Roger Pearse

Here's the translation, revised against the 1905 text, and with a few bugs fixed.

III. (1) The Phyrgians who live at Pessinus around the banks of the river Gallus, assign first place to the earth over the other elements, and this they profess (volunt) is the mother of all things. Then, so that they also might have for themselves an order of annual sacred events, they have consecrated the love affair of a rich women, their queen, who chose to punish tyrannically the scorn of an adolescent lover, with annual lamentations. And to satisfy the irate woman, or to find consolation for her remorse, he whom they had buried a little earlier, they claim that he had come back to life. And as the soul of the woman burned with the impatience of excessive love, they built temples to the dead youth. Then they profess that the priests appointed should undergo from themselves what the angry woman had done because of the injury to her scorned beauty. So in the annual sacred rites in honour of the earth the pomp of his funeral is organised, and when men are persuaded that they are honouring the earth, they are (in fact) venerating the death and funeral of a wretch.

(2) Here also, most sacred emperors, in order to shield this error, they profess that these natural sacred rites are also arranged rationally. They profess that the earth loves its fruits, they profess that Attis is exactly this, which is born from fruits; however the punishment which he sustained, this they profess is what the reaper with his scythe does to the ripe fruits. They call it his death when the collected seeds are stored; life again, when the sown seeds sprout in the turning of the years.

(3) I would like them now to reply to my inquiry, why have they associated this simple (story of) seed and fruit with a funeral, with death, with scorn, with punishment, with love? Was there not anything else that might be said? Was there not anything else that poor mortals might do in grateful thanks to the highest God for the crop? So that you can give thanks for the reborn crop, you howl; so that you rejoice, you weep. And you, when you see the true reason, you do not finally repent of doing this, but you do this, so that busyied with the turning seasons, you still flee from life, you pine for death.

(4) Let them tell me, how it benefits the crop, that they renew their tears with yearly howlings, that they groan over the calamities of a reborn corpse, which they say is arranged for a natural reason. You mourn and you wail, and you cover your mourning with another excuse. The farmer knew when he could furrow the earth with a plow, when he could sow the furrows with grain, he knew when to gather the crop ripened by the heat of the sun, he knew when to tread out the dried crop. This is the natural reason, these are the true sacrificial rites, which are carried out by the yearly labour in men of healthy minds. The divinity asks for this simplicity, that men should follow the laws ordained of the seasons (temporum) in collecting crops. Why do they try to explain this order by wretched fictions of a death? Why is that shielded with tears, which does not need to be shielded? From which let them admit of necessity, that these rites are not held in honour of the crops, but in honour of an unworthy death.

(5) When they say that the earth is the mother of all the gods, and they allot the chief roles to this element, indeed it is mother of their gods, — this we don’t deny or refuse, because from it they are always making their bunch of gods, whether of stone or wood. The sea flows around the whole earth, and again it is held tight by the circle of the encircling embracing Ocean. The heavens also are covered by the lofty dome, blown through by winds, splashed by rains, and in fear, as shown by tremors of unremitting motion. What remains to you, who cultivate these things, consider; when your gods reveal their weakness to you in daily declarations.

God Fearing Atheist

Disappointing response from Price. Prudentius tells us that Mithraists practiced taurobolia? Not so, good doctor.

ETA: I'm also fairly certain that taurobolia are nowhere explicitly associated with Anahita. Rather, this was part of a rather tedious conjecture from Cumont in trying to sort out its origins. I'd have to reread some of my sources to be sure.

And even they were, how on earth is this support for connecting taurobolia with Mithras? In the pre-Christian centuries (as Price clearly implies in his book)? In the particular form ("blood baptism"...I have strong doubts taurobolia ever involved this) he supposes?

Roger Pearse

Is Prudentius online? What does he actually say?

Anahita doesn't sound like a deity ever part of Roman religion -- any ideas?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I found this translation online of the relevant portion, supposedly about the priests of Cybele. I wish we had a bit more content. Most of the works of Prudentius do not appear to be online.

Latin of whole poem is here.

There is an unpublished English translation of the Peristephanon, in a PhD thesis from Boston College, 1937. I've written and asked the college for a copy. I couldn't find any other translations in English.

God Fearing Atheist

There's a two volume translation of Prudentius' poems at my library. I'll check it out when I go over there tonight.

I'm hindered by my lack of French, but Cumont's argument goes something like this: CIL 10.1596 dedicates a taurobolium to Venus Caelestis, Venus Caelestis is to be identified with Artemis, and Artemis is to be identifed with Anahita.

Roger Pearse

Ah, I see; there is a 2 volume Loeb edition of Prudentius.

God Fearing Atheist

How the hell did I miss this one?

Vita Heliogabali 7.1: Matris etiam deum sacra accepit et tauroboliatus est, ut typum eriperet et alia euae penitus habentur condita.

Roger Pearse

The Augustan History is online in English at Lacus Curtius.

God Fearing Atheist

My recollection of Cumont was off. I just got another copy of "Le taurobole et le culte d'Anahita" (Revue Archéologique 1888) where he seems to be saying that: CIL 10.1596 dedicates a taurobolium to Venus Caelestis, Venus Caelestis is "one of the Latin names of the Syro-Punic female goddess," this goddess is Anahita, and Plutarch says that bulls were sacrified to her (Vita Luculli 24). He also mentions a "curious legend" involving the eventual death, in Iranian mythology, of "the bull Hadhayaos."

But Plutarch says cows were sacrified, not bulls. In the footnoote on this, he says that "it is obviously by negligence that Plutarch employs the feminine. These wild herds were not comprised only of cows."

Roger Pearse

The anonymous Carmen adversus paganos (394 AD), vv.57-62.

Quis tibi taurobolus vestem mutare suasit,
Inflatus dives, subito mendicus ut esses?
Obsitus et pannis, modica stipe factus epacta
Sub terram missus, pollutus sangine tauri,
Sordidus, infestus, vestes servare cruentas,
Vivere num speras viginti mundus in annos?

Translation:

Who got you to put on the Taurbolium garment,
A puffed-up rich man, so that you might become suddenly a beggar?
And covered with rags, a short epact (?) having been made with a small offering,
Placed under the earth, polluted with the blood of a bull,
Dirty, stained, preserving the stained garments,
Do you really hope to live pure for 20 years?

I don't understand modica epacta, tho. Epact is something about time.