The Goddess Cybele praised by Julian the Apostate (thanks to Wikipedia for the image) The author of the Hymn to Cybele, Roman emperor Julian the Apostate is a one off in history. He was the nephew of Constantine, the man that introduced Christianity to the empire. But he spent most of his adult life trying
Orwell easily opposed the Nazis as a socialist modernist, using his writing for propaganda and later warning against totalitarianism. But Tolkien and Lewis faced a dilemma: both medievalists interested in paganism and mythology—the same sources the Nazis were exploiting. This forced them to retreat into coded fantasy worlds, possibly harboring syncretist beliefs they couldn’t openly express.
I can’t top the excellent blog post about this painting, so I’ll just add a link. http://blog.interiorpaintsecrets.info/st-mercurios-killing-king-oleonus-st-mercurios-killing-emperor-julian-the-apostate/ If you want to follow my extended review of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from the beginning (and who wouldn’t?) it starts with Augustus founding the empire.
Imagine some people who had grown up and lived their entire lives chained to the wall of a cave. Their only view of the world comes from shadows cast into the cave. They would have some idea of what the world was like, but would be unable to fully experience and appreciate the full depth
Christopher Hitchens showed great stoicism in his last year as the cancer in his throat slowly killed him. He continued to live as he had lived before with no hint of self pity or even much sign of inconvenience. As he pointed out, we are all dying, he was just doing it a bit more
Alexandria was one of the major cities of the Roman empire, and one that would have appealed to Julian. It was founded by Alexander the Great, who was one of Julian’s heroes. It was also the centre of a major pagan cult, that of Serapis. (If you are wondering who Serapis was, he was