Chris Ostrowski
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- Joined
- Nov 27, 2006
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<h2>The Resurrection of Julius Caesar
on the day of the Liberalia[/B] On Friday, 17 March 44 BCE, the day of the <em>Liberalia</em>, the festival of Liber Pater (Bacchus/Dionysus), Julius Caesar received his state funeral and resurrected as god by the will of the people. A wax effigy of his slain body was presented, raised above the bier, at the exact spot where a cruciform <em>tropaeum</em> stood, and was then rotated for the attending crowd. The image above shows a reconstruction of Caesar’s <em>simulacrum</em> on the cross from the available archaeological sources. In the context of the Liberalia this cross was not (as usually) only a Roman victory cross, but especially needs to be seen as a liturgical prop commonly found in the rituals of Dionysian festivals. The tropaeum is taken from one of the many Caesarian coins that display Caesar’s <em>tropaea</em>, while the effigy is from a <em>denarius</em> by Caesar’s moneyer Buca, a coin that represented the imagery used at Caesar’s funeral, including his effigy as the legendary shepherd/king Endymion. Caesar’s real body was cremated by the people in an improvised manner during the same ceremony on the Forum Romanum. In the gospels, which are a diegetic transposition of the historical sources on Caesar’s Civil War, Caesar’s cremation was interpreted as Christ’s Crucifixion, and all of the hypotextual properties are still found in the Passion narrative, for example the Latin <em>cremare</em> (CREMO; “to cremate”), which was understood as the Greek term κρεμαω (κρεμάω; “to hang from”, “to suspend”; Christian: “to crucify”), a striking accordance that was also noted (vice versa) by Church Father Augustine in <em>Quaest. Num.</em> 4.33.5, where he insinuated Christ’s cremation and specifically explained the Resurrection as an apotheosis by fire[/B]:Rogue
"Why should I love God? He strung up his Son like a side of veal. I shudder to think what he would do to me."
on the day of the Liberalia[/B] On Friday, 17 March 44 BCE, the day of the <em>Liberalia</em>, the festival of Liber Pater (Bacchus/Dionysus), Julius Caesar received his state funeral and resurrected as god by the will of the people. A wax effigy of his slain body was presented, raised above the bier, at the exact spot where a cruciform <em>tropaeum</em> stood, and was then rotated for the attending crowd. The image above shows a reconstruction of Caesar’s <em>simulacrum</em> on the cross from the available archaeological sources. In the context of the Liberalia this cross was not (as usually) only a Roman victory cross, but especially needs to be seen as a liturgical prop commonly found in the rituals of Dionysian festivals. The tropaeum is taken from one of the many Caesarian coins that display Caesar’s <em>tropaea</em>, while the effigy is from a <em>denarius</em> by Caesar’s moneyer Buca, a coin that represented the imagery used at Caesar’s funeral, including his effigy as the legendary shepherd/king Endymion. Caesar’s real body was cremated by the people in an improvised manner during the same ceremony on the Forum Romanum. In the gospels, which are a diegetic transposition of the historical sources on Caesar’s Civil War, Caesar’s cremation was interpreted as Christ’s Crucifixion, and all of the hypotextual properties are still found in the Passion narrative, for example the Latin <em>cremare</em> (CREMO; “to cremate”), which was understood as the Greek term κρεμαω (κρεμάω; “to hang from”, “to suspend”; Christian: “to crucify”), a striking accordance that was also noted (vice versa) by Church Father Augustine in <em>Quaest. Num.</em> 4.33.5, where he insinuated Christ’s cremation and specifically explained the Resurrection as an apotheosis by fire[/B]:Rogue
"Why should I love God? He strung up his Son like a side of veal. I shudder to think what he would do to me."