PART
2 – Ch.XIV.7
(KION OURANOU. The Sky Column on
in
the country of the Hyperboreans)
XIV.
7. The titan Atlas, ancestor of the Ausoni.
The Sky Column from the Carpathians
as symbol of eternal life in Etruscan religion.
In Italic
traditions the titan Atlas, the king
of the Hyperboreans, appears also as ancestor of the Ausones, in particular of the Latins
and the Romans.
Eustathius, the archbishop of Thessalonika, wrote in
the twelve century (Commentarii in Dionysium. v. 78) the following, based on
older sources:
“According to what
some say, Auson, from whom Ausones draw their name, had been the
first to reign in
With Hesiod also, Auson (Nausinoos) was a son of Calypso
(Theog. v. 1017), who though, according to Homer
(Odyss.
The Ausones had formed in prehistoric antiquity
the preponderant population of
They were
characterized by the ancient authors as a strong and warlike race. Especially
in poetic literature the name of Ausones
was applied to all the inhabitants of
A part of the
population of
The Byzantine
historian Priscus, sent by the
emperor Theodosius the Young on a mission to Attila’s residence, which was on
the plains of today
Part of the
Romanians from
[1. The ambassadors of Theodosius,
after crossing the Danube, had to travel northwards more than eight days, passing over extensive
plains, over several rivers and swampy places, in order to reach Attila’s residence, which was in a
locality which Priscus names “sat foarte mare” (TN – very big
village), and Jornandes “vicum, ad in star civitatis amplissimae
(De Get. Orig. c. 34). As results from the description of Priscus, this
residence was not in
A Romanian
principality in Maramures still had the name Ozon in the 14th century (Kurz, Magazin. II. 30. 6. 1361) and finally, an important village
from “tera Barsei” (TN – country of Barsa) is called even today Uzon. All three are ethnic names, whose
original form has certainly been Osoni,
Ozoni, Uzoni.
In antiquity also
existed a similar tradition about the origin of the Latins.
As Dionysius of Halikarnasus writes, Latinus, the eponymous king of the
Latins, had been a son of Hercules and a Hyperborean
maid (lib.
And there existed
in
Evander, who had founded near the
So, Evander and his
companions had settled in
According to the
ancient ethnic genealogies, the territory of the titan Atlas from the country
of the Hyperboreans appears as the original country of several tribes and a
number of important princely families from Hellada,
Atlas, writes Diodorus Siculus (lib. III. c. 60), had several daughters, who, by
marrying the most distinguished heroes and even gods, had sons who for their
virtues were called heroes and gods, and were at the same time the originators
of several families.
On a fragment of a
vase discovered in
Doubtless, this
image had a genealogical character. The artist had wished to represent one of
the most glorious ancestors of some Ausonic family of
As for the mythological
representation of the titan Atlas, he is shown on another vase from
The idea to
represent the sky or the universe in the shape of a globe is very ancient.
According to Plato (Axiochus – Ed. Didot. Tom. II.
p. 561), the Hyperboreans had been
the first to consider the universe as a
sphere, at the centre of which was the Earth.
And according to Diodorus Siculus (lib. IV. 27. 5), king
Atlas, whose empire was near Oceanos (potamos), had possessed very exact
knowledge of astrology and had been the first to regard the universe as a globe,
because of which it was said that the entire firmament rests on Atlas (Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. II. 2; lib. II.
6. 3; lib. VII. 57. 12).
The most famous
statue of Roman art, which showed the titan Atlas with the globe on his back,
is that from the
Here Atlas appears
crushed by the weight of his load. He supports himself with the right knee on a
rocky crag. His head is pushed down under the globe and he has a tortured
expression on his face. With tired eyes he still looks towards the course of
the constellations.
The statue of the
titan Atlas from the
In the same way was
also symbolized in Egyptian art the god Shu, who supported on his head the sky
in the shape of a concave semi-sphere, supported on his right knee bent to the
ground (Maspero, Egypte et Chaldee,
p.127).
Another analogous
figure of Atlas is reproduced in the magnificent edition of the Aeneid,
published by the Duchess of Devonshire. In it the powerful titan supports on
his back, with both his hands, the sky column in the shape of a stunted
pyramid, while he props himself on the ground with his left knee (Duruy, Hist. d. Rom. II. p.264. The
idea that this figure might represent Sisyphus is wrong).
But what gives to
the Neapole statue a special historical value, which distinguishes it from
other analogous representations, is that this sculpture work is modeled after
an original type, after the pyramid from near the Lower Istru, which had been
considered from the most remote times as the rock of the titan Atlas on which
the sky leans, as the northern pole of the sky, as the axle of the
Hyperboreans, cardines mundi (Pliny,
H. N. IV. 26. 11; Macrobius, Somnium
Scipionis, II. 7).
The column from the
Carpathians was a sacred symbol, was the most famous religious monument of the
Pelasgian world.
While the S and SW
faces of the column had served more as subjects for the ceramic paintings,
while the Egyptian theology had adopted as symbol of the trinity the NW face of
this pillar of the world, the Roman artist had figured the titan Atlas
supporting the sphere of the universe after the eastern face of this legendary
pyramid.
There is an identity
we can say absolute, to the smallest detail, between the exterior contours of
these two monuments. On the column from the Carpathians can still be seen even
the marks which seem to have once figured the arms lifted up in order to
support on the back the shape of the globe which represents the vault of the
sky.
Probably this
memorable statue was sculpted during the time of the emperor Domitian, when the
Roman legions had to sustain a long and tough war in order to conquer the holy
mountain of the Dacians, called Gigantes and Hyperboreans, when the legends of Atlas had become once again
popular in Italy, when the most distinguished poets of that epoch, Statius and
Martial, wrote about the sky axle from the country of the Hyperboreans and with
the torment of Prometheus on that rock (see above).
“You go now,
Marcelline, soldier”, says Martial,
“to take on your shoulders the northern
sky of the Hyperboreans and the stars of the Getic pole, which barely move.
Behold the rock of Prometheus,
behold also the famous mountain of
legends, etc”.
Apart from the
historical traditions and apart from the mythological legends regarding the
titan Atlas, there existed also in
The Etruscans were considered during the
Roman epoch, as the representatives of ancient Pelasgian theological doctrines.
They had learned priests and a literature rich in rituals, to which the Roman
people showed a particular respect.
One of the oldest
necropolis of
The tombs of the
necropolis of Axia are dug in live rock, and the following religious symbol is
figured on the frontispiece which decorates a number of these tombs:
This mystical sign,
which prehistoric archaeology could not explain so far, represents on its lower
part the sky column, in the shape of a stunted pyramid (trapeze), having
figured above it the sky, in the same shape as on the hieroglyphic monuments of
Egypt, a horizontal line with the ends bent downwards.
This religious
symbol of the future life and of the divine region tells us therefore that the
ancient Etruscan religion was the same as the religion of the Pelasgians from the
Istru,
[1. The Etruscan discipline had had its beginnings in some mountainous
lands outside of
In regard to the ancient dwellings
of the Etruscans, it is important
the tradition communicated also by Pliny
(III. 81) that the town of