The snake-figured Dionysos in the last post reminded me of the 28 Midsummer Miracles of Sabazios and the lovely hymn which P. Sufenas Virius Lupus composed in their honor, which begins:
Of the twenty-eight joys of Sabazios
here first I’ll sing you one:
was to see a new brood of temple snakes
born at the solstice’s sun
I was also thinking about the fact that Kadmos’ marriage to Harmonia was said to take place on Samothrace, which is where Orpheus learned the secret of the Ephesia Grammata from the Idaian Daktyloi and where Philip and Olympias met.
If you would like to acquire such knowledge without going through a bunch of creepy magic finger dwarves check out this weird book P. Sufenas just heard about. I plan on punching Sufenas in the nose and running off with said book at the Polytheist Leadership Conference because I worship Dionysos and that apparently makes me uncontrollably violent and crazy – but you should totally buy your copy. Or thee or four of them!
Tagged: alexander the great, dionysos, magic, orpheus, polytheist leadership conference, writing
