- Augustus : the Roman Mesiah
Julius Caesar became ‘God’ - Divus Iulius – on 1 January 42 BCE and his adopted son, Augustus (right) became the ‘Son of God’ – Divi Filius – 15 years later.
As Octavian, the latter had been elected to the College of Pontiffs in 47 BCE and in January of 27 BCE, the Senate gave Octavian the new titles of Augustus and Princeps – that of Augustus was a title of religious rather than political authority.
On 6 March 12 BCE, he took up the position of Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the collegium of the Pontifices, the most important position in Roman religion.
As Augustus, the emperor unified Church and State, and in a manner a mere king had not. It is this difference and how I interpret it that prompts this post.
Ostatak teksta : http://historyhuntersinternational.org/2011/05/05/augustus-the-roman-messiah/- The Pantheon : Hadrian's Giant Sundial
- Hadrian’s parody
- Hadrian’s perverted insanity
- The Gospels According to Hadrian (part one)
- The Gospels of Hadrian Part II: Death on the Nile
- The Gospels According to Hadrian, Part III: The Aelian Canon and the Main Hand of God
Hadrian was, from his earliest days, a Grecophile and one manner in which this became most evident is his treatment of Helios worship in Roman form – Sol, the sun.
Ostatak teksta : http://historyhuntersinternational.org/2011/04/22/the-pantheon-hadrians-giant-sundial/
- Mauretanian glassmakers in Roman Britain
There was no word in Latin for glass at the beginning of the first century of this era , though glassware had been made and admired in the panhellenic world for a very long time.
Right: Glass found at Begram, Afghanistan, then part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom we at HHI describe as part of Greco-India.
The art of glassmaking was born in Akkadia in about 2400 BCE and it was a Semitic, and then a Jewish art for the next three millennia. The process of vitrification was discovered once only as far as we know.
Once made, glass is easily melted and reformed. The producers of the primary material retained their secret manufacturing process and the secret of this technology remained within the community of glassmakers until the medieval period.
Ostatak teksta : http://historyhuntersinternational.org/2010/08/05/mauretainian-glassmakers-in-roman-britain/- Dynastic power in the Greco-Roman world
The Greco-Roman world was often extremely violent. Protection from this violence comes from power over money and belief, which become the two battlegrounds within society.
There are severe limits on the power of an individual, no matter what wealth or faith that person controlled. The state, however, offers levers of power over both the economy – through taxation – and faith, through organised religion.
The most able in Greco-Roman society therefore fought, through means fair and foul, to place their hands on those levers of power.
The natural instinct of a family head is to protect the family and we therefore see throughout Classical Antiquity how individuals gaining power over the state will naturally try and form a dynasty, to provide an umbrella of protection over their immediate family and extended clan.
This is how the cognomen is so important: cognomen: Latin co, “together with,” and nomen, “name”; the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions.
Ostatak teksta : http://historyhuntersinternational.org/2010/04/30/dynastic-power-in-the-greco-roman-world/
- The Ptolemaic zodiac: from where the sun shines
We see here how the same dynastic power-brokers in Alexandria who created new philosophies and religions centred on Helios also created the astrological system with the Helios-centric zodiac.
We have seen how the conquests of Alexander the Great brought Hellenisation to Persia, Greco-India and Egypt, and mentioned how this divided society in Judea, which led to a series of wars and ultimately, the destruction of that nation by Hadrian.
In Greco-India, we have seen Buddhism as a product of Greco-India, the rise of monasteries and their spread along the trade routes, where we also find early synagogues.
Later and in trading posts such as Dura Europos, the earliest churches also appear.
Ostatak teksta : http://historyhuntersinternational.org/2010/05/15/the-ptolemaic-zodiac-from-where-the-sun-shines/- Chrestians and the lost history of Classical Antiquity
To who or what do Chrest and Chrestian refer early in the first century of this era?
Archaeology is revealing a growing number of examples from a century before the composition of the canonical gospels that as well as being used by Nero to describe the arsonists of the Great Fire of Rome, some were using these terms for themselves and in their magical practices.
We now see that Chrest and Chrestian refer to members of an axis of power between Rome and Alexandria, whose two prime movers are Antonia Minor and Alexander Lysimachus (the Alabarch).
Nastavak teksta : http://historyhuntersinternational.org/2010/06/05/chrestians-and-the-lost-history-for-classical-antiquity/
- Lifting the Vaults of Heavenly and Earthly Peace
In this installment of our ongoing series on Hadrian and the second century, my colleague and I shall attempt to more fully map some of the major aspects of second-century Panhellenic magic based on archaeological and primary source textual evidences.
Frequently in archaeology the style and method of field and excavation reports find their way into the narrative archaeologists write when they turn toward the broad cultural implications of the finds they have brought to light. Thus, one finds excellent discussions of discrete elements of architecture, glassware, pottery, sculpture, and textual remains, etc., without necessarily finding all of these elements linked to a coherent system of cultural practice. Admittedly, this is the most uncertain aspect of the historical craft and it must rest on the bedrock of science.
During our discussions and research, we are continually impressed with the importance of astronomic observation, astrology, and the zodiac. There exists in the archaeological record numerous examples of vaults and ceilings, so to speak, containing a representation of the celestial realm represented most completely in Egypt (see Dendera Zodiac, supra). However, it should be noted that these vaults, as archaeological structures, are always supported by some other architectural element.
In this post we first will examine some basic elements of the Hellenistic exedra and relate this architectural form to its general function in the Hellenistic division of public and private space. Second, we will attempt to situate the exedra as an architectural form within the context of Hadrian's Antinous-Osiris cult and suggest its development within our hypothesized proto-Rabbinic Judaism prior to its split from proto-Orthodox Christianity. Third, we hope to depict the exedra and vaults of this period as an organic component seamlessly connected with religious practice. These practices should be understood to encompass a liturgy that itself left tangible remains in the archaeological record and contained materials connected to the trade and daily life of the empire and the cultures connected to it.
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