Saturday, 2 November 2019

The Golden Slave, Chapter XVI, Concluded

This evening, posting was interrupted by Light Up Lancaster. Tomorrow, it will be interrupted even more by a Festival at Throssel Hole. (Scroll down.) Now let us finish rereading The Golden Slave, Chapter XVI, and leave XVII for a future occasion.

"Well, Mithradates was a soldier, too." (p. 216)

- reminds us of:

"Tene Mithra etiam miles..." (Scroll down)

"[Mithradtes] sat in the canton chief's high seat, which was shaped like the lap of stag-horned Cernunnos." (ibid.)

"Eodan remembered the king, motionless on the knees of a conquered god." (p. 218)

To conquer a people was to conquer their gods.

"Around the room gleamed [Mithradates'] unmoving hoplites..." (p. 217)

We have had hoplites before. See here and here.

That is all for now unless anyone wants to reread this chapter and tell me what I have missed? Flavius returns by the way but I am not presenting a mere plot summary. The next chapter has an interesting discussion about the relationship between civilization and barbarism.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Or a religion could "conquer" a nations or nations despite them not being conquered by other powers. As Christianity did to the Roman Empire and, later, to the Scandinavian countries.

Ad asta! Sean