"Yet it mattered not that the Greeks identified Anaitis with Aphrodite Ourania and built her a fane in their own style. She remained an Asian goddess, her cult the largest..." (p. 24)
Deities of different pantheons are identified. Venus is Aphrodite and Aphrodite is Anaitis.
The courtesan, Theonis, is:
"'An avatar of Anaitis.'" (p. 50)
"'Face and form like Aphrodite's, voice like song, skin like snow, gait like a panther's. Midnight hair. Eyes the green of a fire where copper is about to melt. That's what they say.'" (ibid.)
Theonis is an Exaltationist, Merau Varagan's clone mate. Thus, she continues the theme of villains with voices like song.
A time traveller is identified with the Goddess in Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And Stirling's character, Gwen Ingolfsson (in DRAKON), comes to mind as a very similar female villain, physically and morally/mentally.
Ad astra! Sean
In dealing with other Indo-European pantheons, regarding the deities as equivalents is sometimes spot-on.
Zeus pater = Jupiter is obvious, but there are others. Mars = Ares is probably spot-on.
If the Romans had met the Germanics a bit earlier they'd have spotted Tiwaz Fadar as being Jupiter, but the pantheon was in the midst of a change by the time they were familiar with them, with Wothenjaz/Wotan/Odin 'moving up'.
It's a bit more chancy when dealing with the post-Zoroaster Iranian religion, but the Graeco-Romans would have recognized a kindred set of supernaturals in Hindu territory if they hit it at the right period.
Eg., Dyaus Pitar -is- Zeus pater and Jupiter.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And western Indo/Europeans invading what is now Scandinavia seems to have met inhabitants whose gods were the Vanir seen in Anderson's WAR OF THE GODS.
Ad astra! Sean
One of the results of ancient DNA research is that we now understand those migrations in more detail.
One interesting feature of them is how -fast- and complete they were.
The Yamnaya formed up in the Pontic steppe about 4000-3500 BCE, and started moving into the Danube Valley a bit before 3000 BCE.
The Corded Ware offshoot developed in Central Europe (Germany, Poland and adjacent) a bit after 3000 BCE, and it's 75% Yamnaya genetically; then it spread explosively, all the way from the Atlantic to the Urals (and including southern Scandinavia) by about 2500 BCE.
The northern branch of the Beaker culture was derived from the Corded Ware's western fringe and was a little over 50% Yamnaya genetically, and they overran the British Isles shortly after 2500 BCE, and a sex-selective migration from north-central Europe reformatted Iberia about the same time, with CW and post-CW types moving into other parts of southern Europe and the Balkans.
So it looks as if in about 2300 BCE you could have walked (and paddled) from Ireland to what's now West Siberia and found dialects of the same language spoken by people worshipping the same gods and quite closely related genetically too.
The whole area was reformatted in less than a thousand years.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And the Yamnaya peoples took over basically by exterminating the previous inhabitants. Albeit, in some places, "only" the males were wiped out and their women were grabbed by the invaders.
Ad astra! Sean
Yes, it turns out Gordon Childe and Marija Gimbutas were right after all; something which gives me considerable archaeological schadenfreude.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Trying again.
Dang! Never heard of these persons, but I will be looking them up.
Ad astra! Sean
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