by the din of the noisy music and the frenzy of the wild dance, were largely insensible to the pain. This ghastly ritual formed a part of the mourning for the dead Attis. When the Great Mother saw the freely flowing blood of her worshipers, she could not doubt that they shared with her in her sorrow. The blood may well have been intended, also, to appease the manes of the dead Attis or to strengthen him for his resurrection. To imitate Cybele in her grief and to call Attis back to life were the purposes of this bloody rite.

But the devotees of the Great Mother did not stop with the shedding of blood merely. Keyed up to the highest pitch of religious excitement, they followed the example of Attis and emasculated themselves. With this final act of self-sacrifice and consecration, the Dies sanguinis was crowned and the devotee became one of the Galli, a eunuch-priest of the Asian goddess. This was the regular practice in Phrygia, and in Rome, even, it is probable that the custom was followed. In his account of the Syrian goddess, whose cult was strikingly like that of Cybele, Lucian gave a description of this sacerdotal initiation. It is not only a vivid depiction of the bloody scene itself but also a good piece of psychological analysis, for it shows the strange fascination of these barbaric rites and reveals their mesmeric effect upon the spectators witnessing the supreme act of consecration. In abbreviated form Lucian's account is as follows:

"During these days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls on many of them, and many who had come as mere spectators afterwards are found to have committed the great act. Any young man who has resolved on this action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd and picks up a sword. He takes it and emasculates himself and then runs wild through the city."

For one who had performed this irrevocable sacrifice in a moment of hot excitement a strong revulsion of feeling was later inevitable. This emotional reaction was powerfully depicted by Catullus in his famous poem bearing the name "Attis."

Undoubtedly for the devotee of Cybele the rite of self-mutilation had distinct religious values. By the very act the devotee himself became another Attis. He had done in the service of the goddess what Attis had already done. The Attis in the poem of Catullus was not the original lover of Cybele but rather one of her priests, who by the fact of priestly initiation had become identified with the god. "Methought in a dream that I had become Attis, and that the festival of the so-called Hilaria was fulfilled to me by the Great Mother," wrote Damaskios, the last of the Neoplatonists. The name Attis was actually used as a traditional title for the priesthood of the Great Mother. Just as Attis was believed to have attained the state of deity by the passion of emasculation so by the way of self-mutilation, the Gallus became a god instead of mortal.

The act that made an Attis of the votary placed him in peculiarly intimate relationship to the Mother Goddess herself. The broken instruments of his manhood were treated as an oblation to the goddess. Perhaps they were thrown into the lap of her statue, is the "Passion of St. Symphorian" suggests. In the case of a goddess of fertility, like the Magna Mater, this was a significant act. Thus the ministers of the Great Mother, who personated her divine lover, made it possible for her to exercise her beneficent function in renewing the life of nature. As a new Attis the votary assumed the role of a bridegroom to the goddess. There were "marriage chambers" in the sanctuary of the Great Mother at Lobrinon near Cyzicus. In such a chamber the newly consecrated priest, kept vigil during the night after his dedication, a bridegroom in the bridal chamber of his goddess. Indeed, a specific cult designation of the GalIus was "bridegroom." This indicates that the experiences of the Dies Sanguinus and the following night were interpreted as a process of mystical union with the Great Goddess herself, and by means of certain obscure ritual acts there was developed a sense of intimate divine communion on the part of the devotee. From another standpoint the newly consecrated priest was thought of as a male counterpart of the goddess. Hence, he was called Kubebos. By the fact of emasculation he had assimilated himself to the nature of the goddess. As an indication of this transformation he henceforth wore feminine dress and allowed his hair to grow long. At some point in the ceremony there was also a solemn enthronement and the consecrated mortal was crowned in token of his deification. Nothing less than this, in the experience of the Gallus, was the result of his act of devotion. It made him realistically and mysticilly one with his goddess.

The day following the "Day of Blood" brought a delirium of joy to replace the delirium of sorrow. Dead Attis had been buried and around his grave his devotees had mourned his death long into the night. Toward morning, however, a great light appeared in the darkness and the resurrection of the god was announced. Firmicus Maternus thus described the scene: "When they are satisfied with their fictitious grief a light is brought in, and the priest, having anointed their lips, whispers, 'Be of good cheer, you of the mystery. Your god is saved; for us also there shall be salvation from ills.'" Then joy took the place of sorrow, for the resurrection of the god brought with it the assurance of salvation for men, and this chiefly included the promise of a happy immortality. On the twenty-fifth of March, the first day when daylight exceeded darkness, the resurrection of the god was celebrated with universal license. The day's celebration was known as the Hilaria and was characterized by the general good cheer. Mourning was not permitted; but instead there were masquerades and banquets. Even the Galli were eased of their wounds in their joy because of the resurrection of Attis.

There followed a day of much needed rest, the Requiratio. Then the festival closed with the Lavatio, or washing of the goddess in the Almo, a rite that aroused the scorn and sarcasm of Arnobius. The silver statue of the goddess was placed in a wagon drawn by oxen and conducted in solemn procession to the Almo where it was washed in the water of the river. Amid rejoicing the statue was drawn back to its temple, showered with the flowers of springtime on its way. This was probably a rite of purification considered necessary because of the experience through which the goddess had passed on the Dies Sanguinis. After marriage, purification was deemed essential even for a goddess. Because the Magna Mater had been mystically united with her ministers, such postnuptial purification was necessary in her case.

In this, the annual spring festival of their god and goddess, the Galli found the beginning of a new life for themselves. It was a highly wrought emotional experience induced by fasting, wild music, frenzied dancing, and the sight of flowing blood. The sorrow thus aroused was interpreted as a sympathetic sharing with the Great Mother in her grief at the death of her lover. The orgiastic rite reached its climax in the irrevocable sacrifice of manhood, an act whereby the devotee physically assimilated himself to divinity. He himself became Attis, a god, mystically united,is a divine lover to the Great Goddess. In the resurrection of his god he felt himself personally participant and he found therein the assurance of a happy future life. The experience was a crudely physical one and realistic in the extreme. Yet it had a strange fascination because of its very realism, and it held out to the devotees who were willing to make the supreme sacrifice the promise of a divinization of human nature and an immediate communion with deity.

To this experience the figure of a new birth was not inappropriately applied. The pagan writer, Sallust the Philosopher, used this very terminology in describing the effect of the Attis festival on those who participated in it. He said that those who passed through this form of initiation were actually treated as new-born babes and dieted on milk for some time afterward. His exact expression was: hosper anagennomenon, "as of those who are being born again." Thus, at the annual spring festival the ministers of the Great Mother passed through a religious experience so fundamental that it seemed to them the beginning of a new life, essentially different from the life they had known before. It was a regeneration that transformed their beings, gave them a present communion with their god and goddess, and assured them of personal immortality.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/pr/pr07.htm
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Thus ye may find in thy mental and spiritual self, ye can make thyself just as happy or just as miserable as ye like. How miserable do ye want to be?......For you GROW to heaven, you don't GO to heaven. It is within thine own conscience that ye grow there.

Edgar Cayce
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« Reply #17 on: December 04, 2007, 06:49:55 pm »

Depictions of Cybele and Attis





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ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM

Thus ye may find in thy mental and spiritual self, ye can make thyself just as happy or just as miserable as ye like. How miserable do ye want to be?......For you GROW to heaven, you don't GO to heaven. It is within thine own conscience that ye grow there.

Edgar Cayce
Bianca
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« Reply #18 on: December 04, 2007, 06:51:21 pm »



Thank you for the Rites of Attis narrative, Rocky!


Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?

b
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« Reply #19 on: December 04, 2007, 07:01:42 pm »

Yup!
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ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM

Thus ye may find in thy mental and spiritual self, ye can make thyself just as happy or just as miserable as ye like. How miserable do ye want to be?......For you GROW to heaven, you don't GO to heaven. It is within thine own conscience that ye grow there.

Edgar Cayce
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