PART
2 – Ch.XIV.12
(KION OURANOU. The Sky Column on
in
the country of the Hyperboreans)
XIV.
12. Prometheus as theos pyrphoros, Mithras
genitor luminis, Deus Arimanius.
Prometheus had been
venerated as a god even from very remote prehistoric times (Eschyl, Prom vinctus, 92). The ancient
Pelasgian theology had known to eternize, through dogma and mysteries, the
legendary merits and suffering of this Christ of the ancient world.
We find traces of
the cult of Prometheus as a god also on the territory of old Hellada.
Sophocles (Oed. Col. V. 55-56) presents Prometheus
as theos
pyrphoros, the god who fetched the fire. And Pausanias writes: “In the
But the cult of
Prometheus under the name of Mithras,
Mithras genitor luminis, deus invictus Mithras, appears widespread in the
ancient Pelasgian lands from near the Istru, which during Roman domination were
known under the name of
The origin and
history of the cult of Mithra in those parts are still an enigma to this day.
On the figurative
monuments from the Roman epoch, the god Mithra is shown as a youth of an
extraordinary beauty, sacrificing a bull in a cave. On these sacrificial
tablets the god appears dressed in the national
Dacian costume, with a somewhat longish shirt, with a belt around the waist
and having on his shoulders a fluttering mantle which reaches lower than his
knees. The god wears on his head the national
Dacian cap, with pointed, rounded top, bent forward, and his long hair (or
a fine curly hair) descends on his shoulders as per the Pelasgian custom. He
vigorously grabs with his left hand one horn of the bull, or his muzzle,
lifting its head. With his left knee he pushes its back down to the ground, and
with his right hand he stabs the animal in the throat, while looking towards
the sky [1].
[1. In various archaeological
descriptions published about the Mithraic monuments of Dacia, Pannonia, Noric,
Italy and Gaul, is often mentioned, but in an entirely superficial way, the Phrygian cap of the god and his half-Asian costume. But the Dacian cap, as it appears on the
figurative monuments of Trajan’s epoch, differs from the Phrygian cap and the
tiara of the Persians, having a very characteristic shape].
On both sides of
the god are figured two adolescent youths dressed in the same Dacian national
costume; one holding in his hand a torch with its burning end upwards, the
other with its burning end downwards. Probably these Cautopats represented the
rising and the setting sun, or Phosphoros and Hesperos.
Both the god and
the youths figured on these bas-reliefs present some Pelasgian heroic and noble
types. Nothing Asian is to be seen, either in the expression of the figures, or
in their costumes.
Apart from the
figures of the god and the Cautopats we also see represented on these Mithraic
monuments various other characteristic scenes from the life of the god, various
topographical images, attributes and symbolic signs, out of which some are
mentioned in the ancient legends of Prometheus, others in the Romanian legends.
We shall mention
here the most remarkable of these accessories and symbolic ornaments, important
for the origin and history of the cult of Mithra.
On a bas-relief
from Rome, the god Mithra is shown blowing with his mouth in order to light the
fire on an altar, while on both sides he is surrounded by snakes, out of which one rises up to bite him on the ribs (Lajard, pl. LXXI).
On another
bas-relief from Ostia are figured, above the cave in which Mithra sacrifices, six altars, situated on a wide and
woody summit (Lajard, pl. LXXIX. 2),
and near the head of the god appears the boreal
constellation of Ursa Major. So we have here a topographical indication
that the scene of the sacrifice takes place near the cyclopean altars, or the
altars of theogony.
A particular
importance though is presented by another bas-relief, discovered in the ruins
of the
Another analogous
sculpture is in the museum Battyani at Alba-Iulia. Here seven altars are figured above the cave and near each altar there
is a wooden post covered with a Dacian
cap (Lajard, pl. LXXIX. 1). This
is another symbolic expression of the fact that the seven altars were on the
summit of a Dacian mountain.
Another
geographical indication about the region where the memorable scenes from the
life of Mithra take place is expressed by the mythological figure of an
important river divinity.
Here the god of the
river appears stretched on the ground (Lajard,
pl. LXXVIII), with a long and fluid beard, which parts in two in the middle (Arch.-epigr. Mitth. II. p. 119).
It is without doubt
the representation of the Istru, the
great and divine river, about which the ancient geographical traditions said
that it parted in two near the mountains of
The sacred tablets
of the god Mithra also had, as we see, a topographical character.
Apart from the cave
of sacrifice, they also represented the sacred ground on which Mithra’s deeds
had taken place.
On the figurative
monuments of the Roman epoch the god Mithra is shown having various attributes. Some of these attributes
reminded the devotees various episodes from the life of the god, while others
symbolized his particular virtues or qualities.
Of all these
emblems, the raven is one of the
most characteristic and traditional symbols presented by the Mithraic
monuments. On one of these sculptures is figured a raven entering into the cave
through a hole or a breakage of the rock (Lajard,
pl. LXXV). The same raven is shown on another Mithraic monument in an entirely
domestic attitude. Entering into the cave through the hole or breakage of the
rock, it bends its head shouting something to Mithra, who sacrifices the bull
(Idem. Pl. LXXXVII). This raven is a messenger.
On another Mithraic
monument from the villa Torlonia, a winged
horse is figured near the bust of the sun (Idem, pl. LXXXII), horse also
mentioned in the folk Romanian songs (Densusianu
Aron, Revista critica literara, III. 63). The country of the winged horses
was, according to ancient legends,
Other figures show
the god Mithra with a key in each
hand (Lajard, pl. LXXI). These are “the
keys of heaven”, also mentioned by the Mithraic Romanian carols. Mithra appears
on these monuments as the god with the keys, he has the role of Ianus, who
opens and closes the sky, the clouds, the earth and the sea (Ovid. Fast.
A marble statue
discovered at
[2. On some bas-reliefs, especially
on those of
During the Roman
epoch the mysteries of Mithra had seven grades of initiation called: Corax, Gryphus, Miles, Leo, Perses,
Heliodromus and finally Pater
patratus, which constituted the head of Mithraic hierarchy (Hieronymus, Epistle 107 to Laetas).
It seems though
that in the beginning these names had been only some popular epithets of the
god Mithra.
Corax, or the raven (corvus), appears figured on
almost all the Mithraic bas-reliefs. In Romanian folk songs the hero, who
represents Prometheus in the cave or prison, is usually called Corbea. The ravens bring food, in the
Romanian legends, to this imprisoned martyr (Burada, O calatorie in Dobrogea, p. 153), or, according to other
versions, a raven comes to the window of the prison of the hero (called Gruia this time), sent by his father to
search for his son all over the world (Francu,
Romanii din muntii apuseni, p. 209).
The second grade of
initiation in Mithra’s mysteries has the name of Gryphus, meaning griffon.
The mythological
vultures called griffons symbolized, as we know, the country of the
Hyperboreans. On the cloths worn by those initiated in Mithra’s mysteries were
figured also the griffons, called gryphes
hyperborei by Apuleius (Metam.
XI. Ed. Garnier,
But it seems that
the name Gryphus is only an altered
Latin form, and that the original idea had been in the beginning completely
different. In various Romanian songs the hero who represents chained Prometheus
has also the name of Gruia, Lat.
Grus (Corcea, Balade poporale, p.
88).
It is a historic
probability that Gryphus, exactly
like Corax, was only a simple Latinised
form of a name given to the hero Mithra in folk traditions.
The fifth grade of
the mysteries of Mithra, according to Hieronymus, was called Perses.
Mithra appears
under the name Perses also with Porphyrius
(De antro Nympharum, 16), and the poet Statius
mentions the
The origin of this
name has remained a mystery to this day.
The word “Perses”
has not at all the character of an ethnic name.
In the Romanian folk
legends the hero suffers “in the prison of Opris”
(Teodorescu, Poesii pop. p. 517; Tocilescu, Materialuri folklore. I.
147. 1256). It is the same underground place called by the poet Statius “Persei
antri”. It is the same word, identical from the point of view of the legends
with the literary Latin form of “Perses”.
In the theology of
the Pelasgians from the
In various
traditional Romanian songs, the tortured, innocent hero, Prometheus of
antiquity, is celebrated under the name of Marza,
or Mirza (Bibicescu, Poesii pop. din Transilvania, p. 329; Catana, Balade poporale, p. 17, 18). It
is the same name as the Greek Mithras, with the two middle
consonants changing places. Mithras instead of Mirthas
= Mirsas.
In Doric dialect the letter th had also the sound of s.
(In historical documents Mursa or Marsa is the name of a Romanian noble
family from the country of Fagaras).
Prometheus as the
god Mithra had in antiquity various epithets.
He was called “deus invictus”, meaning the brave god.
So, according to legends, he had gone through tough battles out of which he had
emerged victorious.
In the inscriptions
from
But a particular
historical significance has his epithet of Arimanius.
On two inscriptions
from Aquineum (Buda), Mithra is called DEVS
ARIMANIVS (C. I. L. III, nr. 3414, 3415), meaning the god from the nation
of the Arimi (Arimani) or the
ancient Ramleni.
Still as DEVS ARIMANIVS appears Mithra on an
inscription from Rome (C. I. L. VI, nr. 47) and it is important the fact that
this appellation is given him by Pater patrum himself, the head of the Mithraic
religion from the entire empire.
Without doubt this
glorification of Mithra as Arimanius had also the character of a religious
propaganda. The inscriptions with Deus Arimanius from
Around 307ad the
Roman emperors from the houses called “Jovii”
and “Herculii” considered Mithra as
their ancestral god, the patron of their reign or empire, fautor imperii sui (C. I. L. III, nr. 4413). From the family “Jovii” were at that time: Diocletian, born in
And to the family “Herculii” belonged Maximian the old, born at Sirimius, and his adoptive son Constantius Chlor, whose father was from
Dacia from across the Danube (Trebelius
Pollionis, Divus Claudius, c. 13) and Constantine
the Great, the son of Constantius Chlor.
Mithra appears as a
national god, as the protector of the empire and of the Roman people, on the
following inscription from Apulum: pro
salute imperii populique Romani et ordinis coloniae Apuli (C.I. L. III, nr.
1114).
The ancients had
entirely confused ideas about the origin, character and extent of the cult of
Mithra in the Roman provinces. They had no idea that the regions so-called
barbarian from near the Istru had formed in a very remote time the sacred
country of Mithra’s religion.
According to Lactantius Placidus from the 6th
century ad, and without mentioning Plutarch, the religion of Mithra originated
in Persia, from where it passed into Phrygia and from Phrygia to the Romans (in
Operae of Papinius Statius, v.
717-720). But in
[3. The cult of the god Mithra had been introduced to
According to the theological books
of the Persians, Mithra was a subordinated divinity, entirely distinct from Ahriman, this one being considered as
the principle of evil, as demon of the shadows.
And according to Herodotus (
Outside of
The history of the
cult of Mithra belongs from its inception to the Pelasgian race and territory
from near the Istru.
Here echo even
today the traditional songs about the suffering of Prometheus as hero, and the
religious hymns of Mithra as god [4].
[4. The sanctuaries consecrated to
the god Mithra were underground.
Such an underground
To Mithra as god of the fire was consecrated in ancient times the holly day
called even today by the Romanian people Sam-Medru,
Sam-Miedru (Saint Dumitru in the Christian calendar, 26 Oct.). On the eve of
Sam-Miedru fires are lighted even today in some places, around which the boys
gather and shout “Come! to the fire of
Sam-Miedru” (Ionneanu,
Superstitii, p. 56).
The Latin people also celebrated on the day of V Id. Oct (11 Oct) an
ancient national rustic holly day called “Meditrinalia”.
Varo and Festus derive this name from mederi,
to heal, without searching for the historical character of this day. But in
fact Meditrinalia, by name and the
month in which was celebrated, appears to have been the same religious
festivity as that called by the Romanian people Sam-Medru
TN - Sam = Sant = Sfant = Saint. It seems to me that even the name of Dumitru can be explained as deriving
from Santu Mitru = San T(D)umitru ].