Man has taken thousands of years, from his appearing on earth, watching the sky, sometimes impressed by the thousands of bright spots, around 1,500 naked eye, moving or standing still, and other times frightened by the influence which the sky can have on their lives.
The abduction of Hylas: a very peculiar mosaic of Italica (Spain)
In Greek mythology there are numerous episodes in which powerful gods fall in love with beautiful mortals and procreate with them heroes, in their half immortal and in other half mortal. Also the goddesses fall in love sometimes with men, who are mortal. For example Venus is the mother of Aeneas, born from the mortal Anchises, from whom the race of Julius (Julius Caesar, Augustus, etc.) descended.
The gods do not send young kings to people whom want to harm
Phrases, sentences, proverbs, maxims Apophthegmata , were in antiquity an effective instrument for moral and civic education of citizens. So they are thousands of Latin and Greek sentences to be found in collections or never complete dictionaries. Besides the ancient world offers tons of material to build and permanently create attractive judgments at all times or to paraphrase or adapt the old they self.
The myth of the ages of man (2)
It is a topic or commonplace in many cultures that human life on Earth began in a time of happiness and absolute serenity, then interrupted by the amoral behavior of man, which since then has continued to get worse. These creations are not only literary, but they are part of the ideas of general cultural imaginary.
The myth of the ages or races of man
The old myth of the ages or races of man, with a first gold age which degenerates to the hard and fierce iron age as the moral behavior of man worsens, exists in many literatures. A thousand times told in antiquity and since antiquity, it was sufficiently known by Cervantes who was influenced significantly by it: after all, the “Knight of the Sorrowful Figure” aims to create a better world, perhaps like that existed in the “golden age”, judging by the presence which this illusion has in Don Quixote.
The festivals of fire are very old: the “Fallas”
The Spanish word “fallas” derives, according to the dictionary of the “Real Academia de la Lengua”, from the Latin “facula”, which means “torch”. The “Fallas” are undoubtedly the most important festivals in the Spanish Levante, which revolve essentially around the destructive and purifying fire and they held between 15 and 19 March, the feast of Saint Joseph.
Animals that are gods: an example of religious fanaticism
The Greeks and Romans are familiar in their mythology with the coexistence of animals with the gods. Moreover, they conceived their gods as men, which allowed to conceive some men as gods
“The Gods in Council” of Lucian of Samosata, an early example of irony, humor and freedom of expression
Does the right to freedom of expression have limits? The great majority of people advocate general right to freedom of expression, but not everyone understands it in the same way. There is a particularly confusing area in which the agreement seems impossible; it is the field of religious beliefs.
Some notes on the “Magi” , the three Wise Men
One of the most deeply rooted festivals in folk and Christian religious life is the “Adoration of the Three Kings other Three Wise Men”. In this event they come together many elements of different religious and cultural backgrounds. We can recall the religious ferment of the Roman Empire, precisely time when Jesus was born, flattering all syncretism. Christian religion have incorporated many elements of Eastern religions of Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt, Judea and especially of Greco-Roman and philosophical thought. In all these syncretic religions astral component, highly developed among the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia, is very important.
Mithra, god of the sun, was born on December 25, day of the winter solstice
On the night of 24 to 25 December it is celebrated in the West the birth of Christ. But it was not always so and today it is not in the whole Christian world; until the fourth century it was celebrated on January 6 and it continues so in the east, among the Orthodox.