Immortal Son of the Sun
The sunbeam …
an obelisk is a rough stone, rising to a great height, shaped like a pillar in the stadium; and it tapers upwards in imitation of a sunbeam, keeping its quadrilateral shape, till it rises almost to a point,…
Remains
Buildings, statues, pictures. What they saw, what’s left?
Visiting divine prostitutes
One spring, a century before, Lucian of Samosata saw …
But I did see in Byblos a great temple of Aphrodite of Byblos, in which they perform ceremonies in honor of Adon …
Adon, Aphrodite’s lover, was killed in their land …
and…
Enter the Chi Rho
The Chi Rho. The letter Chi, the letter Rho. The first letters in the Greek rendering of Christ. Superimpose them and you have a monogram, a Christogram, that stood for Christ, pronounced like “Cairo”. When was it first used? It…
Nearly Back to the Holy Land
For his new Rome, Constantine so nearly picked old Troy …
Having, therefore, discovered a convenient site between Troas and old Ilium, he there accordingly laid a foundation, and built part of a wall to a considerable height, which may still…
But for the wind
Before Constantine came Byzas. One legend ran (there were others) …
There was once a king called Byzas who consulted the oracle at Delphi on where to settle his people.
“Settle opposite the land of the blind”, she said.
Byzas knew nothing of…