Lictor

David Stockhoff · 17 Feb 2018, 15:28 · from 2018-February.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:28:58 -0000
Subject: (urth) Lictor
In-Reply-To: <07507bff-069b-30d8-5887-4f927209f2ff at casema.nl>
References: <07507bff-069b-30d8-5887-4f927209f2ff at casema.nl>
Message-ID: <077d2f22-3505-881a-591c-b03bd7974678 at verizon.net>

I don't see "lictor" mentioned in the wiki---do you have a specific link 
to that?

Nevertheless, the Mithraic cult has always been suggestive of 
similarities to both early Xtianity, which is useful to Wolfe, and to 
Severian's "secret history." It's closely allied with a branch of Roman 
government and with Rome. A sword figures prominently in its symbology. 
Severian becomes an outcast when he gives Thecla a blade, and he becomes 
Autarch when he kills the Autarch with a blade. He is often 
blood-covered, as with the sacrificial blood of a bull (sun symbol), but 
never blood-stained.

Cultists proceeded through grades like Masons to become Leos, and lions 
have always been linked with the sun. The Mithraic leo has been taken as 
Aion, who is the Greek god of eternity or "unbounded time." Severian's 
going to Yesod and returning as the New Sun literally enacts this 
elevation to Leo.

I had not realized that "mitra" could be read as "covenant." That's 
suggestive too. It's always been a mystery to me that Severian's sword 
(The Sword of the Lictor) belongs to a lictor that is never mentioned in 
the text, but if the lictor is a servant of a secret god with whom a 
covenant is held, then ... it fits.

Hidden in plain sight, as usual.

Thanks!

On 2/17/2018 9:10 AM, Ab de Vos wrote:
>
> By chance I had to look up the Greek word for servant (????????). The 
> "servant of the eleven" in Athens was the executioner or his servant. 
> Servant is also the greek translation of Lictor. The lictor is an 
> official of the roman state but the term is also used for servitor in 
> the cult cult of Mithras.
>
> Mithras-Helios, with solar rays and in Iranian dress,^[104] 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism#cite_note-iranica-105> with 
> Antiochus I of Commagene <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commagene>. 
> (Mt.?Nemrut <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nemrut>, 1st?Century?BCE)
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism
>
>
>
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