Possibly one of the biggest mistakes of the Roman Republic was that they tried to govern an Empire with the same legislation they had used for a city state. With an increase in population but a decrease in eligible military soldiers, the Republican power began to weaken. This was particularly evident with during the tribuneship of the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus.
Ten years later, Gaius had his turn. He followed in his brother’s footsteps and ran for the tribuneship at the earliest possible age–30 years. His first move was to introduce capital punishment for any man who executed a citizen without trial, this was of course aimed at his brother’s killers. He then ran for a second tribuneship. This had never happened before–it was not against the law, but no one previously had wanted to stay so low on the ladder of office for longer than they needed to. 
Discovered in 1910, nearly two hundred years after the first excavations at Pompeii, the site later dubbed the Villa of Mysteries contained many finds typical of the ruined Roman city, including the ashen outlines its long dead inhabitants. But a cryptic –and remarkably well preserved — series of frescos uncovered inside hinted at a story entirely different than that of the other townsfolk that met their apocalyptic end, along with Pompeii itself, after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
An otherwise conventional seaside estate outside of the city proper, the stately villa went largely undamaged by volcanic ash and magma. But though the frescoes adorning a 15 by 25 foot ancillary chamber — later to be known as the Initiation Room — could viewed clear as day, they featured scenes that many found at once both baffling and fascinating.
The god Bacchus appears prominently in the scenes alongside his mortal bride, Adriane. While Bacchus had been among most widely worshiped deities in first century Rome, he was the most popular with a certain demographic — young women — and his venerators were said to have participated in orgies, gluttonous feasts, and animal sacrifice, after which the carcass of the sacred beast would be consumed raw.
Soon enough, it became plainly evident to archaeological authorities that the Villa of Mysteries was in fact as site of worship for that very same Bacchanalian mystery cult and set aside for a certain for a particular ceremony. Close examination of the masterfully executed frescoes revealed the steps of an esoteric ritual, presided over by Bacchus, that aimed to induct upper class females into the rigors of marriage — a psychological preparation for entrance in the next phase of womanhood.
As depicted on the walls of the Initiation Room, the soon-to-be wed initiate would have been begun by consuming a cup of Kykeon - an intoxicating and possibly hallucinogenic brew — and then be led through a series of mysterious sacraments meant to parallel the scared union of Bacchus and Ariadne. At the end, after a confrontation with the god of love, Eros, the young participant would be fit to marry.
Though the Villa of Mysteries’ Initiation Room contains some of the clearest insights into the cult of Bacchus ever discovered, researchers have been unavailable to identify the owners of the sprawling Pompeiian villa — something done for almost every other home in the ruined city. Since restoration of the site was completed in 1930, all that has been known is that its residents owned a thriving vineyard — one that may have provided the necessary cover to practice rituals that, even by Roman standards at the times, were considered perverse.
| Our products make great gifts for anniversaries, birthdays, holidays and other special occasions. Whether you seek an elegant piece of jewelry or a gag gift for the history enthusiast in your life, we will help you find it. |
|
|||||||||||
The East was well used to ruler worship and the deification of living people long before the involvement of the Roman Empire in their government. Greece, particularly, was practiced in the art of ruler worship as it had, for several centuries, a series of rulers of different dynasties in quick succession. It was common practice as a legitimate way of showing gratitude and devotion towards a living benefactor to worship them as a god. The Roman inhabitants of Hellenistic Greece were quite used to being worshipped in this manner by their provincials however, their Roman ideals still rejected anyone who tried to put themselves forward. The urge to worship, to show their gratitude, to Augustus seems to have been the strongest ever shown towards a Roman official. It is understandable however, for he brought with him peace after several centuries of war throughout the Empire.
In Asia, a fellowship of Greek cities existed which were responsible for business such as sending ambassadors to the Roman Republic Senate. However, early in the reign of Augustus, this fellowship was strongly linked with the imperial cult for in 29 B.C. they requested permission from Augustus to build a temple in his honour. Nevertheless, either because he wished to avoid resentment, or because he genuine disliked the un-Roman practice, Augustus was very cautious in accepting these divine honors. When the Roman population of two provinces made the same request, Augustus refused them, telling them instead to worship Rome. This did not stop the spread of the imperial cult however, and soon the worship of Augustus was widely diffused in East. 
On the other hand, the establishment of the imperial cult in the West was pushed more by Augustus than it was by the native people of the provinces. Perhaps Augustus came to see the value of the imperial cult in stimulating loyalty to Rome and himself, for he promoted emperor worship in the western provinces where there had been no previous tradition. To promote his worship and divine right to rule, Augustus and his advisers developed a set of images that were capable of conveying the ideals of the renewed Roman Empire to the Western population. These images often showed his connection to the Roman gods through garlands, wreaths and sacrifices. In 12 B.C the sixty Western tribes of the Celtic gathered at Rhone and elected their first high priests of the imperial cult within their area. Gaius Julius Vercundaris Dubius was elected and eventually rewarded, by Augustus, with Roman citizenship. This was the highest honour a provincial elite could hold. The famous Roman poet Ovid wrote, “under the leadership of Augustus both east and west are Roman soil”.
Like innumerable peoples before them, pre-Columbian Native American tribes practiced a form of sacred architecture for ritualistic purposes. Unlike the Pyramids of Giza or Stonehenge, these monuments didn’t require herculean feats of strength to construct. They were, however, enormously complex.
Due their loose construction and centuries of exposure to the elements, only a handful of medicine wheels can definitively classified as astronomical observatories today (though the distinct possibility that some may have acted solely as ceremonial centers remains.) Saskatchewan’s Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel is one of those select few, and displays solstice alignments every bit as striking as those at Big Horn. Moreover, radiocarbon dating indicates that it is at least 2400 years old — evidence that early North Americans may have been more technologically sophisticated that previously thought.
Though the term “fossil” – a derivation of the Latin word for “dug up” — was first used in 16th century France, the petrified impressions of centuries old flora and fauna — including some of what later come to be known as dinosaurs — have been known to man, though wholly misunderstood, since the dawn of civilization. 
One such theorist was the first curator Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Robert Plot, who in 1676 sketched what he thought to be the thighbone of a colossal man. Though his initial supposition was incorrect, Plot’s discovery would eventually lead to the classification of the first dinosaur genus ever to be categorized by man: megalosaurus. 
Cuvier spent the rest of his career cataloguing as many of the bygone creatures as he could locate, including the first pterodactyl and mosasaur, as well as Robert Plot’s aforementioned megalosaurus. While he did speculate that there had indeed been an “age of reptiles” before man when giant saurians roamed the Earth, it wasn’t until 1841 that British scientist Richard Plot, drawing Culvier’s conclusion, realized that some fossils were so different that they deserved a distinct name. He subsequently dubbed this kingdom of extinct reptiles “Dinosauria” – meaning “terrible lizards” – and cemented the credibility of a new scientific field — paleontology – in the minds of the general public.
