PART
6 –
Ch.XXXV.3
The
Great Pelasgian empire
(The
reign of Uranos - Oyranos, Munteanul)
XXXV.
3. The reign of Uranos over the eastern and northern regions of Europe.
The Pelasgian
empire, founded at the lower Danube, had a considerable
geographical expansion even in the times of Uranos. According to Diodorus Siculus, Uranos’ reign
extended especially over the western and northern parts of the ancient world
(I. III. 56).
From what we can
gather though from the traditions of the ancients, Uranos had ruled in Europe
over the regions of Oceanos potamos
(Istru or the lower Danube); over the tablelands of the high mountains, Ourea
machra or Carpathians (Hesiodus,
Theog. v. 129), where was the powerful political and military center of the
Pelasgian empire; over Pontos,
considered as a son of Gaea or Terra (Ibid, v. 132); over Scythia, where he was venerated under the name Papaeus (Herodotus, lib.
IV. 59; for Herodotus, Vesta – Terra was the wife of Papaeos, for Evhemerus she
was the wife of Uranos – Diod. VI.
2. 8); and over the vast territory of Germany, where in the
times of Tacitus he was still venerated under the name Tuisto deus, Terra editus
(Germ. 2).
South from Oceanos
potamos, the reign of Uranos extended over the entire Hem peninsula. In Macedonia and in Thracia,
Uranos was venerated as Zeus Ourios, and Zeus
anaxi, identical with Jupiter
Imperator of the Romans.
Jupiter Urius, writes Eschyl, is the great beginner of the human genus, emperor (anaxi)
by his own power (Suppl. v. 589-594).
An ancient
sanctuary dedicated to Jupiter Urius (even in the times of the Argonauts) was
on the shores of the Thracian Bosphorus, at the straits of the Euxine Pontos (Arrianus, Peripl. Pont. Eux. c. 12).
There, according to general knowledge, all the sailors who entered with their
ships into the Euxine Pontos had to sacrifice to Jupiter Urius, to meet with
favorable winds [1]; but in reality, this sacrifice was only a tax for free
navigation and commerce on the waters of the Black Sea. The Euxine Pontos
belonged in those times to the Pelasgian empire from the lower Danube.
[1. The Greeks called ouros
the wind from the mountain, favorable to navigation; it is the same wind which
the Romanian people call “munteanul” (TN – from the mountain). Bolliac wrote around 1863:
“I said with other occasions that the word Uriesi (TN - giants), and also Urus (wild ox), means nothing else but
“muntean” (TN – from the mountain)
and comes from the Dorian word Urios,
from which also comes urios anemos,
the wind from the mountain (Buciumul, An. I. p. 131)].
We find with Cicero an important
historical note about Zeus Ourios:
Accusing Verres,
the famous plunderer of the temples of Sicily, Cicero says the
following: “What? Haven’t you taken from the temple of Jove of Syracusa the most religious statue of Jupiter
Imperator, who the Greeks call Urios,
a work of the most excellent beauty. One can imagine how venerated had been
Jupiter Imperator in his temple, if one remembered how piously had been
respected a statue of the same form and beauty which Flaminius had brought from
Macedonia as a trophy, and
had placed in the Capitolio. In the whole world were known only three statues
of Jupiter Imperator, all three of the same type and of the same beauty. One of
these had been that from Macedonia, which we see
today placed in the Capitolio; another is the statue from the straits of the Euxine Pontos; and the third was at Syracusa before the praetoriate of
Verres. The first (of Macedonia) had been lifted
from the temple in which it was placed by Flaminius, brought to the Capitolio,
and placed in the terrestrial house of Jove. That which is today at the entry
into the Euxine Pontos, had been preserved to our days whole and untouched,
despite all the wars which came from the Pontos, or which had entered into that
sea. The third statue was at Syracusa, venerated not only by the citizens and
inhabitants of Syracusa, but also by foreigners, but this one was taken by
Verres (c. Verr. 10. c. 67).
At Dodona in the Epirus, the sacred city
of the Pelasgians from the southern parts of the peninsula, Uranos was also
venerated under the name Zeus anaxi Pelasgichos (Jupiter
Impeator Pelasgus). In Homer’s Iliad
(XVI. 232), Achilles, lifting his eyes towards the sky (ouranon eis), invokes Zeus
anaxi Pelasgichos of Dodona, asking him to
give victory to his troupes in the following battles with the Trojans. Zeus
anaxi Pelasgichos was therefore a divinity identical with Uranos; but
especially because of his epithets anaxi and Pelasgichos, he appears
as a divine ancestor of the ancient world, identical with Pelasg, whom Eschyl
calls anaxi Pelasgon and “Lord over the mountains of Dodona” (Suppl. v. 327.
258).