PREHISTORIC
PART
6 –
Ch.XXXIX
The
Great Pelasgian empire
Decline
of the Pelasgian empire
XXXIX.
1. (I – III) The reign of Hermes (Armis).
I.
After the
dethronement of Saturn, the great Pelasgian empire began to decline quickly.
The political unity
of the different parts of the empire was shaken; the legendary epoch of
wellbeing and happiness of the Pelasgian people ended, and the great monarchy
of the ancient world was weakened little by little.
This decadence was
firstly the effect of the enormous extension of this monarchy.
All the wild and
nomad hordes from the ends of the empire, had allied themselves with the
subjugated peoples and with the huge colonies of slaves, against Pelasgian
domination and civilization, which had reformed the ancient world through laws,
religion and sciences, and which had put in this way and end to the barbarity,
ignorance and original misery of the human genus.
On the other hand,
the ancient forces of the Pelasgian empire had weakened. The powerful nobility
of the “divine” Titans, genus antiquum
terrae, “the powerful of the time, like the pillars of the earth” of the
Romanian epic songs (Negoescu,
Balade, p. 26), had scattered. The proud tribes of the mountain Giants, who, together
with Typhon, had once tread in triumph the ancient world, had waned and
lessened.
The huge invasion
of the African tribes from the upper parts of the
For a while, the northern parts of the empire still
remained faithful to the ancient Arimic dynasty. But, little by little, even
this political unity ended. The various provinces of
II.
With the death of
Typhon, the ancient line of the divine dynasty was extinguished and the
legitimate reign passed to the second line, at the head of which figures Hermes (Lepsius, Uber den ersten agypt. Gotterkreis, p. 25), called Armis and Sarmis in
According to the
most ancient Egyptian lists, Hermes reigned immediately after Horus and Set /
Typhon (
On the oldest coins
of
Hermes was
originally from
The name Sarmisegetusa, which the ancient
capital of
The name Sarmis-eget-usa (at Orelli, nr. 3527: Zermiegete) has therefore the meaning:
the “Court” or “residence” of (S)Armis egetes, Sarmis the ruler.
The ancient
Sarmisegetusa of the Dacians was not situated on the plain of Gradisce (Varhely), where some remains
of the ruins of Roman Sarmisegetua, founded by Trajan, are seen even today. Sarmisegethousa
basileion of ante-Roman times was at a distance of 17km north-east of
Gradisce, where today is the town of Hateg,
from which the entire south-western region of Transilvania, from the Vulcan
pass to the river Mures, took its name, and is still called today Tera (TN – country) Hategului.
The ancient name of
Sarmisegetusa appears with the geographer Ravennas
under the form Sarmazege = Sarm-azege,
where the second part of this term indicates the name of the city Ateg, or Hateg with aspiration.
We have some more
important historical honors attributed to Hermes in Tera Hategului.
In the 16th
century, two Roman inscriptions have been discovered in the churches of Hateg.
One of these
indicates Hermes as a tutelary divinity
of this city (Zamosius, Analecta
lapidum vestustorum, Patavia 1593). And the second inscription contained a
dedication to Mercurius Augustus (C. I. L. vol. III. nr. 1434), or the
divine imperial majesty of Hermes.
Other two
inscriptions regarding the ancient residence of Hermes have been discovered in
Rhetia. One of these contains a dedication made to Mercurius Arcecius (C. I. L.
vol. III. nr. 5768), where the last word is only a simple local epithet,
identical with Sargetius.
According to Dio Cassius, the river which flew along
the ancient capital of
The second
inscription from Rhetia mentions the residence of Mercury (Hermes) with the
words: “cuius sedes Atep (var. Atergo) sunt” (C. I. L. vol. III. nr. 5793). It is probable that we have here a
corrupt form of the name “Ateg” or Hateg [1].
[1. In the codex nr. 1404 in the
royal Library of Paris, the name of Sarmisegetusa
is written Sarmi a tegethousa. An
ancient coin attributed to the city Hadria
in Picenum, shows on the obverse the head of Hermes-Janus, crowned around the
forehead with a diadem made of three stars, an astronomical symbol of Dacia
(see Ch. XXXIII.4), and having around the edge the inscription HAT, and on the reverse the figure of a
dog lying down, characteristic attribute of Hermes].
Finally, we have
another important historical reminiscence from the Middle Ages, that Hateg had
once been a royal residence.
In a court decision
from 1418, issued by the 12 rulers and jurors of the district of Hateg, it is
said that they, assembling on the decided day, had hold court in “the royal palace”
of Hateg, “in domo regia, in eadem Haachak (=Haciak) habita”, and
this historical mention is again repeated at the end of the document: “datum in
predicta Hachak in domo regia” (A Hunyadm. Tort. Evk. II. 32).
Ancient
Sarmisegethusa is also called by Ptolemy
“royal residence”, to basileion (Regia).
This is all about
the reign of Hermes in
The kings of
Hermes had also
reigned over the central regions of
In the historical
traditions of the Germans he figures
under the name Hermon, Hermann, Armen,
Armeno and Armenon, and was considered the son of Alanus, who had been the first “king of the Romans”, understand of
the Arimii: Primus rex Romanorum Alaneus (var. Alanus) fuit (Tabula
Merovingica, at Mommsen,
Verzeichniss der rom. Provinzen, p. 532).
Mercury or Hermes
had the epithet Alaunius (the son of
Alanus) also in the Roman inscriptions from the territory of Germany (C. I. L. XII. 1517), and the Getic populations from the lower Danube
figure under the name “Alani” even
in the first century of the Christian era (Val.
Flaccus, Argon. VIII. 219; Dionysius
Per. v. 305; Nicephorus Gregoras,
Ann. M. 6791-6836).
III.
In the historical
traditions of antiquity, Hermes was considered as the beginner of all divine
and human sciences. To him was attributed the invention of letters and astronomy.
He had organized the cult of the gods and the sacrifices; on the divinity’s
order he had introduced the first moral and political laws in various parts of
the empire. In ancient theology and philosophy Hermes was regarded as the
source of thinking. He was the personified logos. About him it was said that he
had given men their voice, and the faculty to express their thoughts (Macrobius, Sat. I. 17), and that he had
given names to a number of things which until then had none (Plato, ed. Didot, vol. I. 342, 733; Cicero, N. D. III. 22; Diodorus Siculus, lib. I. 16).
In Greco-Roman
religion Hermes had in many regards the characteristics of Janus. Both taught
men the first sacred rites. Both were considered as legislators, as go-between
between men and gods, thus enabling peace, as founders of astronomy, and Hermes
was often shown with two faces, like Janus, a symbolical expression of their
universal reign over the southern and the northern worlds.
On the ancient
coins of
Greek traditions
attributed to Hermes the first measuring
of the earth, geometrian (Apollodorus,
fragm. 30 in fragm. Hist. gr. I. 433). The same role plays Thot, or Hermes, in
the ancient Egyptian papyri. Here he appears as “the measurer of the sky and
earth” (Pierret, Le Pantheon Egypt.
p. 13; Livre d. morts, p. 382), and is the organizer of the two worlds, the
south and the north (Maspero,
Etudes, II. 448).
Hermes, under the
name “St. Ion” also figures as “measurer of the sky and earth”, and as “bringer
of the divine laws” in Romanian religious carols [2].
[2.
I am saint, saint Ion, and I am sent by
God,
With three laws over the earth; One’s the
law of the holy cross,
Another’s the law of marriage, and
another of the holy christening;
God has sent me, to measure the earth for him,
The earth with my walking, and the sky with my thinking.
(Teodorescu,
Poesii pop. p. 40)
This measuring of the earth is
connected with the founding of the first
villages, with the introduction of agriculture, and the division of boundaries. We find the
same tradition with Lucretius, V.
1109: Et pecudes et agros divisere].