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<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium; font-style:
normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps:
normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !
important; float: none;">"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.<span> ...<br>
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium; font-style:
normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps:
normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !
important; float: none;"><span></span></span><span style="color:
rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !
important; float: none;">Porphyry (AD 233 to c.304) writes:</span><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-style: italic;"><span> </span>“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.”<span> </span></span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium; font-style:
normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps:
normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !
important; float: none;">Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (1921 -
1994) writes of this passage by Porphyry:<span> </span></span><span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-style: italic;">“...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.” "</span></p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mirrorofisis.freeyellow.com/id576.html">https://mirrorofisis.freeyellow.com/id576.html</a></p>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/17/2018 10:55 AM, Ab de Vos wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:4b9c4e1e-92cc-8024-d15b-3d084d61bf21@casema.nl">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<p>The link is : <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lictor"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lictor</a></p>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p><i>ταυροκτόνος</i>, "bull killing" even suggests
autarch(ktonos).</p>
<p>According to Wiki ( <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauroctony"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauroctony</a>
) "The tauroctony should not be confused with a "<a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurobolium"
title="Taurobolium" moz-do-not-send="true">taurobolium</a>",
which was an actual bull-killing cult act performed by initiates
of the Mysteries of <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Mater"
class="mw-redirect" title="Magna Mater" moz-do-not-send="true">Magna
Mater</a>, and has nothing to do with the Mithraic Mysteries.</p>
<p>The sacrificial symbolism is clear.<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Op 17-2-2018 om 16:28 schreef David
Stockhoff:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:077d2f22-3505-881a-591c-b03bd7974678@verizon.net">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=utf-8">
<p>I don't see "lictor" mentioned in the wiki---do you have a
specific link to that?</p>
<p>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. <br>
</p>
<p>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. <br>
</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Hidden in plain sight, as usual.</p>
<p>Thanks!<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/17/2018 9:10 AM, Ab de Vos
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:07507bff-069b-30d8-5887-4f927209f2ff@casema.nl">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=utf-8">
<p>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.</p>
<p><img alt=""
src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Mithra%26Antiochus.jpg/220px-Mithra%26Antiochus.jpg"
class="thumbimage" data-file-width="300"
data-file-height="443" moz-do-not-send="true" height="325"
width="220">Mithras-Helios, with solar rays and in Iranian
dress,<sup id="cite_ref-iranica_105-0" class="reference"><a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism#cite_note-iranica-105"
moz-do-not-send="true">[104]</a></sup> with Antiochus I
of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commagene"
class="mw-redirect" title="Commagene"
moz-do-not-send="true">Commagene</a>. (<a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nemrut"
title="Mount Nemrut" moz-do-not-send="true">Mt. Nemrut</a>,
1st Century BCE)</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism</a><br>
</p>
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