[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

pillars. This was a Roman method of marking the date.
Pausanias III:20:9: "On the way from Sparta to Arkadia is the
Horse's Grave, where Tyndareos made Helen's suitors swear to
abide by her choice. Nearby are seven pillars in the ancient
pattern, said to be statues of the planets. Further on is a
sanctuary of Mysian Artemis."
There may be a link between the tree, the pillar, the poros and
the tekmor of Alkman, and the pillar of Plato, Republic X. The
Greek kion, pillar, can also, with a change of accent, mean
'going'.
Electrical displays, travelling through the sky, could be the
explanation of the similarity.
Temple columns were thought of as supports for heaven. The
Egyptian pylon, or gateway, is seb (Greek hepta = seven). The
pulvinaria or capitals of the columns may suggest the cushions
on which deities reposed.
SOME PASSAGES OF INTEREST IN THE ILIAD
VII:44 ff.: Apollo suggests to Athene that they should rouse
Hector to challenge one of the Greeks to a duel. Athene has no
objection to the idea. Helenos, Priam's son, understood (put
together in his mind) the plan that the gods intended. Helenos
told Hector of this, assuring him that it was not yet the time for
him to die, "for I heard this from the voice of immortal gods."
X:313: Hector offers a reward to anyone who will make a night
reconnaissance of the Greek ships. Dolon volunteers. He takes
his bow (line 333), puts on the hide of a grey wolf, puts on his
head a ferret-skin cap. 'Kunee' is a leather cap. 'Ktideos' is a
marten or weasel or ferret.
A digression is necessary at this point.
203
Q-CD vol 12: KA, Ch. 17: Byways of Electricity
Smintheus, an epithet of Apollo, may be from Sminthe, a town
in the Troad, or from sminthos, a Cretan word meaning a
mouse, or both may come from the Cretan word 'Mouse-killer'
is a possible translation for Smintheus.
In the Old Testament, II Kings XIX:19:6ff., we read how Isaiah
prophesied to king Hezekiah that the army sent against
Jerusalem by Sennacherib under the command of Rabshakeh
would be destroyed by the Lord.
In II Kings XIX:35 ff., we read that the angel of the Lord went
out and smote the Assyrians; 185,000 were dead next morning.
In XIX:7, the words of Isaiah are: "Behold, I will send a blast
upon him ..."
It is significant that in the following chapter, XX:9 ff., Isaiah
prophesies that the shadow on Hezekiah's sundial will go back
ten degrees. In verse 11 we read that the Lord brought the
shadow ten degrees back.
Herodotus II:141, gives another version of Sennacherib's defeat.
He learnt from Egyptian priests that Sennacherib's army had
been destroyed in a single night. He saw a stone statue of
Sethos set up in an Egyptian temple, holding a mouse.
Herodotus was told that a plague of field mice gnawed away the
bow strings, shield straps, etc, and the soldiers, their weapons
useless, had to flee.
In the following chapter, 142, he mentions the Egyptian report
that on four occasions since the time of the first king of Egypt,
the sun had changed its position of rising and setting. It is
interesting to compare this with the fact that in II Kings XIX &
XX, Sennacherib's defeat is reported just before an account of a
reversal of the apparent motion of the sun.
Is there any way of harmonising these two accounts of the
cause of the destruction of Sennacherib's army? The
weasel-skin cap and wolf's pelt worn by Dolon may be a clue.
204
Q-CD vol 12: KA, Ch. 17: Byways of Electricity
The object in the sky may have looked like a weasel, wolf or
mouse, the size being inevitably a subjective matter in the
description. Cicero, De Divinatione I:XLIV, says that in the
Marsic War, shields, with the leather gnawed away (derosos),
fell from the sky, a most sinister portent.
Apollo Smintheus has a female equivalent in Mouse Artemis,
mentioned by Pausanias.
DISTURBANCE IN THE SKY
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 B.C. to A.D. 65, wrote not only
philosophical dialogues, but also a number of plays, modelled
on Greek tragedy. It is in his Phaedra that we meet the well
known passages about the moon, whose birth the Arkadians
claimed to have witnessed.
In Act IV of his Thyestes, the chorus after the Messenger's
speech express their fear that Chaos will come again, and that
Nature will for the second time wipe out all the lands. The sun
has turned aside from its usual path, and gone back to set in the
east.
Such a passage can best be considered in conjunction with the
previously quoted stories of Isaiah and the sundial of king
Hezekiah, and the information given to Herodotus. The Greeks
and Romans, and other early ancient writers who dealt with the
problem, first described these happenings as historical facts.
Psychological interpretations and rational explanations came
later.
Iliad XII:442 ff.: Hector storms the Argive wall. Helped by
Zeus, he picks up a huge rock and breaks the gates.
Line 462: Shining Hector rushes in, his face looking like swift
night. He shines like grim bronze. His eyes flash fire.
IV:439 ff.: In the fighting that follows the breaking of the truce
by Pandarus, Ares spurs on the Trojans, Athene of the flashing
205
Q-CD vol 12: KA, Ch. 17: Byways of Electricity
eyes the Achaeans, also Deimos (Fear), Phobos (Rout), and Eris
(Strife), with insatiable raving, a sister and companion of
man-slaying Ares. At first as she raises her head she is little, but
then, though walking on the ground, her head stands up in the
sky.
XIII:299: Meriones and Idomeneus, as they set out to battle in
their shining bronze, aithopi chalko, look like Ares and his son
Phobos.
XIV:243 ff.: Hera goes to Lemnos, armed with Aphrodite's
girdle of Love and Desire, himas. This word also means a
leather strap, harness of a chariot, whip. At Lemnos she asks
Hypnos, Sleep, to lull Zeus to sleep. Hypnos is unwilling;
anybody, even Okeanos, the father of the gods, rather than
Zeus. "You once gave me a command on the day when
Herakles, the arrogant son of Zeus, sailed from Troy after
sacking the city of the Trojans. I sweetly lulled to sleep the
mind of aegis-bearing Zeus, and you, devising mischief, raised
fierce gales on the sea and bore Herakles away to Kos with its
many inhabitants, away from all his friends. When Zeus woke
he was angry, and hurled the gods about in the palace, and
looked for me especially. He would have thrown me from the
sky to vanish in the sea, had not Night, the tamer of gods and
humans alike, saved me.
Iliad XV:1-27: Zeus wakes to find the Trojans in disarray, and
Hector out of action. He turns on Hera angrily and reminds her
of the time when he punished her by hanging her high. "I tied
two anvils from your feet and tied your hands with an
unbreakable golden chain, leaving you suspended in sky and
clouds. The gods in far Olympus were angry, but could not free
you. For if I caught anyone, I hurled him, taking him by the
foot, out of Olympus (apo Belou), so that he reached the ground
powerless. But not even then was I freed from the grief for
god-like Herakles, whom you, having by your subtlety
persuaded the hurricanes, sent over the barren sea driven by the
North wind."
206
Q-CD vol 12: KA, Ch. 17: Byways of Electricity
Akmones, anvils, were meteoric stones. The stones fell near
Troy, and were shown to sightseers.
Belos, according to a scholiast, is an old Achaean word
meaning heaven, distinct from the word belos, meaning
threshold (Leaf and Bayfield). [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • moje-waterloo.xlx.pl

    •