AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. #56

c703 BCE        NUMA POMPILIUS (715-673 BCE) second king of Rome is credited with building the first temple to Vesta and establishing the institution of the Vestal Virgins. The temple is round to represent earth, has a domed ceiling to represent the celestial vault and in it a perpetual flame burns, symbol of the earthly hearth and heavenly spirit. (9)

Vestal Virgins of the Goddess Vesta

[historyhogs.com] 

                 Numa established most of the priesthoods of ancient Rome, particularly those of the gods Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus, known as the 3 Flamines. He also established the Salii, the priests who danced through the city twice a year carrying their special sacred shields, one of which had fallen from the sky as a gift from Jupiter. Numa also organized the first systematic Roman ritual calendar (324) and began the calendar year from when the sun reached the mid-point of the constellation Capricorn, following on from the winter solstice that is marked by the sun entering into the sign of Capricorn.(11)  The constellations and similarly named Ecliptic signs have not yet been distinguished or separated, this will occur in the third century.

King Numa is the recipient of a magical shield from the planetary god Jupiter, similar to that given by Zeus to Dardanus the first king of Troy (3000 BCE).  This shield is a copy of the Palladium or aegis worn by the goddess of wisdom, Minerva or Athena of Greece. To protect the valuable shield, Numa made 11 copies of it and appointed the above mentioned 12 priests of the Salii as their guardians. (247]

Numa Pompilius 

[sculptor Moitte 1806]

c700 BCE    HESIOD: Greek poet who in his work called ‘Theogony’, records and systemizes the Olympian pantheon along with Greek stories of creation. In this creation, first came the ‘gods’ Chaos and Gaia with their son Kronos, to be followed by second generation of ‘gods’ made up of Kronos and his wife Rhea, with their son Zeus who is born on the island of Crete. Zeus devours his own pregnant wife Metis, goddess of wisdom, and gives birth to Athena out of his head. Athena will become the patron and protector of the city state of Athens. This switch of genders some authors think symbolizes a growing male domination over female. (9)

Is this Hesiod?

                    Hesiod’s introduction of personifications of the gods recalls the Egyptian concept of ‘Maat’ expressed through the interaction of their gods. This is similar to the ‘Wisdom of God’ as recorded by the Hebrews in their ‘Book of Proverbs’. [185]

 

                Many Greek mythologies were set is Italy where the Greeks had established colonies. Here were located the ‘Phlegrean Fields’ that hid the entrance to the Kingdom of Hades near Naples. Etna in Sicily is regarded as the site where Zeus, who with the help of Hercules, fought the Titans, the ancient old gods. Etna is also the abode of the Cyclops and Hephaestus or Vulcan, god of Fire. The Tartara River near Etna is nominated as the site of Greek Kore’s kidnap by Pluto god of Hades or the underworld. The River Po which runs through Turin, the plane of Lombardy and exits in the Adriatic, is also the site of many Greek myths. (182]

Phlegrean Fields

Entrance to Hades, world of Vulcan and Pluto

                    Western thought is systemized by the Greeks around the end of this century and into the next and will reach its high point with Plato (365 BCE) in the fourth century of this era.  The ancients conceived the essences of life as gods, and Plato in the future will give these gods archetypal form. (19)

Vulcan, god of Fire

[detail from ‘Parnassus’ by Mantegna 1497]

                Around the turn of the century, the first kingdom of Media is established from a federation of Iranian tribes. From these tribes will arise the Achaemenid dynasty of the future. (102) In the European Late Bronze Age development, it is the time of the ‘Urn-field Culture’ of the Celtic people.