PREHISTORIC
PART
6 –
Ch.XXXVII (I – IV)
The
Great Pelasgian empire
The
reign of Typhon (Seth, Set Nehes, Negru Set)
XXXVII.
The war of Osyris with Typhon (I – II).
The war of Jove with Typhon (III – IV).
I.
After the
dethronement of Saturn, the internal peace of the great Pelasgian empire was
again shattered, and a new war, much more violent and widespread broke out
between the sons of Saturn, for the rule of the ancient world.
Saturn had,
according to ancient traditions, three sons (Homer, Iliad, XV. v. 187), who bear though in ancient theogonies
different names. The first one is called Typhon
by the Greek authors (Philo, H.
Ph. Fr. 2. 21; Plutarc, De Is.; Diodorus, I. I. 13. 21), Set by the Egyptians (Plutarc, De Is. c. 41), and Ahriman in the religious traditions of
Persia and Bactria.
The second son was Osyris, also called Dionysos by the Greeks, an African of
obscure origin, but adopted by Saturn with rights of inheritance of the empire.
Finally, the third son was Jove, who
had been also reared in southern lands.
The war waged by
the Osyris and Jove against Typhon for the mastery of the ancient world bear in
ancient Greek literature the name Gigantomachia,
or the fight against the superb and ferocious tribes of the Guganii from the Mountains, agria
phyla Giganton (Homer,
Odyss. VII. 59-60), fight which took place near Oceanos potamos.
We have two
traditions about these remote events, which appear to have been the beginning
of a new phase in the history of human civilization: an Egyptian one, which
presents Osyris as the victor and the destroyer of the Gigantes (Giants), and a
Greek one, in which all the victories and honors are attributed to Jove, not to
Osyris. Each of these two versions presents important data, geographical and
historical, which complement each other in many respects.
We shall present
first the Egyptian version of the war of Osyris against Typhon, called Set in
Egyptian papyri and inscriptions.
After the
dethronement of Saturn, the northern parts of the Pelasgian empire had in fact
remained under the rule of Typhon, whose residence was in the country of the Arimii (Homer, Iliad, II. 783), north of
Oceanos potamos (Istru), from where also derives his name Ahriman (Dupuis, Orig. d.
tous les cultes, Iv. 410) given him by the populations of Persia and Bactria.
In
In the beginning,
he had asserted that he was a natural son of Ammon / Uranos (Pierret, Le Pantheon Egypt. p. 23,
107), but later that he was the eldest son of Saturn, who had transmitted to
him the entire inheritance of the empire (Pierret,
Le livre d. morts, p. 213, 83, 395, 488).
We find with Diodorus Siculus the following data,
collected from the Egyptian priests, about the expedition of Osyris in
Osyris, wishing to
earn an everlasting glory for his good deeds, gathered a large army with the
intention to travel through the entire inhabited world, and to teach the humans
everywhere how to plant the grape vine and how to cultivate the wheat and the
barley, the use of which he said had been discovered by himself and his wife
Isis. After he prepared all that was necessary for his expedition, Osyris
entrusted the administration of the kingdom to his wife Isis, to whom he gave
Hermes as counselor, and Hercules as military commander. Then, departing with
his troupes, he passed from
Osyris had
conquered therefore, according to ancient traditions, not only
He is often called
in religious texts: “Lord of the regions of the south and of the north”. He has
two residences, one “in the southern country”, the other “in the northern country”
(Pierret, Le livre d. morts, p.
444). But under this latter name the Egyptian papyri did not understand the
lower Egypt, but the northern parts of the Pelasgian empire (Grebaut, Hymne a Ammon-Ra, p. 7).
The expedition of
Osyris in
In
“The Egyptians”,
writes Diodorus Siculus, “tell that
in the time of queen Isis had lived those whom the Greeks call Gigantes,
and that they are represented in Egyptian temples as being beaten by Osyris”
(I. 26). This arrogant triumph of Osyris refers in any case only to the first
successes of his expedition in
The historical
traditions of the Germans, extracted from ancient Greek sources, also mention
Osyris under the name Oserich (Grimm, Die d. Heldensage, gottingen.
1829, p. 139, 180), about whom they say that he had inherited the rule over the
entire north from his father Hertnit (Terra editus?), that he had undertaken an
expedition against the country of the Giants (Getae), at the time when those
were ruled by Melias (Greek melas,
ep. meilas,
black), meaning Nehes Set, Negru Set (TN – black Set), the name given to Set by the Egyptians.
We find finally a
historical note with Tacitus, saying
that a part of the German tribes of the Svevs sacrificed to the
But Typhon, reared
in ancient Arimic traditions, a superb character, brave, martial and
passionate, considered himself as the only legitimate heir of Saturn, and could
not accept that a bastard, as he called Osyris, should reign over the empire of
his father (Plutarc, De Is. c. 19.
54; Lepsius, Uber d. ersten agypt.
Gotterkreis, p. 53).
In that time, the
most excellent force of the Pelasgian empire, the ancient noble class of the
Titans, had been extinguished. Some had died in the many expeditions and wars
of Saturn, and others had scattered through various countries, so that now the
only war power of the Pelasgian empire was formed by the generation of the Gigantes, the ferocious tribes from
Oceanos potamos, people from the mountains who, with their tall stature and
their strength, surpassed by far the middle and pygmeic statures of the African
indigenes.
Against this
southern invasion Typhon rose with the tribes of the Giants.
Osyris was defeated
and forced to withdraw beyond the Istru, and Typhon chased him with his mounted
troupes of the Giants as far as
The religious
Egyptian texts tell us that Osyris and his other allies had changed into
animals, as soon as they saw that Typhon had reached
According to
Egyptian traditions, Osyris was killed by Typhon in
According to
Romanian traditions though, about which we shall speak later, the cutting of
Osyris had taken place on the territory at north of the lower Istru [1].
[1. Some of the Egyptian priests
attributed this expedition to Sesostris
or Sostris, a king whose personality
and chronology could not be fixed to this day.
According to Malala (I. II), Sesostris lived in the times of Hermes. He was
therefore contemporary with Saturn and Typhon, so identical, from the
chronological point of view, with Osyris.
According to Herodotus (II. 103), Justinus
(II. 3), and Strabo (XV. 1. 6),
Sesostris was the first Egyptian king who subjugated all the peoples of
We also note here that according to Val. Flaccus (Argon. V. 418), Sesostris
had been the first to come with war against the Getae, but frightened by the
defeat of his armies, he had quickly returned to Theba on the banks of the
Typhon
reestablished the authority of the Pelasgian empire in
[2. The name of this citadel is not
Egyptian. One Abaris, Hyperborean by
nationality, is known as a famous prophet of Apollo. Virgil (Aen. Ix. 344) also mentions one Abaris, a soldier in the army of Turnus].
Typhon, with the
troupes of the Giants, crossed afterwards from
The holy books of
the Hebrews also mention the expedition of the Giants to
The prophets Jeremiah (c. 4, 6) and Ezekiel (c. 38, 39) threaten the
Hebrews with the terrible invasion of a people coming from the depth of the
north, called “the spoiler of the tribes” and “the lords of the earth”. Their
king, Gog from the country Magog, will fall on the Hebrews with his fine army
of riders, armed with bows, swords, helmets and shields. They will take with
them as allies the peoples of
The poet Manilius mentions the war of Typhon on
the
The terror spread
by Typhon and his Giants among the peoples, which had accepted the illegitimate
rule of Osyris, had remained legendary with the Egyptians and the Hebrews, the
Persians and the Greeks. He is the most terrifying enemy of the southern
peoples not of Pelasgian race, a severe avenger of his father and of the
ancient nobility, the Titans [3].
[3. In the national religion of
After the killing
of Osyris a new coalition of the southern peoples was formed against Typhon. Isis, the sister and wife of Osyris,
helped by his son Horus, and by the
southern nations inimical to the Pelasgian race, rose to avenge the death of
Osyris and to reclaim the rule of the empire (Diodorus,
It is said about Typhon
that he was defeated, caught and tied up, but that
According to the
ancient Egyptian monuments though, the facts appear in a completely different
light: Horus could not dethrone Typhon, and after many and prolonged battles, a
brotherly affection was born between them, so that they divided the empire of
the ancient world in two halves, Set or Typhon ruling over the northern
regions, and Horus over the southern (Maspero,
Etudes, II. 329; Lepsius, p. 51; Pierret, Le Pantheon Egypt. 49).
II.
With the advent of
the wars of Osyris and Horus against Typhon, a general revolution against the
ancient Pelasgian domination and civilization began in the southern countries.
In those times
These colonies of
slaves, private and public, were regularly used for the reclamation works of
lakes and swamps, for regularizing the course of rivers, opening of roads,
fortification of cities, building of palaces, temples, towers, pyramids,
transportation of the war machines, and finally, for pastoral and agricultural
works.
The ancient Arimic
monarchy, exactly like the ancient Pelasgoan family, was composed only by
masters and slaves.
In the Egyptian
religious texts, Osyris and Horus appear only as representatives of the
subjugated races of
This is why Osyris
went from
With the rule of
Osyris over
King Amenophis, one
of the most ancient pharaohs of
This persecution
was especially directed against the name and images of Ammon (Uranos, Tum).
At Theba, writes Plutarc, a column existed, on which
were written curses against king Minis (Saturn), he who had first prompted the
Egyptians to lead a simple and sober life (De Iside, c. 8), while in ancient
Pelasgian traditions, Saturn was celebrated as the author of a better way of
life, “vitae melioris auctor”.
But the name and
figure of Set or Typhon especially, had been erased from all public monuments (Lepsius, p. 52). The images of Osyris
and Horus had been painted in the tombs of the Egyptian kings instead and over
the figure of Set, and this persecution of the memory of Set had continued
until the times of the 21st dynasty.
In Osyric theology,
Typhon is presented as a destroyer, all powerful and undefeatable (Lepsius, p. 53); he shakes everything
from its foundation, and ruins everything; he destroys all the sacred teachings
of Osyris; he is the sun or the draught which dries and burns; he is the evil
spirit, which has filled the earth and the sea with misery; he is the darkness
and the lie, the calumniator, who has accused Osyris to have been born of an
illegitimate marriage; finally, he is the great serpent which dwells in the
primordial water Nun (Oceanos, Istru) and is compared with Python (Pierret, Panth.
The Phoenicians and
the Egyptians also called Typhon Smy, Smu (Plutarc, De Isid.
c. 62), a name which cannot be explained in the southern languages, but which
corresponds to the Romanian form “smeu”,
huge demon which breaths fire, dragon, Lat. draco. (In songs of old, Romanian
heroes are also often called “smei”
– Alecsandri, Poesii pop. p. 153,
196).
The Egyptian
priests had also attributed to Typhon the constellation of the north, or Ursa major (Plutarc, De Is. c. 21, ed. Parthey, p. 36); Dupuis, II. 357; Maspero,
Etudes, II. p. 49).According to the geographical ideas of antiquity, the two
“Ursae” were the particular constellations of
Finally, the Egyptian
priests had also consecrated to Typhon one of the most destructive comets.
There is, writes Pliny, a comet,
fatal for the peoples of
Typhon was also
called by the Egyptians Set nehes,
meaning Set the Black (TN – Negru).
Under this name he
was represented in Egyptian hieroglyphs by a raven with its ears raised up, and with blunt tips. The raven of
Set was often used as the first graphic sign indicating the “Blacks” and the
“country of the Blacks” (Lepsius, p.
51).
The raven, as we
know, had been a religious symbol of the Hyperboreans from the Carpathians; it
was the companion of Apollo the Hyperborean as god of light (Eratosthenes, Cataster. 41; Herodotus, I. IV. 15. 2).
As a principal
religious symbol the raven is also figured on the Hyperborean treasure from
Petrosa, conserved today in the National Museum of Bucharest (see Odobesco, Le tresor de Petrossa, II.
33).
Finally, the raven
was also consecrated in antiquity to Saturn and to Mithras. The epithet nehes, “negru” (TN – black), used by
the Egyptians to characterize Typhon, was in fact only an ancient ethnographic
attribute of the Arimic peoples from the lower Danube. Typhon, according to the
poet Quintus, was from Gaia
melaina, Terra nigra
(Posthom. V. 485). The raven, the sacred symbol of Apollo the Hyperborean,
represents an emblematic connection with the “black country”, or the “country
of the Blacks” from the lower
Finally, to Typhon
was also consecrated the ass, the
characteristic animal of the Hyperborean shepherds from the Carpathians [4].
[4. See Northcote et Brownlow,
The sect of the Gnostics showed
Sabaot (Sabazius) with an ass head (Dupuis,
III. 531). The Egyptians understood under the symbolic figure of the ass,
especially their enemies from the northern
regions (Lepsius, p. 54)].
Pindar mentions in one of his odes, the famous
feasts of the Hyperboreans, who sacrificed to Apollo hecatombs of asses, chleitas
onon echatombas (Pyth. X. v. 33).
On a Gnostic
Papyrus from
Oier in Romanian language means “owner of
flocks” and “shepherd of sheep” (pastor). We know in fact from the history of
Manetho that the Egyptians called the ancient Pelasgian kings “shepherd kings”.
In regard to the
second part of this word BHT, its
explanation is more difficult, but BOLXO
- CH(TH) is without doubt Seth the Volch or the Valach.
The figure of the
ass head was also used in antiquity as an emblem
of
On some coins from
the time of the emperor Trajan Decius (249ad), Dacia, personified as divinity, is shown holding in her right hand
a lance or a spear, on the tip of which is seen thrust an ass head (Mitth. d. k. k. Central-Commission z. Erforsch. d. Baudenkmale, VII. 225).
A particular
veneration though was shown to Set in the times of the 19th dynasty.
Several kings of
this dynasty had received the name Set. Set was often honored also with the
name Sutech (Lepsius, p. 49; Pierret, Le livre d. morts, p. 173).
One of the ancient
Titans was called Sudych (var. Sudech) by the Phoenicians, a word which,
as the historian Philo tells us (H.
Phoen. Fr. 2), meant dichaios, that is “justus”, but more correctly judex, Romanian “jude, judec” (TN – judge) and “judet”
(TN – district).
Finally, we also
have an inscription from the times of Ramses II, in which are mentioned the
representatives, called Sutech, of
several cities (Lepsius, p. 50).
The term Sutech designated therefore in the
times of Typhon a superior administrative and judiciary high office, exactly as
in the first times of the Roman republic the consuls were also called judices
(Livy, Hist. rom. I. III.
55)[5].
[5. And because we treat in this
chapter the term Sutech, Sudec (Romanian judec) as with the Egyptians and the Phoenicians, we must note here
the following: the word Judea, as
results from the above historical data, is not Hebraic, but it seems to have
been a name given to a province governed at the time of the Pelasgian
domination by a superior Judex or “Jude”. This is also confirmed by the
geographical genealogy of Typhon, as being the father of Judaios and Hierosolymos].
III.
We arrive now at
the Greek version about the battles with the Giants, events which the peoples,
once subjected to the Pelasgians, had celebrated during the course of a long
series of centuries, as a divine revenge on those conquerors and despots of the
ancient world.
According to Greek
authors, the great war with the Giants had been waged by Jove, not Osyris. Jove
was the victor, and Osyris, called Dionysos by the Greeks, had only fought
under Jove’s command (Apollodorus,
Bibl. I. 6; Diodorus Siculus. IV.
5).
“The Greeks”,
writes Philo of Byblus (2nd
century), “had attributed to themselves several historical events of that
epoch, and because their authors wanted to please the ears and hearts of the
people, with the sweetness of their fables, they had over-exaggerated those
things, using a lot of fiction and embellishments. Hesiodus and the cyclical
poets especially, had invented from their own fantasy various deeds and battles
of the Giants and the Titans, and in this way they had darkened the truth” (H.
Ph. Fr. 2; Diodor. I. 23. 8).
The Giants were,
according to Hesiodus, a people of divine origin, born of the blood (people) of
Uranos and of Gaea or Terra. By their country or mother they were called gegeneis
Gigantes (Homer, Batr. V. 7;
Diodorus,
The Giants were of
a huge stature, much taller than normal. They wore long tresses and beards, and
they used in battle shining weapons and long spears (Diodorus, IV. 21. 7; Hesiodus,
Theog. v. 185 seqq; Apollodorus,
Bibl. I. 6; Apollon. Rh. III. 499).
The Giants, the
Greek authors also tell us, were a superb and wild people from the mountains,
who hated men of foreign nationalities (Homer,
Odyss. VII. 22. 206; Batrach. v.
285; Macrobius, Sat. I. 20; Eustathius, Comment. ad Dionys. v.
327). Their dwellings were in the northern parts of the river Oceanos potamos
(Istru), near the country of the Arimii, close to the place where the Titans
had been defeated, near Tartaros,
today Tatul and Tatar, at the western border of the Romanian Country (Hyginus, Fab. Principium). They are the
so-called Gugani, who stand out even
today, among the other inhabitants of the Carpathians, with their tall and
robust stature).
Hesiodus speaks about the battles of the Giants
only in the war of Typhon with Jove.
Typhon himself is
presented as the most terrifying among the Giants (Theog. v. 820; Claudianus, Gigant. v. 32; Hyginus, Fab. Principium). The
residence of Typhon was in the country
of the Arimii, ein ‘Arimois (Homer,
Iliad, II. 783), or according to Quintus,
in the “
Typhon had a
monstrous figure with the Greek authors. He had a mixed nature of beast and
human.
By the size of his
body and by his strength, he surpassed everybody born by the earth until then.
With one hand he reached the west, with the other the east. His tresses and
beard waved in the air, and fire burnt in his eyes (Apollodorus, Bibl. I. 6. 3).
In the first
battles with Jove, the Giants were the victors. Jove, seeing that he couldn’t
resist the violent assault of Typhon, ran to Egypt, together with his allies,
where they all changed into various animal forms, so that Typhon, who was
chasing them, could not recognize them. Another battle followed at Casius mountain, in which Jove was
wounded and defeated. Typhon caught Jove there, lifted him on his shoulders,
crossed the water with him, and shut him in the Coryciu cave in
From then on the
war was led by Hercules, not by Jove. As the Greek authors tell us, the final
battles with the Giants took place in a meadow at Phlegra, or near the hill, mountain, and village Phlegra, pedion
Phlegras (Pindar, Nem. I.
67; Diodorus,
The Giants, writes Timeus, hearing about the coming of
Hercules, gathered all their forces, arranged themselves in battle order and
came up against him. A fierce battle ensued (fragm. 10 in Fragm. Hist. gr. I.
195). In the end, the Giants withdrew to a well fortified place, to the rock
and the cave called Aornos and Avernis by the Greek authors, Avernus by the Roman poets. Hercules
attacked three times the Giants, but without success, and he finally withdrew
because of some great earthquakes and other prodigious phenomena (Arrianus, Indica, c. 5; Strabo, I. XV. 1. 8; Diodorus,
According to other
traditions though, Hercules totally defeated and destroyed the Giants at
Phlegra (Eustathius, Cpomm. Ad
Dionys. v. 327; Ephorus, fragm. 70).
The Giants fought
against Jove and his allies with pieces of lighted wood, with giant rocks, with
spears, swords and copper maces; Jove used against them the thunderbolts, and
Vulcan hit them with hot chunks of metal (Apollodorus,
Bibl. I. 6). The plains and woods where this battle took place took fire and
burnt, because of which this mountain was called Phlegra, meaning the “Burnt” (TN – Arsul), from phlegein,
to burn (Diodor. V. 71. 4; Strabo, XIII. 4. 11; Hesiodus, Theog. v. 859). The Giants,
the legends tell us, also threw against their adversaries a dreadful dragon, whose memory was later
immortalized in the constellation called the “Dragon” (TN – Balaurul), near the
northern pole (Dupuis, Origine de
tous les cultes, II. 199). It is without doubt meant by this the war standards
of the Giants, in the shape of dragons, also used by the Dacians in their
battles with the Romans.
We return now to
the geographical situation of the Phlegra
mountain in particular.
The Greek and Roman
authors from later times of antiquity have tried to move the theater of the
battles with the Giants to the regions near the
But, according to
the most ancient historical sources, these events had taken place on the
territory of ancient
The famous mountain
Phlegra, which had terrified Jove
and his allies, was situated in the northern parts of the Istru, in the regions
inhabited by the Getae. The poet Statius
calls this locality Getica Phlegra
(Theb. III. 595). According to Orpheus
(Argon. 1125) this place was also near the straits of the Riphei mountains.
Especially the
Roman poets though had considered their wars with the Dacians as a historical
continuation of the battles with the Giants. So, the poet Horatio (Od. III. 4) celebrates the emperor Augustus, who had waged
a war with the Dacians, as a victor over the Titans and the Giants. The emperor
Domitianus also had decided to conquer
The name and
historical significance of Phlegra mountain, where the last battles with the
Giants had taken place, have been preserved to this day in the toponimy and
historical reminiscences from the lower
Phlegra of the legends of the Giants is the
mountain or hill called today Pregleda
and Pregreda, situated near the
commune Isvernea in the Mehedinti
district. In this mountain is also the famous cave of antiquity, called by the
Greek authors Aornos and Avernis, and by the Romans Avernus. Its name is still preserved by
the village Isvernea, inhabited by
Romanian free peasants, situated on the foothills of Pregleda mountain [6].
[6. Although in Latin language the
nominative was Avernus, the Roman
poets also used the neuter plural Averna
(Virgil, Aen. III. 442), certainly
basing themselves on an ancient geographical source.
In Homeric antiquity, the place and
woods around the cave Avernus, were
consecrated to Persephone
(Proserpina), the queen of the lower world (Homer, Odyss. X. 499; Diod.
IV. 22). This name is still preserved by the village Presna, near Isvernea,
where the feast day of the local church is even today that of “The entombment
of the Mother of God”.
Not only Pregleda, but almost all the heights and ridges of the upper
reaches of Cerna present even today
the aspect of a vast complex of mountains, which had once been burnt by an
extraordinary fire. The Egyptian priests, writes Plato (ed. Didot, II. 200), said the following to Solon: that which
is told by your people, that at the time of Phaeton all that was on the surface
of the earth took fire and burnt, is true, although it seems a fable.
“At the time of the giants”, a folk tradition from Vlasca district
tells us, “the mountains and the plains
burnt for three years, then the giants (jidovii) were drowned by a great
rain, which lasted for a long time”].
The ancient Greek
traditions also told that Jove’s thunderbolts had made the mountains to cave
in, and that part of the Giants had been covered at Phlegra with earth, tree
trunks and rocks (Lucilius,
The word Phlegra,
from a linguistic point of view, is only a simple Greek form. Even during
Greco-Roman antiquity, there also existed for this mountain the name Prochyta (Silius Ital. I. VIII. 542; Statius,
Silv. II. 2. 76; Virgil, Aen. IX.
715; Pliny,
[7. Still in these regions there is
also the mountain Casios, where Jove
was defeated and caught.
But the real name of this mountain
was Cos, not Casios.
According to Apollodorus, the battle of
The legendary
cave-in at Phlegra or Prochyta, with which ended the famous battles with the
Giants, can still be seen today in the hill or mountain Pregleda, near
Isvernea. It is a gigantic and mysterious collapse, which seems to be more the
work of the hand of man, than a simple ruin of rocks and earth, produced by
earthquakes, or other natural accidents [8].
[8. According to a tradition
collected by us at Isvernea, the excavation at Pregleda mountain was made by a
“novac” (giant), who wanted to move the course of the river Cerna, on the
This is the same tradition which we
find with the ancient authors, only somewhat modified, that Hercules had
executed some earthworks near Avernus
in Campagna of Italy, in order to protect that place from the flooding of the
sea (Diod. IV. 22. I; Strabo, V. 4. 6; VI. 3. 5)].
One of the huge
mounds of earth, produced by this cave-in is today called “Costa Rancii” (TN – the rib of Rancea). We have here a personal
name, “Rancea”, or more correctly “Ramcea”
(like princeps from primceps = primus capio), identical in
any case with “Runcus”, the name of
one of the most distinguished of the Giants who had fought at Phlegra.
As for Typhon, the
ancient legends contained different versions: that he had been covered by the
cave-in of the mountain Procyta (Silius
Ital. VIII. 542); that he had been thrown into Tartaros (Hesiodus, Theog. v. 868; Pindar, Pyth. I. 15); that he had run
either to
In memory of this war,
the Greek authors attributed to Jove the epithet gigantoletes, or gigantoletor,
killer of the Gygantes (Lucianus,
Philopat. 4; Tim. 4).
IV.
Among the leading Giants who had taken part in this war,
the ancient authors mention: