(urth) Lictor

[David Stockhoff]

Severian is not described as a lictor as far as I recall, and while he 
serves a magistrate he does not arrest anyone. I don't recall him 
carrying the fasces either, but rather his sword. Lictors were not 
torturers or executioners.

So I don't agree that he fits the term as usually understood, even if 
his position is broadly analogous. (The book does refer to other lictors 
who are not remotely of the guild of torturers.) And I do not think that 
the volume title refers merely to the fact that he briefly serves the 
magistrate of Thrax as a jailer.

If you weren't referring to bulls, what are you proposing? Followers of 
Mithras did not castrate themselves like the followers of Cybele. 
Mithras was not castrated. His bull is shown as being castrated by a 
scorpion only as Mithras stabs him. That's not to say it doesn't fit.


On 2/17/2018 11:58 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> "How is Severian explicitly a lictor, and which definition fits him?"
>
> (in ancient Rome) an officer attending the consul or other magistrate, 
> bearing the fasces, and executing sentences on offenders.
>
> That is *exactly* the position Sev is in at the beginning of SotL.
>
> And I wasn't referring to the bull...
>
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>
> The spatula is the natural enemy of the hypothalamus.
>
> On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 8:55 AM, David Stockhoff 
> <dstockhoff at verizon.net <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>     How is Severian explicitly a lictor, and which definition fits him?
>
>     Yes, although the bull Mithras kills is not shown as a castrated one.
>
>
>     On 2/17/2018 11:45 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
>>     I'm not sure what you mean about Severian's sword belonging to "a
>>     lictor...never mentioned in the text." Severian is a lictor.
>>
>>     The Mithras thing also ties in with the Old Autarch being a castrato.
>>
>>     Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
>>
>>     The spatula is the natural enemy of the hypothalamus.
>>
>>     On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 7:28 AM, David Stockhoff
>>     <dstockhoff at verizon.net <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>
>>         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
>>>         <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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