<div dir="ltr">In Thrax, based on the letter from The Guild, Severian is appointed Lictor. As such, he is the chief law enforcement officer of Thrax, responsible for the prison, the barbican, the personal security of the Archon, and also, in the final scene of his holding of the office, he is detailed to perform the murder of a subject, Cyriaca. He refuses to kill her, and flees. In the book, as far as I can recall, there are no references to Severian in any context that could possibly be connected to the earthly faith of Mithraism.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 6:56 PM, Ab de Vos <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:foxyab@casema.nl" target="_blank">foxyab@casema.nl</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>I meant to say it isn't obvious that a lictor is an executioner
as well as a servitor of Mithras which connection the Greek word
υπηρέτης supplies. It would be interesting to know what the
function of the lictor was in the ritual.</p>
<p>Bees and honey, Samson killed the lion. Remember his hair and
riddle. I believe Robert Graves (contested off course) said that
he was originally a sun hero before being worked over in Hebrew
scripture. The record of gathering honey goes back to neolithic
times as shown by rock paintings in Spain (Cova de l'Aranya).<br>
</p>
<p>So bees carry a complex symbolism being both associated with the
sun and the moon among different cultures.</p>
<p>I am reading the Life of Plotin by Porphyry at the moment. In
fact that is the reason I had to look up the word υπηρέτης.
Rogatianus was a pupil of Plotin. a senator. so philosophically
detached he refused to appear in public as a praetor even when the
<b>lictors</b> were already there. He also gave up his property
etc. besides the office. That made me think about Severian.</p>
<br>
<div class="m_-3794286871691152274moz-cite-prefix">Op 17-2-2018 om 17:46 schreef David
Stockhoff:<br>
</div><div><div class="h5">
<blockquote type="cite">
<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;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;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;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;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;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;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="m_-3794286871691152274moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mirrorofisis.freeyellow.com/id576.html" target="_blank">https://mirrorofisis.<wbr>freeyellow.com/id576.html</a></p>
<br>
<br>
<div class="m_-3794286871691152274moz-cite-prefix">On 2/17/2018 10:55 AM, Ab de Vos
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<p>The link is : <a class="m_-3794286871691152274moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lictor" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/<wbr>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="m_-3794286871691152274moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tauroctony" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/<wbr>Tauroctony</a>
) "The tauroctony should not be confused with a "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurobolium" title="Taurobolium" target="_blank">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="m_-3794286871691152274mw-redirect" title="Magna Mater" target="_blank">Magna Mater</a>, and has nothing to
do with the Mithraic Mysteries.</p>
<p>The sacrificial symbolism is clear.<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="m_-3794286871691152274moz-cite-prefix">Op 17-2-2018 om 16:28 schreef David
Stockhoff:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<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="m_-3794286871691152274moz-cite-prefix">On 2/17/2018 9:10 AM, Ab de Vos
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<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="m_-3794286871691152274thumbimage" height="325" width="220">Mithras-Helios, with solar rays
and in Iranian dress,<sup id="m_-3794286871691152274cite_ref-iranica_105-0" class="m_-3794286871691152274reference"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism#cite_note-iranica-105" target="_blank">[104]</a></sup> with Antiochus
I of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commagene" class="m_-3794286871691152274mw-redirect" title="Commagene" target="_blank">Commagene</a>. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nemrut" title="Mount Nemrut" target="_blank">Mt. Nemrut</a>,
1st Century BCE)</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><a class="m_-3794286871691152274moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/<wbr>Mithraism</a><br>
</p>
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