Tag: ancient world

Let’s Talk About the Sun

On By Jennifer MugrageLeave a comment

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge.

3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.

4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun,

5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,

like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other;

nothing is hidden from its heat.

7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul.

The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart.

The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever.

The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.

10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold;

they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

11 By them is your servant warned; in keeping them is great reward.

12 Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.

13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;

may they not rule over me.

Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.

14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be pleasing in your sight,

O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

–Psalm 19, of David

The following is a reader-response literary analysis of Psalm 19.

This is an extremely famous psalm. If you have been around Bible circles for any length of time, you probably have heard it quoted. I was no different, but for some reason, it took me 40 years to really understand why the elements of this psalm are here and how they all work together. So perhaps you can find some benefit from following my plodding steps.

The first four verses of Psalm 19 are often quoted. They describe how the skies and space themselves testify to all humankind that there is a God and that He is glorious. Paul alludes to this in Romans 1, where he says, “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–His eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Of course, God makes it abundantly clear to the Israelites that the sun, moon, and stars are in fact creatures and that He is not pleased when people worship them … which raises the question of sun-worship … which we will get to momentarily.

Similarly, the last three verses of the psalm–the prayer for personal cleansing from sin–are also often quoted. These are very accessible. You could pick them up and pray them, with no obstacles to understanding, if you became a Christian just yesterday. On a slightly deeper level, I have heard these verses taught as a very savvy description of the progressive nature of sin. It starts out as “hidden faults,” then if unrepented becomes “willful,” which leads to sin ruling over a person, and this state of being ruled by sin eventually leads to some egregious “great transgression.”

And this is really a psalm that is best understood back to front. If the last three verses are the most easily accessible, verses 7 – 11, about the law of God, are a close second. True to Hebrew poetry, David uses a bunch of different synonyms: law, statutes, precepts, commands, ordinances, and, interestingly, fear. Obviously these are English translations of Hebrew words for God’s law, of which the language had quite a number.

To David, he wasn’t just referring to the Ten Commandments or to the book of Leviticus. By all these synonyms he meant the whole “law of God,” that is all the revealed word of God that they had at the time. And by his inclusion of fear, it’s also clear that he meant the revelation of God’s nature, His presence with His people, and the holy awe that they were supposed to have in response.

However, I don’t want to unsay what the psalm says. The emphasis in these verses is clearly on the moral, right-and-wrong aspect of God’s word. God has given us a law. But rather than just being an obscure collection of ancient rules, this is a law that somehow revives the human soul, makes the simple wise, gives joy to the heart, light to the eyes, endures forever, warns, and is sweeter than honey.

It was for this passage that I returned to Psalm 19 recently. I had noticed after forgetting for a while–again–as one does–that without some kind of moral standard coming from outside ourselves, human beings are really and truly sunk. If there is no objective right and wrong, then might makes right and all truth claims are actually just attempts to grab power. (Thank you, Derrida!) The last couple of hundred years have been a big social experiment demonstrating this. Again.

So, my original reason for pulling out Psalm 19 was so I could pray verses 7 – 11 and thank God for His Word. Of course, as a Christian, I had an even more in-depth appreciation for the treasure that Bible truly is. It doesn’t just give us the only extra-human set of truth claims upon which a civilization can be built. It’s also, by far, our most comprehensive and reliable source text on ancient history. As if that weren’t enough, it’s not written in dry legalese or as lists of facts, but in the form of stirring stories, terrifying mythological scenes, and challenging and moving poetry. Books, and libraries, are already a treasure, but this particular library of books is truly “more precious than gold, than much pure gold.”

So I really just wanted to quote that back to God. But it’s a short psalm, and the confession verses at the end are sooo good, so of course I ended up reading the whole thing out loud whenever I went to use it.

The only sour note in this symphony of devotion were the verses about the sun. They seemed overdone. I get that we are talking about the skies and things in the skies, but why devote three whole verses just to poetically describing the sun? Rabbit trail much, David?

Then, after I don’t know how many iterations, it dawned (even) upon me that there might, possibly, be a few similarities between the sun and the law of God as described in the verses that follow it. Let’s see: nothing is hidden from its heat. It covers the whole earth and all people. It’s inescapable. It gives light to the eyes, and it revives the soul (think about the effect of sunlight after a long night!). It gives hope. But it can also be kind of oppressive. It “warns.” It also disinfects things that are exposed to it. Hiding from the sun is not usually a good sign. It can be a metaphor for hiding wrongdoing. However, we do still need shelter from the sun, because it’s pretty intense. Almost as if it were a small picture of the One Who is too holy to look upon.

Haha! I get it now!

There was just one remaining fly in the ointment. I really didn’t see why it was necessary for David to compare the sun to “a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion” … that is, to a young man who has just had sex with his wife for the first time. Yeah, I suppose that does give a guy a certain glow. Yeah, Hebrew poetry is earthy. I get it. But … why? Is this just there to make modern readers squirm?

In the providence of God, I happened to be reading Till We Have Faces. In this book, the narrator (Orual) has a little sister (Psyche) who marries a god. This is literal, not figurative. It is a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth.

Orual meets her divine brother-in-law twice. The first time, it is in terrible judgment:

There came as it were a lightning that endured. That is, the look of it was the look of lightning, pale, dazzling, without warmth or comfort, showing each smallest thing with fierce distinctiveness, but it did not go away. This great light stood over me as still as a candle burning in a curtained and shuttered room. In the center of the light was something like a man. It is strange that I cannot tell you its size. Its face was far above me, yet memory does not show the shape as a giant’s. And I do not know whether it stood, or seemed to stand, on the far side of the water or on the water itself.

Though this light stood motionless, my glimpse of the face was as swift as a true flash of lightning. I could not bear it for longer. Not my eyes only, but my heart and blood and very brain were too weak for that. A monster would have subdued me less than the beauty this face wore. And I think anger (what men call anger) would have been more supportable than the passionless and measureless rejection with which it looked upon me.

-Till We Have Faces, pp. 172 – 173

The second time, Orual’s literal and metaphorical ugliness has been cleansed, and the god coming to judge her is going to see only beauty:

“Did I not tell you, Maia,” she said, “that a day was coming when you and I would meet in my house and no cloud between us?”

Joy silenced me. But now, what was this? You have seen torches grow pale when men open the shutters and broad summer morning shines in on the feasting hall? So now. Suddenly, from a strange look on Psyche’s face, or from a glorious and awful deepening of the blue sky above us, or from a deep breath like a sigh uttered all round us by invisible lips, or from a deep, doubtful, quaking and surmise in my own heart, I knew that all this had been only a preparation. Some far greater matter was upon us. The voices spoke again; but not loud this time. They were awed and trembled. “He is coming,” they said. “The god is coming into his house. The god comes to judge Orual.”

The air was growing brighter and brighter about us; as if something had set it on fire. Each breath I drew let into me new terror, joy, overpowering sweetness. I was pierced through and through with the arrows of it. I was being unmade. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and beauty there is, was coming. The pillars on the far side of the pool flushed at his approach. I cast down my eyes.

“You also are Psyche,” came a great voice.

–ibid, pp. 306 – 308

The bridegroom is actually the one Who links everything together in this poem. C.S. Lewis had to hit me over the head with an extremely long, vivid description before I could see it, but I see it now. The god–Christ–is the bridegroom and He’s also the sun. He comes in horrible, revealing judgment, he comes in shining beauty, He overwhelms the senses. He convicts and purifies and beautifies the people that His light touches. And, of course, He is also the Word. And Word also does all these things.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Quote: Cato’s Advice to Farmers

On By Jennifer Mugrage3 Comments

De agri cultura [is] the only work of Cato, and the oldest literary Latin that time has saved. He gives detailed advice … on making cement and cooking dainties, on curing constipation and diarrhea, on healing snakebite with the dung of swine, and offering sacrifices to the gods. Asking himself what is the wisest use of agricultural land, he answers, “Profitable cattle raising.” The next best? “Moderately profitable cattle raising.” The third best? “Very unprofitable cattle raising.” The fourth? “To plow the land.”

—Caesar and Christ, by Will Durant, p. 104

You Guys, Theseus’s Father-Hunger is Breaking My Heart

On By Jennifer Mugrage1 Comment

I read The King Must Die back in university. My education up to that point had some gaping holes, but I had been privileged to attend a school one time where they spent an entire year getting us thoroughly familiar with Greek myths and history. My point is, I knew the story of Theseus. I knew the labyrinth and the Minotaur were the main event. And I was eager to get to them. So I moved through the first part of the book at a pretty good clip, the part that tells of Theseus’ childhood in Troizen, his coming of age, and his journey across the Peloponnesian Peninsula to find his father, the king of Athens.

I thought then, and still think now, that Theseus is not an especially likeable character to modern eyes. He’s a prince of Heroic Age Greek culture, and he is, as they say, a product of his time. He is proud, ambitious, pious towards the gods, stoic, brave, and clever (those are his virtues), and also snobby, entitled, callous, cruel, sexist, and promiscuous. He has all the virtues of ancient paganism, but none of the virtues a Christian man. You can’t endorse all his actions or even his value system. (By the way, that is exactly what makes this such a fantastic historical novel.) But despite all this, there are moments in his story that ring incredibly poignant. And these are moments that I either forgot since my first reading, or missed entirely.

You want to hear about the Minotaur? Let me tell you about a son and his father.

Theseus’s grandfather is king in Troizen, a small Greek kingdom on the east coast of the Peloponnesian Peninsula (or what they call the Isle of Pelops). His mother, a princess, had him when she was a teenager. She lives, still unmarried, in the palace, and serves as a priestess of the Mother, who is goddess left over from before the Greeks arrived, whom they feel they must give her due.

Theseus’s mother has always told him that he is the son of Poseidon. Theseus takes this seriously as a little child. He views the sacred horse, also called a son of Poseidon, as his brother. He whispers “Are you there, Father?” into the sacred well that sometimes grumbles when Poseidon is stirred up. But as he gets a little older, he sees that other people doubt he has a divine father. He becomes defensive.

Truly “god-got” children are known to be really tall, and Theseus has always been small for his age. He waits and waits to grow (he hopes to be six or seven feet tall). He develops “short man syndrome,” taking daring risks in order to prove himself in front of the other boys. He is the best at every sport except for Hellene-style wrestling, because that requires mass and weight.

Once, he even swims way out into the ocean, figuring either Poseidon will prove he is his father, or Theseus will welcome a death by drowning. The current sweeps him back to the island, and he figures he has his answer.

Then Theseus turns seventeen, and his mother shows him the rock that his father said he should try to raise in order to prove whose son he is. So, it wasn’t Poseidon after all.

Theseus tries and can’t raise it by brute strength. He is broken, furious with his mother who won’t tell him anything.

But eventually, he realizes that he can raise it with a lever. That’s when he finds the sword.

His grandfather tells him the story, which is full of the tragedy, ugliness and beauty of ancient paganism is and basically a mini novel within this novel. There was a plague, a drought. Apollo claimed not to be responsible. Poseidon wasn’t answering. Finally, the priestess said it was the Mother. “A virgin must go and wait in the myrtle-house and give herself to the first man who comes along.” The priestess disliked Theseus’s mother, because she was an attractive young girl. His grandfather couldn’t see a way to get her out of this.

But it happened that Aigeus, the thirtysomething king of Athens, was visiting Troizen. He agreed with Theseus’s grandfather that he would be the man. At least the princess would lose her virginity to someone she had met before, and he would be kind and gentle with her. They could not tell her about this arrangement beforehand, because when a member of the royal family is in some way sacrificing themselves for the people, their willingness to make the sacrifice is a critical element. Only then will the god bless it.

The thunderstorm was already arriving. Aigeus stripped and swam across the channel to the sacred island where the Myrtle House was. A flash of lightning revealed to the princess a dark-haired man rising up out of the water, with a ribbon of seaweed on his shoulder. She thought he was Poseidon. She knelt, and crossed her arms over her chest, as one would do for a god.

Why didn’t he wait for the boat? Why did he jump into unknown waters, in a rainstorm, and swim across? Was Poseidon indeed possessing him? say these pagans. Who knows?

Theseus is disappointed, but intrigued, to find out that he has a human father. He travels over the Isthmus (a dangerous and lawless place), gets entangled with the earth-mother-worshipping people of Eleusis, which is very creepy, and eventually makes it to Athens and reveals himself to his father, narrowly escaping being assassinated first.

On the map above, if you look around the Saronic Gulf, you can see Troezen on the south side, Athens on the north side, and Eleusis just a bit west of Athens. I wish I’d had this map 25 years ago, when I first read the book.

Aigeus has no other sons. He is thunderstruck and delighted to see Theseus.

There’s not exactly hugging and crying, because both of them are proud, aristocratic, cautious men. On the whole, Aigeus probably wears his feelings closer to the surface than Theseus does. Still, they start getting to know each other.

Theseus’s birthday is approaching. Aigeus wants to have a feast for him. Theseus suggests sending to Troizen to bring his mother for the feast, but Aigeus dismisses this plan. If they wait, the time will get too close to “the tribute” (the sending of young men and women to Crete), and he doesn’t want to be celebrating his long-lost son when some of his subjects have just had to give up theirs.

It’s at this point that the reader who knows the outline of the story realizes that Theseus and his father are not going to have much more time together.

The day of the feast comes. Aigeus gifts Theseus a chariot, “of dark polished cypress-wood, with ivory inlays and silver-bound wheels, a craftsman’s masterpiece.”

It was a gift beyond my dearest wish. I thank him on one knee, putting his hand to my brow; but he said, “Why this haste, before you have seen the horses?”

They were matched blacks, with white-blazed foreheads; strong and glossy, sons of the north wind. My father said, “Aha, we slipped them up here, as neat as Hermes the Trickster lifting Apollo’s steers. The chariot while you were in Eleusis; and the horses this very morning, while you still slept.”

He rubbed his hands together. I was touched at his taking all this care to surprise me, as if I had been a child. “We must take them out,” I said. “Father, finish your business early, and I will be your charioteer.” We agreed that after the rites, we would drive to Paionia below Hymettos.

pp. 154 – 155

In case you missed it, Aigeus just gave his son a sports car.

After the rites, Theseus goes to the stables and waits and waits for his father. When the king does show up, he seems to have forgotten their plan to take a ride. He is stressed out by something. He urges Theseus to ride by himself, but to leave by the back gate.

The reader realizes, with a sinking feeling, that the representatives from Crete have come early to collect the youths and maidens for the tribute.

Aigeus, almost in tears, is trying to get Theseus away from there. But Theseus, too sharp not to realize something is wrong and too proud to be hustled out the back, quickly finds out what is happening and insists on entering the deadly lottery.

And now, the reader realizes that they are never, ever going to take that chariot ride.

The youths and maidens of Athens are chosen by putting their names on scraps of pottery, which are then drawn at random out of a bowl. Aigeus puts in a lot for his son, on which he has surreptitiously written some other youth’s name. But Theseus, standing among the crowd, realizes what has happened when he sees that his father is not worried. What should he do? Should he let the deception stand? Or should he stride forward and insist on being among those who are sacrificed?

I thought, “What was it? What has my father done? What every father would do if he could. And he is King. He has to think for the kingdom. It is true enough that I am needed here. I ought not to think like a warrior only. Has someone else gone to Crete for me? I have led such lads to war, and never thought I wronged them, though some were sure to die. Why then do I hate my father, and myself still more, and feel I cannot bear my life?”

I looked at my father, and remembered how he had invoked Poseidon, praying him to choose the victims. And I thought, “Yes! That is it! He has mocked the god, the guardian of the house, who brought him to beget me. Well may I be angry! This man has mocked my father.”

p. 163

Theseus begins praying his heart to Poseidon. He senses that the god wants him to go to Crete. It is time to make the sacrifice.

Sorrow fell black upon my eyes and the sun grew cold. I thought of what I had planned to do in Athens: small things I had to hoped to force my father’s hand to, great ones when my own time came. I knelt where I was, with my hair hiding my face, and thought of my life; of hunting with the Guard, of feasts and dances, of my room with the lion walls; of a woman I wanted, and had meant to speak to at the festival; of my beautiful horses, who had scarcely felt my hand; of the war paean, the bright rage of battle, and the triumph song. And I thought, “The god cannot mean it. He sent me here to be king.”

“Father Poseidon,” I whispered, “take something else from me. I will not ask to live long, if I can make a name and be remembered in Athens. Now it will be as if I had never been born.” I heard the name called of some Athenian. It was the last of the seven. “Lord Poseidon, I will give you my horses, the best I ever had. Take anything but this.”

The sea-sound grew fainter in my ears. And I thought, “The god is leaving me.”

p. 164

So off he goes. Rather than lose the unction of the god to rule, Theseus insists on going to Crete, where, he has been told, bull-dancers last six months at the most.

“Don’t grieve, Athenians. The god is sending me. He has called me to the bulls, and I must obey his sign. But don’t weep for me, I will come again.” I did not know these words till I had spoken them; they came to me from the god. “I will go with your children, and take them into my hand. They shall be my people.”

They had left off weeping, and their voices sank to a hush. I turned, and faced my father.

I saw the face of a man who has got his death-wound.

p. 165

I mean!

Misanthropic Quote about a Misanthropic Roman

On By Jennifer Mugrage4 Comments

Cato fought corruption recklessly, and seldom let the sun set without having made new enemies. Few loved him, for his scar-covered face and wild red hair disconcerted them, his big teeth threatened them, his asceticism shamed them, his industry left them lagging, his green eyes looked through their words into their selfishness. … He expelled Manilius for kissing his wife in public; as for himself, he said, he never embraced his wife except when it thundered–though he was glad when it thundered. … After five years of heroic opposition to the nature of man, he retired from office, made successful investments, manned his now vast farm with slaves, lent money at usurious rates, bought slaves cheap and–after training them in some skill–sold them dear, and became so rich that he could afford to write books–an occupation he despised.

—Caesar and Christ, by Will Durant, p. 104

This is Taking a Toll.

On By Jennifer Mugrage5 Comments

Hello, fellow readers. I just don’t know.

This is an unplanned post. But, after all, a blog is a “web-log,” no? As in, a record of how we are doing day to day. And book blogs are records of how our reading affects us.

And whoof. Reading Greco-fiction is proving costlier than I anticipated.

First, there was Circe, with its depressing picture of Odysseus slipping into OCD paranoia after his return to Ithaca.

Then, I read Till We Have Faces, which is sort of like having the Holy Spirit do open heart surgery on you, if you really pore over it.

Now, I’m sitting here trying to work, but I’m having to take a break because reading The King Must Die has made my stomach hurt. That is not an exaggeration; I am experiencing psychologically caused stomach pain from reading this book.

I had some time to myself this morning, before leaving for the office. I thought I’d just get caught up on my reading of The King Must Die. Plus, it is hard to put down. I enjoyed reading about the earthquake that brought down the palace of Knossos. I relished when the Greek ship passed the island of Kalliste, the source of the earthquake, and the watery crater where the island used to lie. (This is the eruption of Thera, a well-documented event that took place about 1500 B.C.) Theseus is bringing with him Princess Ariadne of Crete. He is in love with her, and he has promised her father Minos that he will marry her and protect her.

The party lands on the Isle of Dia. I knew what was coming, but I kept reading. I remember this from university.

The people on the Isle of Dia are about to have a festival to Dionysius. Terrible things happen at such times, but everyone is in an altered state. A sacrificial man is torn apart by the wild women, the Maenads. I mean with their bare hands, teeth, etc.

Ariadne participates in this ceremony. When Theseus finds her, sleeping the wine off peacefully, all covered in someone else’s blood and still holding a body part, he vomits. He knew the king must die, but he didn’t anticipate exactly how it would happen. And he’s only eighteen years old.

I knew what would happen, but for some reason, it affected me worse this time. Perhaps because this time, I have children the ages of Theseus, Ariadne (16), and the “King” (also 16) whom she murdered.

At the same time, I can’t just dismiss it as follows: “Well, of course. It’s paganism. It’s all horrible and worthless, not worth caring about these people, not worth my time.” The reason these stories still intrigue us is because there is some very deep stuff going on there. And The King Must Die is filled, almost on every page, with Biblical easter eggs, both as direct quotes and as symbolic allusions. Even the Dionysian ceremony has them. Though I don’t doubt those wild women would indeed have to be possessed, and not in a good way, to do what they did.

Anyway, I’ll get to how I found Christ in The King Must Die in a later post, when I have gathered myself. I just wanted to report that it sort of ruined my day.

Have you ever had a physical reaction to a book? And did you still like the book after?

Till We Have Faces: A Book Review

On By Jennifer Mugrage3 Comments

Friends, I have had a harrowing experience.

I read Till We Have Faces.

Again.

That’s right, this wasn’t even a first-time read, and it destroyed me. Again. Maybe worse this time.

It’s tempting to do a super detailed book review, including an analysis of all the ancient customs, the Bible Easter eggs, and the symbolism. (My God, the symbolism!) But I’m not going to do that, because I really think you should read it if at all possible. And, even though this book is possibly more powerful on re-reads, I still don’t want to ruin your first read with spoilers.

Any analysis I gave, would be less of an immersive experience than the story itself, because that is the power of fiction.

I will just say a few things about the setting and genre, so you can decide whether to subject yourself to it.

I read TWHF as part of my 2026 “Greco-fiction” project, where I read books set in and/or inspired by the Heroic Age of Greece. When I mentioned this project to someone, they suggested Till We Have Faces. They were right, of course, though I hadn’t put it in the same category in my mind as, say, The Song of Achilles.

The action takes place in a fictional country called Glome. Based upon hints in the text, Glome is located somewhere just south or just north of the Caucasus Mountains, between the Black and Caspian seas. Georgia, Azerbaijan, perhaps southern Russia. Glome is not a mountainous kingdom, but it is near mountains. In the distance, they can see “what we call the sea, though it is nowhere nearly as great as the Great Sea of the Greeks.” This would probably be the Caspian. They are far from Greece, but near enough that they occasionally encounter a Greek captive taken in war. They are near enough to “Phars” (Persia) for that country to present a problem. At one point, the narrative makes a passing mention of “the wagon people, who live beyond the Grey Mountain.” These “wagon people” are probably steppe-dwellers related to the Scythians or Kazaks.

The people of Glome worship a fertility goddess called Ungit, who is embodied in a large irregular black stone that is said to have pushed its way up from the earth. Ungit’s “house” is a group of megaliths joined together with walls. Her worship involves temple prostitution, animal sacrifice, and sometimes human sacrifice, all the usual things that you expect with a fertility religion. Her priest wears a large bird mask on his chest, and dangles with amulets and animal bladders.

The narrator, a little girl named Orual, is frightened of the priest and of Ungit. The story will go on to focus on this fear. Orual very much hopes that the gods are, as her Greek tutor has told her, merely “lies of poets, lies of poets, child.” But are they? Or is there a power in Ungit (and in her son, who dwells on the Grey Mountain) that will leave Orual quite outmatched?

C.S. Lewis is an underrated horror writer. In this story he draws back the curtain on the horror of paganism. We also see, I think, hints of how he himself felt when he was an atheist: desperately hoping there is no spiritual world; uneasily worried that there might be. Relieved, but unsatisfied, by the “clear, shallow” Greek explanations.

So, I’ve said enough. Read it if you dare. I doubt that this year will bring me a better book in the category of Greco-Fiction.

Misanthropic Quote: Appreciation or Appropriation?

On By Jennifer Mugrage1 Comment

We must lay it to the credit side of Rome that some of its generals could understand Polycleitus and Pheidias, Scopas and Praxiteles, even if they carried their appreciation to the point of robbery. Of all the spoils that Aemilius Paulus brought back from his victories over Perseus, he kept for himself only the library of the King, as a heritage for his children.

–Caesar and Christ, by Will Durant, p. 96

In other words, he didn’t just pick up on ideas, he literally stole the physical books.

When the Blond Gauls Got Colonized

On By Jennifer MugrageLeave a comment

Spain, rewon from Carthage, had to be kept under control lest Carthage should win it again; besides, it was rich in iron, silver and gold. The Senate exacted from it a heavy annual tribute, and the Romans governors reimbursed themselves liberally for spending a year away from home … Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (179) adjusted his rule sympathetically to the character and civilization of the native population, made friends of the tribal chieftains, and distributed land among the poor. But one of his successors, Lucius Lucullus (150) lured 7000 natives to his camp by a treaty promising them land; when they arrived he had them surrounded and enslaved or massacred. … The rebellious Celtiberians of central Spain bore a siege of fifteen months in Numantia, living on their dead; at last (133) Scipio Aemilianus starved them into surrender. In general the policy of the Roman Republic in Spain was so brutal and dishonest that it cost more than it paid. “Never,” said Mommsen, “had war been waged with so much perfidgy, cruelty, and avarice.”

–Caesar and Christ, by Will Durant, pp. 87 – 88

The Horse and Humanity: A Short Love Story

On By Jennifer Mugrage4 Comments

Behold, the following reconstructed Proto-Indo-European words:

  • ekwo- … “horse” equus (Latin), equestrian (English) Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European ōku-, “swift.”
  • demə- … “to force,” especially in the sense of “to tame horses.”
    • Derivatives: daunt, indomitable, tame
  • kwel– … “to revolve, move around; herd stock.”
    • Derivatives: Latin colere, to till, cultivate, inhabit; colonus, farmer. Hence, cult, cultivate, culture, colony, colonize.
    • Greek telos (from the suffixed form kwel–es), completion of a cycle, consummation, end result. Hence, talisman, teleology, leutospore.
  • kw(e)-kwl-o (suffixed reduplicated form of kwel) … “wheel, circle.”
    • Derivatives: Old English hwēol, hweogol. Hence, wheel.
    • Greek kuklos “wheel” and Latin circulus, “circle.” Hence, circle, cycle, cyclone, etc.
    • Sanskrit chakram, “circle or wheel.” Hence, chakra.
  • wegh- … “to go or transport in a vehicle” Derivative: wagon

“Chariot racing for sport and ritual purposes was prominent in the culture of many early Indo-European peoples, such as the Indo-Iranians, Greeks, and Irish.”

source: The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, rev. & ed. by Calvert Watkins, pp. xxviii – xxix and 46

Yes indeed, the Indo-Europeans loved their horses.

But they are not the only ones.

The Mongolians love their horses too. And let’s not forget the American Plains Indians. As soon as horses became available to them, some of them (notably the Lakota) re-structured their entire society around them, and began doing amazing things that the Europeans had never dreamt of (at least, not for many generations), such as hanging by their legs off the side of the horse to shoot a moving target with a bow.

Basically, horses are cool and beautiful, and also extremely demanding and high-maintenance. People tend to like them, but bear in mind that you do have to make them the focus of your entire life if you are going to do anything at all with them.

source: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F736x%2Fc5%2F8f%2Fbd%2Fc58fbde89d3a2d06c744f36f225ee961–amazon-warriors-ancient-art.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=c354c6f07bb684c13e883874b543b3b104a0db28df392ffeeef8404f8ab4f9ac

The “Parthian shot.” The Parthians were a people related to the Scythians and other horse-riding groups of Central Asia. That conical hat, too, is found among the Scythians, a people who live in what is presumed to be the Indo-European homeland.

Themes in The King Must Die: Hellenes vs. ‘Shore People’

On By Jennifer MugrageLeave a comment

source: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Farthistoryresources.net%2Fgreek-art-archaeology-2016%2Fgreek-art-archaeology-images%2Fmycenaefemalehead.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=7f3ec109d2b5fa5fc8a646dec84f0413e7fff54487f710be3ff027785a877590

As part of my ongoing, yearlong foray into fiction set in the ancient Mediterranean, I am now re-reading Mary Renault’s The King Must Die. There is so much history and speculation packed into this book, that I make free to do a series of posts on different topics from it, en route to the final book review. So, buckle up! I hope you like ancient historical fiction! (And, since you are visiting Out of Babel Books, I assume you at least don’t hate it!) Today’s topic is Renault’s theme of the two conflicting cultures of Hellenes vs. what they call the “Shore People.”

On the timing of the Theseus story

I have always had the impression that the story of Theseus was one of the older historical myths. It happens when Knossos, on Crete, is still a thriving city. So, in my mind, I put it a few generations before the Iliad. Madeline Miller, author of Circe, seems to agree. In her book, Circe hears of Theseus having killed the Minotaur well before Odysseus comes to land on her island.

If you do the math, Theseus living before the Odyssey would also put him living before Agamemnon returns from the war at Troy and is slaughtered in his bath by his wife, Clytemnestra. In the play Agamemnon (written, of course, much later), Clytemnestra kills her husband in revenge for his having sacrificed their thirteen-year-old daughter before he sailed for Troy, in addition to a couple of other grudges. Like most women, I find it hard not to think Clytemnestra has a case.

Renault, however, takes a different tack. She has a teenaged Theseus hear the following story from a bard:

The song he gave us was the Lay of Mycenae: how Agamemnon the first High King took the land from the Shore Folk, and married their Queen. But while he was at war she brought back the old religion, and chose another king; and when her lord came home she sacrificed him, though he had not consented. Their son, who had been hidden by the Hellenes, came back when he was a man, to restore the Sky Gods’ worship and avenge the dead. But in his blood was the old religion, to which nothing is holier than a mother. So, when he had done justice, horror sent him mad, and the Night’s Daughters chased him half over the world.

ibid, p. 40 in my copy

So here we have Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, their son Orestes, and the Furies. At the same time, this passage raises some questions.

The Shore People and Their Appearance

The Shore People make their appearance on the very first page of The King Must Die.

Our house is Hellene, sprung from the seed of Ever-Living Zeus. We worship the Sky Gods before Mother Dia and the gods of the earth. And we have never mixed our blood with the blood of the Shore People, who had the land before us.

-ibid, p. 1

As the story progresses, it rapidly becomes obvious that the Hellenes have, in fact, mixed their blood with the blood of the Shore People. There is the story of Agamemnon, above; Theseus is said to be “blonde and blue-eyed like the Hellenes, but small and wiry like the Shore People,” and Theseus, who is very promiscuous, even has a child who “came out small and dark, but so was [his mother’s] brother.”

So we have two populations, one that is native to the Greek coastlands (or at least has been there a long time), and one that came there from the steppes. Theseus’s grandfather explains to him their ethnic history, which he got from his own grandfather:

“Long ago, he said, our people lived in the northland, beyond Olympos. He said, and he was angry when I doubted it, that they never saw the sea. Instead of water they had a sea of grass, which stretched as far as the swallow flies, from the rising to the setting sun. They lived by the increase of their herds, and built no cities; when the grass was eaten, they moved where there was more. … When they journeyed, the barons in their chariots rode round about, guarding the flocks and the women … [Lord Poseidon] told the King Horse, and the King Horse led them. When they needed new pastures, they let him loose; and he, taking care of the people as the god advised him, would smell the air seeking food and water. The barons followed him, to give battle if his passage was disputed; but only the god told him where to go.”

ibid, pp. 16 – 17

This is a description of the Indo-European lifestyle and homeland. The Indo-Europeans took their reverence for the horse, and their wheeled carts and chariots, with them wherever they went, including to Scandinavia. So the Hellenes are Indo-European, and the Shore People, presumably, Hamitic or Semitic.

The mask at the top of this post is Mycenaean. Mycenae is located in the Peloponnesian Peninsula, which is also the location of Troizen, Theseus’s home. The ancient Mycenaean culture, older than classical Greece, took its cues from the Cretan urban culture of the time. In later Greece, you get men wearing himations and women wearing finely woven chitons. This is usually how Helen of Troy, for example, is illustrated. However, she probably looked more like the Mycenaean and Cretan women. Here is someone’s attempt to reconstruct the probable hairstyle and costume of the most beautiful woman in the world:

source: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F7d%2F29%2F38%2F7d293880174568ffd506b49b1f90aefd.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=500d8b11965e5cbdcd1de9286836a9a6b69ab9fcdb46f8991655a2c6648b4ab5

Notice the Egyptian-style, kohl-lined eyes, and the red suns for makeup. Helen might have been blonde, being a Hellene, but her clothing was perhaps more like this.

Here is someone else, reconstructing a traditional Mycenean costume and pose:

source: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F474x%2Fcf%2F30%2Fde%2Fcf30de47e8298251f9d3ecc2976996ec.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=64a6c835ea102cac25d991e173ec53081fe8af0a6bd70db48b6d80c562988c33

I’m guessing these fashion choices came from the Shore People.

Theseus’s mother is described as wearing this ancient Mycenaean style. She wears a tiered, flounced skirt hung with charms, exposed breasts (what was going on, Crete and Mycenae?) and hair that is curled by the use of “crimping braids” (probably to attain a very curly look for those who do not, like the Shore People, have it naturally). Though a blonde Hellene, she is a priestess of the mother goddess, and so she takes some of her cues from the Shore People, and here is where we find the tension.

The Shore People and Their Religion

Both the Hellenes and the Shore People practice the sacrifice of their kings. However, there is a difference. For the Hellenes, it does not come on a regular schedule. Theseus’s grandfather explains:

“When the work of the King Horse was done, he was given to the god … And in those days, said my great-grandfather, as with the King Horse, so with the King. When the king was dedicated, he knew his moira [i.e. doom]. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and no power would fall on him to lead the people. And the custom changes, Theseus, but the token never. … Later the custom altered. They ceased to offer the King at a set time. They kept him for the extreme sacrifice … And it was no one’s place to say to him, ‘It is time to make the offering.’ He was the nearest to the god, because he had consented to his moira; and he himself received the god’s commandment. And so it is still, Theseus. We know our time. … It is not the sacrifice … it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all.”

ibid. pp. 18 – 19

This might explain why so many kurgan burials are of high-born individuals who seem not to have died of old age.

It also, of course, explains the title of the book.

Meanwhile, it has been established that the Shore People do things a different way: “old laments have come down from the Shore People, of young heroes who love a goddess for a year, and foreknow their deaths” (p. 37). In other words, the Shore People treat their king primarily as the goddess or priestess’s consort, and kill him after just a year.

Marija Gimbutas has tried to make the case that the Shore People practiced a gentle, feminine, goddess-worshipping religion, and that they were cruelly exterminated by the warlike, sky-god worshipping evil Indo-Europeans. Renault is not going to paint with such a broad brush. Realistically, she shows both groups living next to one another and influencing each other. Also, throughout the course of the story, she is going to show by increasingly vivid illustrations that these two cultural systems are absolutely incompatible with each other. And that the mother-worship, in the end, is at least as bloody as the worship of Zeus.

Renault’s take on the story of Agamemnon is a great illustration of this. She interprets the story as a conflict between Clytemnestra’s mother-goddess culture and Agamemnon’s sky-father culture. When Clytemnestra brings back the “old religion,” it means that Agamemnon must die–not in battle, not some day, but now, and actually, yesterday. It means that Orestes is doubly cursed. He has loyalty to both religions, with their incompatible demands, and he is put at the mercy of the furies, the representatives of the goddess-religion. They chase him because he killed his mother, but if we string out the implications, even if he had not, they would probably be chasing him anyway. After all, he is a male heir to the throne, so his days are definitely numbered. Behold, the kindness of the religion of the goddess.

Obviously, there are some universal truths and some redemptive metaphors here, hidden under a thick layer of occultism, war between the sexes, and general pain and suffering for everyone. It is going to take a much greater King than Theseus to cut this difficult knot.

Seasonal Postscript

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! Such a romantic post, I realize.