When Eodan left Ancyra (see image):
"He was on the edge of the Axylon, the vast treeless plateau running south to Lycaonia..." (p. 210)
Three Gallic tribes had conquered:
"...Cappadocians and Phrygians until a new nation stood forth around the Halys." (ibid.)
There is a stump of independent Paphlagonia between Sinope and Ancyra. (p. 212) When "...entering Galatia through the country of the Trocmi...," Eodan and Tjorr stayed in the city of Trapezus. (ibid.)
Tjorr thinks that there is luck in his hammer and:
"'Maybe even something of the lightning.'" (p. 213)
A myth is taking shape.
Meanwhile, Eodan considers initiation into the mystery of Mithras. Centuries later, Poul and Karen Anderson's character, Gratillonius, will convert from Mithraism to Christianity. History involves religions and religions have a history.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember how we discussed Mithraism before, in connection with "Brave To Be A King." And how Anderson's thought that the Mithraism of the Greco-Roman period was already existing in the reign of Cyrus the Great. Actually, that religion had not yet reached the form we would see some four centuries later in Eodan's time. Mithraism, as we know it had mostly reached its most familiar shape by 100 BC.
And of course St. Paul wrote his Letter to the Galatians! Did some memory of the old Gallic tribes who set up Galatia still linger there in AD 50?
Ad astra! Sean
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