(urth) Lictor

Sat Feb 17 08:46:47 PST 2018

Yes. Soldiers didn't have the money to kill all those bulls anyway. It 
was pure symbolism, and the taurobolium wiki suggests that it was likely 
symbolic even for the Great Mother mysteries. Who knows. But there still 
are symbolic reasons for Severian's fuligin cloak.

I still don't see anything here about Greek servants or headsmen or "the 
eleven" but it's clear that lictors were literally "servants of the law" 
or of the temple. Presumably it follows that the term would have been 
used in a Roman soldier's cult as well. Even for a Leo there were higher 
grades, such as Pater, and the slaves, soldiers, and freemen who joined 
the cult would have understood "serving" a god or his priest.

I like "tauroch/auroch" and "autarch." Funny that the real autarch 
victim turns out to be associated with bees and honey---he's practically 
a priest himself---because the two are closely linked in Greek cults. 
The bee is one of Mithras' several symbolic animals and honey was part 
of Mithraic initiation rites, while the bull was eternally sacrificed 
and reborn. Sacrificed bulls became bees.

"To the ancients, the honey bee was not only a messenger but a direct 
representative of the gods and goddesses of heaven and the airy realms....

Porphyry (AD 233 to c.304) writes:“The ancients gave the name of 
Melissae (bees) to the priestesses of Demeter who were initiates of the 
chthonian goddess; the name Melitodes to Kore herself: the moon 
(Artemis) too, whose province it was to bring to the birth, they called 
Melissa, because the moon being a bull and its ascension the bull, bees 
are begotten of bulls.  And souls that pass to the earth are bull-begotten.”

Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921 - 1994) writes of this passage by 
Porphyry:“...we learn that Artemis is a bee, Melissa, and that both she 
and the bull belong to the moon.  Hence both are connected with the idea 
of a periodic regeneration.  We also learn that souls are bees and that 
Melissa draws souls down to be born.  The idea of a ‘life in death’ in 
this singularly interesting concept is expressed by the belief that the 
life of the bull passed into that of the bees.” "

https://mirrorofisis.freeyellow.com/id576.html

On 2/17/2018 10:55 AM, Ab de Vos wrote:
>
> The link is : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lictor
>
> The only link to the Mithras cult I found was in Liddell & Scott's 
> dictionary but without any specifics;  I didn't find links to Mithras 
> elsewhere.
>
> /ταυροκτόνος/, "bull killing" even suggests autarch(ktonos).
>
> According to Wiki ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauroctony ) "The 
> tauroctony should not be confused with a "taurobolium 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurobolium>", which was an actual 
> bull-killing cult act performed by initiates of the Mysteries of Magna 
> Mater <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Mater>, and has nothing to 
> do with the Mithraic Mysteries.
>
> The sacrificial symbolism is clear.
>
>
> Op 17-2-2018 om 16:28 schreef David Stockhoff:
>>
>> I don't see "lictor" mentioned in the wiki---do you have a specific 
>> link to that?
>>
>> Nevertheless, the Mithraic cult has always been suggestive of 
>> similarities to both early Xtianity, which is useful to Wolfe, and to 
>> Severian's "secret history." It's closely allied with a branch of 
>> Roman government and with Rome. A sword figures prominently in its 
>> symbology. Severian becomes an outcast when he gives Thecla a blade, 
>> and he becomes Autarch when he kills the Autarch with a blade. He is 
>> often blood-covered, as with the sacrificial blood of a bull (sun 
>> symbol), but never blood-stained.
>>
>> Cultists proceeded through grades like Masons to become Leos, and 
>> lions have always been linked with the sun. The Mithraic leo has been 
>> taken as Aion, who is the Greek god of eternity or "unbounded time." 
>> Severian's going to Yesod and returning as the New Sun literally 
>> enacts this elevation to Leo.
>>
>> I had not realized that "mitra" could be read as "covenant." That's 
>> suggestive too. It's always been a mystery to me that Severian's 
>> sword (The Sword of the Lictor) belongs to a lictor that is never 
>> mentioned in the text, but if the lictor is a servant of a secret god 
>> with whom a covenant is held, then ... it fits.
>>
>> Hidden in plain sight, as usual.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>> On 2/17/2018 9:10 AM, Ab de Vos wrote:
>>>
>>> By chance I had to look up the Greek word for servant (υπηρέτης). 
>>> The "servant of the eleven" in Athens was the executioner or his 
>>> servant. Servant is also the greek translation of Lictor. The lictor 
>>> is an official of the roman state but the term is also used for 
>>> servitor in the cult cult of Mithras.
>>>
>>> Mithras-Helios, with solar rays and in Iranian dress,^[104] 
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism#cite_note-iranica-105> with 
>>> Antiochus I of Commagene <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commagene>. 
>>> (Mt. Nemrut <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nemrut>, 
>>> 1st Century BCE)
>>>
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism
>>>
>>>
>>>
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