Hi all - Naturally, the striking of the spears and standards would point to lightening, and that's one reason why I left it.
But the sky seems to fall, and the blast of a heavenly body? Any orbital mechanicians want to try this one? Anyone want to try and locate the army's camp? good hunting, Ed A FEW FACTS ABOUT THE ROLES OF POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS FACTORS IN THE SUPPRESSION OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF IMPACTS DURING THE YEARS OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC While it is true that the Church's Platonic orthodoxy was rather strictly enforced for 1600 years or so, in point of fact that suppression of impact knowledge began long before the Church ever gained power. But it turns out that a major Roman political leader was killed by "fulmine" some 400 years before the Church ever gained much power: >From Julius (IULII: OBSEQUENTIS AB ANNO URBIS CONDITAE DV PRODIGIORUM LIBER) "Consulship of Gnaeus Octavius and Licius Cinna (87 BCE) "56a. While Cinna and Marius were displaying a cruel rage in their conduct of the civil war, at Rome in the camp of Gnaeus Pompeius [Strabo] the sky seems to fall, weapons and standards were hit, and soldiers struck dead. Pompeius [Strabo] himself was struck dead by the blast of a heavenly body." and to put it mildly, this was a hot political topic. The suppression of Etruscan astromancy and knowledge of impact lore actually thus actually began with Senate loyalist Cicero's deprecations of it in De haruspicum Responsis (56 BCE) and De Divinatione (45 BCE), works which he wrote in support of Pompeius Magnus, Pompeius Strabo's son, and against Caesar, who held the office of Pontifex Maximus, head of the haruspex. But events will take yet a stranger turn. As Julius's work represents the last real vestige of Etruscan astromancy and impact lore, establishing its date is essential. Now it is widely held that Julius himself extracted his haruspex's records from the history of Rome which was written by Titus Livy, who lived 59 BCE - 17 CE; Livy is thought to have begun writing his history around 29 BCE, and it is commonly held that Julius's wrote his work much, much later than 17 CE. But a problem with this dating scenario is that the poet and astronomer Manilius appears to paraphrase part of Julius's work in his Astonomica at IV.45-62, and Manilius is known to have written this particular work spanning the time of the Emperor Augustus's death in 14 CE. (For the date of the composition of the Astronomica definitively established by J.P. Good, see Manilius, Astronomica, J.P. Good translation, Loeb Classical Library, page xiii). Therefore Julius's work or a part of it was must have been written before 14 CE. Were Julius's own personal name "Julius" not enough, his conspicuous use of the name "Caesar" for Octavian, a usage which Julius Caesar's nephew Octavian (later known as Augustus, the first Roman Emperor) himself ferociously advocated, marks the work as having been written for the most part early in Octavian's campaign for absolute power, if not indeed even earlier. Julius's anti-Pompey bias is clearly demonstrated by his reminder again of Pompey Strabo's death by fulmine in his entry for Strabo's son Pompey Magnus's death in 46 BCE. All of this brings us to a possible reason why Julius wrote the work in the first place - as a piece of political propaganda first for Julius Caesar, and then for Octavian. Seen in another light, as the office of Emperor was entirely of Octavian's (Augustus's) own making, and without precedent in Roman politics, there must have been a strong concern among the haruspex as to what role they would play in the new political order. Quid pro quo, the influence of the haruspex over the traditional republicans who normally would abhor an emperor with the deepest of passions must have been considerable. In short, at this point in time, Etruscan astromancy and its knowledge of impact events was again being promoted, for the same reason Cicero had for be-littling it. While the anti-Pompey bias of Julius's work is datable to sometime around Pompei's defeat by Julius Caesar, say 49-46 BCE, there are yet other political considerations which allow us to further refine the date of the composition. Following Caesar's murder by the Senate, his nephew and heir Octavian (Augustus) marched on Rome; in the meantime, Caesar's supporter Marcus Antonius (Anthony) moved to take on a general supported by the Senate, one Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus. After Antony's defeat of the consuls sent against him by the Senate, Octavian gained authority from that same Senate to move against Anthony. The first thing which Octavian did with his new authority was to shore up his position in Rome; and then through the offices of Antonius's supporter, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Octavian promptly entered into a new coalition with Lepidus and Anthony, yet another triumvirate, to take on those generals supporting the very same Senate which had appointed him in the first place. Here we come to the detailed events bearing more directly on the problem at hand, the suppression of Etruscan astromancy and impact knowledge. Through these agreements with Octavian and Anthony, Lepidus gained control of the North African grain supplies. In the meatime, the general Sextus Pompeius, the youngest son of Pompey Magnus (and thus the grandson of the man killed by the "fulmine", if you remember), who was loyal to the Senate, gained control of Rome's Navy and Sicily. To further his own personal power, Sextus Pompeius instituted a blockade on Rome's grain supplies, and Octavian, Anthony, and Lepidus were forced to recognize this final Pompey's authority. When the three generals denied Sextus Pompeius control of the Peloponese following their victories in the east, Sextus Pompeius agqain put a blockade on Rome's grain supplies. Octavian and Lepidus now moved against Sextus Pompeius, but after they defeated Pompey III, Lepidus decided to make a play for the control of Sicily and Rome's grain supplies. But then Lepidus's troops deserted him for Octavian. And here we come to the point: in his victory, Octavian did not murder Lepidus, but instead "Octavian spared his former triumviral colleague but stripped him of his powers and confined him to house arrest at the pleasant seaside town of Circeii. There he lived out his life unmolested until he died, of natural causes, in 12 BC." (Garrett G. Fagan, Pennsylvania State University, entry for Augustus, De Imperii Romani, An Online Encyclopedia of the Roman Emperors). Further,(continuing with Fagan's summary), "When Octavian returned to Rome in triumph following the defeat of Sextus, the senate naturally moved to honor him extravagantly. AMONG THE PROPOSED HONORS WAS THE SUGGESTION THAT OCTAVIAN BE NAMED PONTIFEX MAXIMUS, PAGAN ROME'S CHIEF PRIEST. OCTAVIAN REFUSED. LEPIDUS, THOUGH DISGRACED, WAS PONTIFEX MAXIMUS; AND IT WOULD BE AGAINST ESTABLISHED PRACTICE FOR AN INCUMBENT TO BE STRIPPED OF THIS AUGUST PRIESTHOOD WHILE STILL ALIVE." This is when the suppression of Etruscan astromancy and its knowledge of impact events began in full, when Octavian's (Augustus's) rival Lepidus was the Pontifex Maximus. It did not happen several hundred years later after the Church gained power. Seen in another way, Etruscan astromancy was tied closely with the Republican form of government, and as such it had little place in the Empire. As far as the Obsequentis goes, it could not have been publicly published after Lepidus returned to Rome in 36 BCE. As Julius understated it in his later entry for 44 BCE, "The howling of dogs was heard by night before the residence of the Pontifex Maximus, and the fact that the largest dog was torn apart by the others foretold unseemly disgrace to Lepidus." Therefore we can date Julius's first draft with some certainty to 49-46 BCE, with a later extension into Octavian's time to 44-36 BCE. Ultimately, following Lepidus' death, the original work was again extended, and with two isolated and dangling later final additional entries, and it was brought through to the time of Octavian's death and the succession of the next Emperor. As for Manilius, as the details of Sextus Pompey's activities in Sicily were personally embarrassing to Lepidus, no religious/astronomical work could be written mentioning them while Lepidus was Pontifex Maximus. It could only have been following the death of Lepidus in 14 CE that Manilius added his mention of Sextus Pompey's blockades to his original draft. All of this brings us yet again to another reason for Octavian's (Augustus's) suppression of Etruscan astromancy and impact knowledge. Livy, though an acquaintance of Octavian (the first Emperor Augustus), is reported to have been considered by Augustus to be of republican sympathies - and Livy included the extracts from the Julius's work simply to show the omens in a republican light. This provided Octavian and his successors with yet another reason for suppressing Etruscan astromancy. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
