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Oracles and prophecy are an important feature of 'The Story of Gracchus' and 'Club Jaguar'.
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| Emperor Nero |
Gracchus is concerned about the political crisis facing the Participate in the person of the Emperor Nero.
At Cumae Gracchus receive written oracles, but surprisingly, in addition to the prophecies regarding political matters there are also a prophecies on both occasions relating to a 'golden boy from the sea'.
On the first occasion the prophecy refers to Marcus. and on the second occasion the prophecy relates to Aurarius - as well as foretelling the possibility of the death of Gracchus.
THE ORACLE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods.
As such it is a form of divination.
The word oracle comes from the Latin verb ōrāre, 'to speak', and properly refers to the priest or priestess uttering the prediction.
In extended use, oracle may also refer to the site of the oracle, and to the oracular utterances themselves, called khrēsmē (χρησμοί) in Greek.
Oracles were thought to be portals through which the 'gods' spoke directly to people.
In this sense they were different from seers (manteis, μάντεις) who interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails, and other various methods (as was the case with Novius)
Oracles and the foretelling of future events, in the ancient world, arise directly from the belief in 'cyclical time'.
Put simply, if events repeat themselves in some form, then to predict future events simply involves learning from past events.
Such a view makes the 'study of history' vitally important.
οὐροβόρος - the 'Ouroboros' - a Greek word meaning 'tail devourer', is one of the oldest mystical symbols in the world and is the symbol depicting a serpent eating its own tail.
Originating in Ancient Egyptian iconography, the 'Ouroboros' was viewed as a symbol representing the travels of the sun disk.
The 'Ouroboros' entered the Western tradition via Greek magical tradition, and was adopted as a symbol, in Greco-Roman times, by the Gnostics and Hermeticists.
The 'Ouroboros' also appears in Mesoamerican culture, particularly in the Mayan speculations regarding the nature of time.
The symbolism of the 'Ouroboros' relates to 'introspection', and the concept of 'eternal recurrence', especially in the sense of something constantly 're-creating' itself.
It also represents the infinite cycle of nature's endless creation and destruction - life and death.
Put simply, if events repeat themselves in some form, then to predict future events simply involves learning from past events.
Such a view makes the 'study of history' vitally important.
The Ouroboros - Cyclic Time
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| The 'Ouroboros' |
The 'Ouroboros' entered the Western tradition via Greek magical tradition, and was adopted as a symbol, in Greco-Roman times, by the Gnostics and Hermeticists.
The 'Ouroboros' also appears in Mesoamerican culture, particularly in the Mayan speculations regarding the nature of time.
The symbolism of the 'Ouroboros' relates to 'introspection', and the concept of 'eternal recurrence', especially in the sense of something constantly 're-creating' itself.
It also represents the infinite cycle of nature's endless creation and destruction - life and death.
In mythology, the 'Oroborus' is a symbol representing the Milky Way.
Myth refers to a 'serpent of light' residing in the heavens.
The Milky Way is this 'serpent', and viewed at the galactic central point, near the constellation of Sagittarius, and this serpent eats its own tail.
Significantly, many ancients used the galaxy to calculate cosmic and earth cycles.
In Gnosticism the 'Oroborus' symbolizes the transcendence of duality, and is related to the solar God 'Abraxas' (the 'Great Archon' - Greek - 'megas archōn'), and signifies eternity, and the ever renewing 'Soul of the World'.
There is also a strange connection between the 'Oroborus' and the Aztec and Mayan serpent God, 'Queztacoatl' - the 'Feathered Serpent'
In Meso-American culture the continual destruction and recreation of the world is to be found in the ‘Book of the Jaguar Priests’ - ('Books of Chilam Balam').
In ancient Greece, the concept of 'eternal return' was connected with Empedocles, Zeno of Citium (not the Zeno of the paradoxes), and most notably in Stoicism (see ekpyrosis) (and remember, in The 'Story of Gracchus', Trentius - and probably Gnaeus Gracchus himself were Stoics - while Novius was a Sceptic.)
Ekpyrosis - ἐκπύρωσις (conflagration) is a Stoic belief in the periodic destruction of the cosmos by a great conflagration every 'Great Year'. The cosmos is then recreated (palingenesis) only to be destroyed again, at the end of the new cycle.
This form of catastrophe is the opposite of kataklysmos (κατακλυσμός, 'inundation'), the destruction of the earth by water. The concept of Ekpyrosis is attributed to Chrysippus by Plutarch.
Myth refers to a 'serpent of light' residing in the heavens.
The Milky Way is this 'serpent', and viewed at the galactic central point, near the constellation of Sagittarius, and this serpent eats its own tail.
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| 'Queztacoatl |
In Gnosticism the 'Oroborus' symbolizes the transcendence of duality, and is related to the solar God 'Abraxas' (the 'Great Archon' - Greek - 'megas archōn'), and signifies eternity, and the ever renewing 'Soul of the World'.
There is also a strange connection between the 'Oroborus' and the Aztec and Mayan serpent God, 'Queztacoatl' - the 'Feathered Serpent'
In Meso-American culture the continual destruction and recreation of the world is to be found in the ‘Book of the Jaguar Priests’ - ('Books of Chilam Balam').
'Eternal Recurrence'
Ekpyrosis - ἐκπύρωσις (conflagration) is a Stoic belief in the periodic destruction of the cosmos by a great conflagration every 'Great Year'. The cosmos is then recreated (palingenesis) only to be destroyed again, at the end of the new cycle.
This form of catastrophe is the opposite of kataklysmos (κατακλυσμός, 'inundation'), the destruction of the earth by water. The concept of Ekpyrosis is attributed to Chrysippus by Plutarch.
FAMOUS ANCIENT ORACLES
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| Apollo |
The most important oracles of Greek antiquity were Pythia (priestess to Apollo at Delphi), and the oracle of Zeus at Dodona in Epirus.
Other oracles of Apollo were located at Didyma and Mallus on the coast of Anatolia, at Corinth and Bassae in the Peloponnese, and at the islands of Delos and Aegina in the Aegean Sea.
The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in frenzied states.
'And behold the town of Cumae, the haunted lakes, and Avernus with its rustling woods, thou shalt look on an inspired prophetess, who deep in a rocky cave 'sings' the Fates, and entrusts to leaves signs and symbols.' - The Aeneid - Book III - Virgil
The most renowned of the Roman oracles was the Cumaean Sibyl.
The Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the oracle of Apollo at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy - just a short distance from the Villa Auream.
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| Apollo - Statue from the Villa Athena |
Apollo - Ἀπόλλων, Apollōn is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. Apollo was the patron god of Octavian Augustus.
The word 'sibyl' comes (via Latin) from the ancient Greek word 'sibylla', meaning prophetess.
There were many sibyls in different locations throughout the ancient world.
Because of the importance of the Cumaean Sibyl in the legends of early Rome as codified in Virgil's Aeneid VI, and because of her proximity to Rome, the Cumaean Sibyl became the most famous among the Romans.
The Erythraean Sibyl from modern-day Turkey was famed among Greeks, as was the oldest Hellenic oracle, the Sibyl of Dodona, possibly dating to the second millennium BC according to Herodotus, favored in the east.
There are various names for the Cumaean Sibyl besides the "Herophile" of Pausanias and Lactantius, or the Aeneid's "Deiphobe, daughter of Glaucus".
At Cumae could be seen, surrounded by a grove dedicated to Artemis, the shrine of Apollo, and a deeply-recessed cave on the flank of a hill, where the Sibyl, inspired by the god of prophecy, heard the hundreds of voices that she turned into oracular answers.
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| The Cave of the Cumaean Sibyl |
'A spacious cave, within its far most part Was hew'd and fashion'd by laborious art Thro' the hill's hollow sides: before the place, A hundred doors a hundred entries grace; As many voices issue, and the sound Of Sybil's words as many times rebound'.
-Virgil (The Aeneid)
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| Daedalus and Icarus |
In Virgil's 'Aeneid' VI, Daedalus flies to Cumae, using his remarkable wings, and founds a temple there, dedicated to the god Apollo, and long afterwards Aeneas confronts the sculpted golden doors of the temple - and after 36BC, Augustus refurbished that temple, and also the cave of the Sibyl. In Greek mythology, Δαίδαλος - Daedalus ("to work artfully") was a skilful craftsman and artist. He is the father of Icarus. The most familiar literary telling of the story of Daedalus, explaining Daedalus' wings, later left in the temple, is a late one, that of the Roman poet Ovid: in his 'Metamorphoses' (VIII:183-235). Daedalus set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his son Icarus. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax. However, the boy, forgetting himself, began to soar upward toward the sun. The blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together and they came off. Icarus quickly fell in the sea and drowned.
Icarus
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| Priest of Apollo - Cumae |
The Cumaean Sibyl prophesied by 'singing the fates', and writing on oak leaves.
These would be arranged inside the entrance of her cave, but if the wind blew and scattered them, she would not help to reassemble the leaves to recreate the original prophecy.
The Sibyl was a guide to the underworld (Hades), whose entrance lay at the nearby crater of Avernus. Aeneas employed her services before his descent to the lower world to visit his dead father Anchises.
Although she was a mortal, the Sibyl lived about a thousand years.
She attained this longevity when Apollo offered to grant her a wish in exchange for her virginity; she took a handful of sand and asked to live for as many years as the grains of sand she held.
Later, after she refused the god's love, he allowed her body to wither away because she failed to ask for eternal youth.
Her body grew smaller with age and eventually was kept in a jar (ampulla), and eventually only her voice was left.
THE FIRST PROPHECY GIVEN TO GRACCHUS
'Four shall seek to follow the path of the 'Comet Star',
and three - one fat and two bald - shall fall.
Then from the east shall come a saviour - and peace.
But you - Gracchus - shall be an end in the new beginning -
but not forever, and by your own hand -
for the 'golden boy from the sea', shall bring your name to life once more -
and all your works shall prosper.'
THE SECOND PROPHECY GIVEN TO GRACCHUS
'A new golden boy arises -
Always until the end of the age.
Aurarius is the boy's name,
And, Gracchus - the god will come soon !'
THE PROPHECY OF THE NEW AGE
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| Octavian Augustus |
'And again set up the Golden Age amid the fields where Saturn once reigned, and shall spread his empire to a land that lies beyond the stars, beyond the paths of the year and the sun, where heaven-bearing Atlas turns on his shoulders the sphere, inset with gleaming stars.'
- The Aeneid - Virgil
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All text - © Copyright Peter Crawford 2021
All Images - © Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2021
Graphic Design - © Copyright Zac Sawyer 202
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