Ancient World Review

Blood On The Deltoids: Conan The Barbarian

In the interests of improving my mind, I just watched Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer again, plus I've been reading the original Robert E. Howard stories, the later books by Robert Jordan, and the Dark Horse collections of the Savage Sword of Conan comics. This is all great stuff, even the second movie, which is generally panned as campy and too light for serious barbarian action. The Destroyer has its dopey moments, true -- quite a few of them, in fact -- but I've always been a sucker for stories about evil queens who try to bring ancient gods back to life so they can take over the world. Something always goes wrong, naturally, and they end up releasing monsters which turn on them and run amok. This same general plot was also used by Robert Jordan in his excellent novel "Conan the Triumphant," by the way. It never gets old.

If you really want to get into the Conan saga, however, you need to read the original Howard stories, now available in three volumes from Del Rey: "The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian", "The Bloody Crown of Conan" and "The Conquering Sword of Conan" (the best of the three, in my opinion.) And, if you can find it at an affordable price, I highly recommend the 928-page Gollancz hardback collection The Complete Chronicles of Conan. This is the only one-volume "collected" Conan I'm aware of that actually includes all of the stories and other Conan-related material that Howard wrote. It's the Bible for hardcore Conan fanatics.

Note: Excellent audiobook versions of the Del Rey Conan books can be found at Audible along with many of Howard's other works. There are several Conan collections for Kindle as well, some of them better than others. The Kindle versions are kind of hit and miss. Some of them have formatting problems and others, advertised as being complete, aren't actually complete. The three volumes of the Del Rey collection are apparently available on Kindle now, but they're kind of expensive.

The original Howard stories are all fantastic and some of them, like "Red Nails," "Beyond The Black River," "The Black Stranger," "Queen of the Black Coast," and "The Hour of the Dragon" (Howard's only novel) are masterpieces of high adventure and incredibly luminous writing. Beneath the surface, Howard was writing about the clash between barbarism and civilization and his prognosis for civilization wasn't very bright:

"'Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,' the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. 'Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.'" -- Beyond The Black River.

Howard was an inspired, prolific writer who is often credited with creating the swords and sorcery genre, aka heroic fantasy, though stories like this can be traced all the way back to Homer and the Norse sagas. He was also lucky enough to live during a time when fiction writers could actually make a living writing for pulps like Weird Tales.  His writing's vivid and energetic, if sometimes florid, but always absorbing and entertaining. He was a friend of H.P. Lovecraft, another favorite of mine, and the great fantasist Clark Ashton Smith, and the three writers included references to each other's work in their own books in order to spread the word about Hyperborea and the Cthulhu Mythos, an interesting example of literary cross-pollination. Howard and Lovecraft corresponded regularly, producing a huge number of interesting letters collected in the two-volume set A Means To Freedom, edited by the Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi.

"For stark, living fear...what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?" --H.P. Lovecraft.

The late fantasy writer Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, continued the Conan saga at a high level. He wrote six or seven Conan novels,  three of which are collected in "The Further Chronicles of Conan," and he also wrote the novelization for Conan the Destroyer. I'm reading "Conan the Triumphant" right now and it's excellent:

"In the fabled kingdom of Ophir, Conan and his Free-Company of mercenaries enter the service of the voluptuous, dark-eyed Lady Synelle, unaware that she is secretly High Priestess of Al'Kiir, the sharp-horned, multi-fanged demon god whose worship is almost forgotten in the kingdom." --Fantastic Fiction UK

Now that's what I call high literature, but enjoying it involves an obsolete skill, namely reading. If you're a product of the modern school system and you've already seen the flicks, you can always get a good dose of Conan through the comic books (though some reading is still required). The ones I've seen are top rate. For instance, I just got volume one of The Savage Sword of Conan (Dark Horse), which includes a faithful version of the Howard classic, Red Nails. The art work in these old comics was top notch (though nothing beats the original Magnus Robot Fighter series, in my opinion) and the writing is a testament to the good old days when kids weren't protected from the real thing by the all-knowing Nanny State.

As for the movies, the first one, Conan the Barbarian, is generally considered the best. Arnold Schwarzenegger was still in condition at the time, the supreme Iron Rat and perfect for the role of the semi-articulate Cimmerian (Howard's Conan was anything but inarticulate, but never mind that). The second movie, Conan the Destroyer, is almost universally mocked as kid stuff by serious fans, but I've always liked it. Both movies are quests. In the first one, Conan's sent to recover a king's daughter who has fallen under the spell of the evil Thulsa Doom, the leader of an apocalyptic snake cult. In the second movie, he's dispatched by an evil queen to help a beautiful young princess (destined to be sacrificed, naturally) recover a supernatural treasure which the queen plans to use to bring the god Dagoth back so life so she can rule the world. During the process, heads roll "with more thwacks and less facts, more pecs and less sex...with Arnold the Barbarian getting blood on his deltoids in every scene..." according to the legendary drive-in movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs. Neither movie is faithful to the far superior Howard creation, but that's the way it goes. I'm not holding my breath waiting for someone in the movie industry to do justice to Conan (the 2011 Conan the Barbarian was a typical Hollywood CGI schlockfest and I'm sorry I even mentioned it). 

Robert E. Howard is sitting at the right hand of Crom these days, but he should be proud of himself. Conan has become a cultural icon and the character Howard created has spawned a huge industry of movies, books, comic books, video games, role-playing games, you name it. Regardless of the format, however, they all have one thing in common. The world presented in the Conan saga is harsh, cruel, violent and, well, barbaric, but it's also more elemental, which I think is the big attraction these stories have for the modern mind cut off from nature in the barrack cities of so-called advanced civilization.

Note: I wrote this article several years ago. I've been reposting it on a regular basis because I want to do what I can to publicize the work of this great American writer.

Barbarians - The Cimmerians

Video may have some inaccuracies. Subtitles need proofreading.

"'Bosporus, the Cimmerian,' another name for the strait of Kerch which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov, was the center of the major kingdom of Bosporus in what is now Ukraine. The kingdom was ruled by the Greek Spartocids from around 438 BC until it came under the control of the new Pontic Empire under Mithridates. The whole area later fell under the control of the Romans." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary, OCD, 3rd ed. revised.

The Greek/Cimmerian Bosporan Kingdom is deep barbarian territory and the ancient history of the region is suitably tumultuous and confusing. The Cimmerians themselves apparently lived in the region back in the 7th or 8th centuries BC, but their original homeland is still obscure and they were apparently defeated by the Scythians:

"...prevailing opinion among the ancients was that the Cimmerians had once inhabited the steppes on the northern shore of the Black Sea. The first surviving evidence of this view is found in the poem Arimaspaea by Aristeas of Proconnesus (ca. 550 b.c.e.), in which the Scythians are said to have driven the Cimmerians from their country in southern Russia..." Source: Encyclopedia Iranica.

Linguistically, the Cimmerians could have been Scythians themselves, or Iranians; it all seems to depend on which source you read.

"Some authorities identify [the Cimmerians] with 'Thraco-Cimmerian' remains of the 8th–7th century BC found in the southwestern Ukraine and in central Europe; these may perhaps be looked upon as traces of the western branch of the Cimmerians, who, under fresh Scythian pressure, eventually invaded the Hungarian plain and survived there until about 500 BC." Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Fittingly enough, Thraco-Cimmerian artefacts seem to consist mostly of "grave goods and hoards."

The most famous Cimmerian, of course, is Conan the Barbarian, but the Cimmerians as created by the great Robert E. Howard are a fictional race living in a mythological world of his own invention which was based very loosely on actual history:

"North of Aquilonia, the western-most Hyborian kingdom, are the Cimmerians, ferocious savages, untamed by the invaders, but advancing rapidly because of contact with them; they are the descendants of the Atlanteans, now progressing more steadily than their old enemies the Picts, who dwell in the wilderness west of Aquilonia." -- The Hyborian Age, Robert E. Howard.

Part two can be found here.

"The Cimmerians are known from several Assyrian texts, which call them Ga-mir or Gi-mir-a-a. In the Assyrian language, the last name means something like 'people traveling back and forth' and seems to be the less adequate of the two renderings of the Cimmerians' Indo-European name, but it describes their way of life excellently, because they were nomads. The Cimmerians were closely related and are archaeologically almost identical to the Scythians, who may have expelled them from their home country." Source: Livius.

The Cimmerians appear to have been a warlike, aggressive people, but they weren't a force for very long. According to Wikipedia, their homeland, Gamirr, was first mentioned by the Assyrian king Sargon II around 721-715 BC. They destroyed the Anatolian kingdom of Phrygia in 695 and again in 676-674 and were eventually defeated in 637-626 by Alyattes II, the king of Lydia, after decades of battles, sacks, invasions, short-lived occupations and general mayhem.

The Cimmerians, aka the Cimmerri, had a meteoric rise and fall, but they made their mark on history. According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, they were "an ancient people of the far north or west of Europe, first spoken of by Homer (Odyssey, xi. 12–19), who describes them as living in perpetual darkness. Herodotus (iv. 11–13), in his account of Scythia, regards them as the early inhabitants of South Russia (after whom the Bosporus Cimmerius [q.v.] and other places were named), driven by the Scyths along by the Caucasus into Asia Minor, where they maintained themselves for a century."

The Cimmerian's push for conquest and expansion only lasted for about a hundred years, but that's not a bad record considering the chaos and constant turmoil in the region back then.

Related: Bosporan coins of the Hellenic period and [Roman] imperial period.

Were The Vandals The Victims Of Bad Press?

"The name of the Vandals is synonymous today with wanton violence and destruction. But it seems to me that, just like the Vikings, the Vandals have suffered from a bad press. The surviving accounts of their sack of Rome in AD 455, of their further piratical raids around the Mediterranean, and of their persecution of the Catholic inhabitants of North Africa are all presented through the eyes of their enemies and opponents: the Roman and Byzantine Empire and the established Church. Clearly, the Vandals were regarded as the ‘bad guys’ of the day and we too have been led into thinking of them as wild barbarians, intent on the destruction of Rome and its civilization." Source: The British Museum Blog.

Comment: The Vandals weren't exactly choir boys, but as far as I can tell they weren't all that different from everyone else back then. They were looking for land and wanted to form their own kingdoms, just like every other tribe fighting over the remains of the western Roman empire, an empire which was itself originally formed by conquering its neighbors.

The Vandals were a Germanic people or confederation of peoples who may have originated in the Iron Age Przeworsk culture (3rd century BC - 5th century AD) in what is now modern Poland, according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised). By 200 AD "they were already divided into at least two groups: Hasdings and Silings." According to the OCD, they "seem to have played no major role in the 3rd cent. invasions [of Rome], although contact with the Roman empire was plentiful."

That changed on Dec. 31, 406 AD, when the Vandals crossed the Rhine with two other barbarian tribes, the Alans and Suebi. (OCD) "After three years of widespread devastation in Gaul, they moved over the Pyrenees, and in 411 the invaders divided the Spanish provinces between them." The history here is complex, but the Vandals eventually crossed into Africa, captured Roman Carthage and established their own Vandal kingdom which was eventually conquered by the Byzantines.

The Vandals' methods were brutal and destructive -- they didn't get their name for no reason -- but so were the methods used by the Byzantine Christians and it's easy to forget that the Vandals were Christians themselves: Arian Christians. They persecuted the Catholics in North Africa, but the Catholics persecuted Arianism as well, so I don't see what the church has to complain about.

The Catholic Church makes a big deal about the way their brand of Christianity has been persecuted over the years, but the modern church is at least aware enough to recognize that it can be accused of "inconsistency" in the matter. The church tries to defend its own history -- the Inquisition, religious wars, etc -- by saying that its past intolerance wasn't the same as persecution because it was acting under a "lawful" mandate from God. Apparently, it isn't persecution if it involves "lawful coercion" by an "infallible" authority like the Catholic church:

"Such intolerance, however, is not the same as persecution, by which we understand the unlawful exercise of coercion. Every corporation lawfully constituted has the right to coerce its subjects within due limits. And though the Church exercises that right for the most part by spiritual sanctions, she has never relinquished the right to use other means." Source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. [Emphasis added]

The legalistic handwaving on display here is truly mind-boggling, to say the least, but it's typical of the kind of propaganda states have always put out to justify their wars and violent suppression of "heresies" of one kind or another. Apparently, the Catholics regard the use of torture to force confessions, burning witches at the stake and massacring heretics to be coercion "within due limits." With this kind of record, you have to wonder what the church considers to be out of bounds when it comes to the use of force.

If the Vandals were notorious for their violence, it's because they were better at it than other groups. Unfortunately for them, they weren't good enough to consolidate their successes and hold their new African kingdom for very long. The winners write the history, so we remember the Vandals as brutal barbarians. That's the way it goes.

2500-Yr-Old Scythian Warrior Grave Discovered In Siberia's "Valley Of The Kings"

Video from 2017.

"The 2,500-year-old tomb of a Scythian warrior has been found in the ‘Siberian Valley of the Kings’ in Russia." Source: Archaeology News Network.

"Buried with his weapon and golden ornaments, the warrior discovered by archaeologists from Jagiellonian University in Krakow was found in an untouched grave in an area known for both its rich burial sites and notorious grave-robbing."

The Valley of the Kings is located in the Russian republic of Tuva, an area with a deep barbarian history:

"The territory currently known as Tuva has been occupied by various groups throughout its history. Sources are rare and unclear for most of Tuva's early history. Archeological evidence indicates a Scythian presence possibly as early as the 9th century BC. Tuva was conquered relatively easily by the succession of empires which swept across the region. It was most likely held by various Turkic khanates until 1207. It was then ruled by Mongols until the 18th century, when it submitted to Manchu rule under the Qing dynasty. Slow Russian colonization during the 19th century led to progressive annexation of the region to Russia in the 20th century." (Wikipedia)

"...Archeological finds indicate a long occupation of what is now Tuva. Tombs have been found dating back as far as the late Paleolithic Era. Probably the most spectacular Scythian finds known to archaeologists have been discovered in northern Tuva near Arzhaan. Dating to between the 7th and 9th centuries BC they are also among the earliest known, as well as the easternmost."

Next video (2011) gives a good overview of the general region.

Related: Focus on Tuva: Stunning treasures -- and macabre slaughter -- in Siberia's Valley of the Kings (2016).

Book Review: The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire by Michael Grant

The fall of Rome proves beyond doubt that one thing always leads to another, usually in unexpected ways. For example, when the Romans gave up the idea of conquering Germany and switched to a defensive strategy along the Rhine and Danube frontier, they succeeded in blocking the German advance into their territory, but they had no idea that they were starting a long chain of events which would eventually lead to the collapse of the western empire.

The Germanic tribes needed living space. Stymied in their attempts to spread west into Roman Gaul, the various tribes started to move to the east in the Second Century AD and ran into big trouble about a century later. In 372, according to The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, "the eastward expansion of the Ostrogoths provoked an explosive reaction from the Huns of the Volga Steppe." When the Ostrogoths intruded into their territory, the Huns drove all the German tribes back towards the Danube like a giant hammer, pounding them against the Roman frontier.

"...the Huns rolled forward to the Danube, crushing the Visigoths and enslaving the Gepids, who had the misfortune to occupy the Hungarian steppe. There the Huns settled down with their flocks, lords of a pasture that stretched back to the Caspian. In three years they had obliterated a century of German expansion." New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, page 10.

Over the next century, the Franks, Frisians, Suevi, Vandals, Alemanni and Visigoths crossed the frontier into Roman Gaul, but they didn't stop there. Driven by hunger, the need for land and their leader's private ambitions, the Visigoths sacked Rome and spread as far as Spain, establishing the Kingdom of the Visigoths in 418. Rome in the west, heart of the strongest and most successful empire the world has ever seen, no longer existed.

The story of the fall of the western empire is more complicated than this, of course, but the main question is why Rome couldn't defend its frontier. What had changed? One part of the answer is given by the famous classical historian Michael Grant in his short and relatively obscure book "The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire." Briefly, Rome had been so weakened by two centuries of political instability, corruption, civil wars, military disasters and financial problems that it was no longer able to defend itself. In fact, according to Grant, the western empire should have collapsed in the Third Century, but managed to recover thanks to the efforts of a series of strong emperors who instituted much needed reforms.

"The fact that the Roman empire did not collapse in the 260s or 270s AD is one of the miracles of history." Grant, Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, Introduction, xvii.

In my opinion, the origins of Rome's political instability can be traced all the way back to Julius Caesar, at least. When the legions figured out that they could make or break emperors at will, they became the ultimate power brokers and this eventually developed into a state of constant chaos and civil war as ambitious military leaders bribed and murdered their way into power, only to be murdered themselves, sometimes after a reign of only a few days. The turnover in the Roman government between 235 and 284 AD was mind-boggling:

"In the age of the soldier-emperors, between the assassination of Alexander Severus, the last of the Severans, in 235 A.D. and the beginning of Diocletian's reign in 284, at least sixteen men bore the title of emperor: Maximinus (r. 235–38 A.D.), Gordian I and II, Pupienus and Balbinus (r. 238 A.D.), Gordian III (r. 238–44 A.D.), Philip the Arab (r. 244–49 A.D.), the Illyrian Decius (r. 249–51 A.D.), Trebonianus Gallus (r. 251–53 A.D.), Aemilianus (r. 253 A.D.), Valerian (r. 253–60 A.D.), Gallienus (r. 253–68 A.D.), Claudius Gothicus (r. 268–70 A.D.), Aurelian (r. 270–75 A.D.), Tacitus (r. 275–76 A.D.), Probus (r. 276–82 A.D.), Carus (r. 282–83 A.D.), Carinus (r. 283–84 A.D.), and Numerianus (r. 283–84 A.D.). Most were fierce military men and none could hold the reins of power without the support of the army. Almost all, having taken power upon the murder of the preceding emperor, came to a premature and violent end. Social life declined in Roman towns and instead flourished among the country aristocracy, whose secure lifestyle in large fortified estates foreshadowed medieval feudalism." (Source: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History)

Michael Grant's short book, actually a monograph of 68 pages with an appendix and notes, provides a good overview of the chaotic succession of emperors and the constantly changing state of Roman relations with the Germans and Persians at the time. In Part Two, he discusses the military, financial and religious reforms instituted by the "strong emperors" such as Diocletian and Constantine who emerged at just the right time and managed to pull the empire back from the brink--for a while. Grant's book gives one of the most coherent explanations available for why the western empire collapsed after the Ostrogoth's fatal encounter with the Huns on the Volga Steppe. The lesson is clear enough. A series of bad or ineffective leaders can destroy a civilization.

Sound familiar?

Human Sacrifice In Iron Age Europe

"Around a hundred bodies have been found in ... Irish bogs to date, some male, some female, and those of children too. Some were thought to be there by accident, perhaps as a result of falling into the bog and drowning. Others were considered to be formal (and some not so formal) burials, and others appear to be rather more sinister." Source: Irish Central.

The ritual sacrifice dramatized in this video shows the execution of Old Croghnan Man, a bog body currently (?) on display in the National Museum of Ireland, which, among other things, has an exhibit called Kingship & Sacrifice. According to the museum's website, "the exhibition is centred on a new theory that connects human sacrifice with sovereignty and kingship rituals during the Iron Age. Research has indicated that other material connected with these rituals include: items of regalia; items associated with equestrian [horse] procession; weapons; feasting utensils; boundary markers; items associated with corn and milk production, such as quern stones and butter deposits known as ‘bog butter’."

One possible human sacrifice from this period is known as Tollund Man, "a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BC, during the period characterised in Scandinavia as the Pre-Roman Iron Age. He was found in 1950, preserved as a bog body, on the Jutland peninsula. The man's physical features were so well-preserved that he was mistaken at the time of discovery for a recent murder victim. Twelve years before Tollund Man's discovery, another bog body, Elling Woman, had been found in the same bog." (Wikipedia)

I think this describes Tollund Man, but I'm not sure.

"Scholars tend to agree that Tollund Man’s killing was some kind of ritual sacrifice to the gods—perhaps a fertility offering. To the people who put him there, a bog was a special place. While most of Northern Europe lay under a thick canopy of forest, bogs did not. Half earth, half water and open to the heavens, they were borderlands to the beyond. To these people, will-o’-the-wisps—flickering ghostly lights that recede when approached—weren’t the effects of swamp gas caused by rotting vegetation. They were fairies. The thinking goes that Tollund Man’s tomb may have been meant to ensure a kind of soggy immortality for the sacrificial object." Source: Smithsonian (2017).

"'At an appointed time all tribes meet ….. in a forest consecrated by their ancestors, surrounded by fear, sacred from the dawn of time. There, on behalf of those assembled, they celebrate the commencement of their barbaric cult with a human sacrifice.'

"This is how the Roman historian Tacitus described the situation among the Semnones, a Germanic tribe, in the 1st century AD. This could provide the explanation of what happened to the woman from Huldremose, Tollund Man and Grauballe Man. More than a hundred bog bodies have been found in Denmark, which date from the period 800 BC to 200 AD. The cause of death has only been established in a small number of cases, where people have been strangled, hung or had their throats cut. Like the woman from Huldremose, the bodies were carefully placed in a bog afterwards, which points toward a sacrifice or another ritual act rather than an attack." Source: National Museum of Denmark.

Closed captions helpful.

"For Europeans dating as far back as the Neolithic period 6,000 years ago, bogs were both resources and possibly ominous supernatural portals, according to Ulla Mannering, an expert in ancient textiles at the National Museum of Denmark." Source: National Geographic (2014).

"The bogs' peat, which could be burned for heating homes, was valuable in tree-scarce Denmark, and an ore called bog iron was made into tools and weapons.

"Among prehistoric people, 'when you take things, you also offer things,' said Mannering.

"This may be why the Danish villagers would deposit 'gifts' of clothes, old shoes, slaughtered animals, battered weapons, and, for a period of 500 years, people into the black abyss of the bogs."

Related: Medieval Christian Book Discovered in Ireland Bog.

Happy Yule, Saturnalia & (Maybe) Mithra's Birthday

Christmas is a classic example of how the early church Christianized the pagan West by taking over its traditions.

"The Christian ecclesiastical calendar contains many remnants of pre-Christian festivals. Christmas includes elements of the Roman feast of the Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithra. The Chronography of 354 AD contains early evidence of the celebration on December 25 of a Christian liturgical feast of the birth of Jesus. This was in Rome, while in Eastern Christianity the birth of Jesus was already celebrated in connection with the Epiphany on January 6." Source: Wikipedia.

Christmas traditions have deep roots in the ancient pagan world. Take the Christmas tree, for instance. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the Devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmastime. It survived further in the custom, also observed in Germany, of placing a Yule (1) tree at an entrance or inside the house during the midwinter holidays."

(1) "Yule or Yuletide ('Yule time' or 'Yule season') is a festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples. Scholars have connected the original celebrations of Yule to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht [Old English 'Night of the Mothers']. ." (Wikipedia)

"Later departing from its pagan roots, Yule underwent Christianised reformulation, resulting in the term Christmastide. Many present-day Christmas customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat [see next video], Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from pagan Yule traditions."

 Also see The Symbols of Yule.

In Rome, the period of the winter solstice brought the seven days of the Saturnalia. "Saturn’s great festival, the Saturnalia, became the most popular of Roman festivals, and its influence is still felt in the celebration of Christmas and the Western world’s New Year." (Encyclopedia Britannica).

"The Saturnalia was the most popular holiday of the Roman year,"  according to the University of Chicago. Catullus describes it as 'the best of days' ... and Seneca complains that the 'whole mob has let itself go in pleasures" ... Pliny the Younger writes that he retired to his room while the rest of the household celebrated ... It was an occasion for celebration, visits to friends, and the presentation of gifts, particularly wax candles ... perhaps to signify the returning light after the solstice, and sigillaria."

Everything in Rome came to a stop during the Saturnalia, a festival of licentiousness and role reversals, among other things. According to History Extra, "We say that during Christmas today the whole world shuts down – the same thing happened during the Saturnalia. There were sometimes plots to overthrow the government, because people were distracted – the famous conspirator Cataline had planned to murder the Senate and set the city on fire during the holiday, but his plan was uncovered and stopped by Cicero in 63 BC."

Some Christians see the Saturnalia (and, by extension, Christmas itself) as satanic, which isn't too surprising since Christianity demonized all of the old pagan gods while simultaneously hijacking many of their traditions for their own purposes. In one case, that of Mithra (Mithras) -- the early church's main competitor -- the Christians may have appropriated a pagan god so completely that some have argued that Christ is Mithra in another form.

The identification of Mithra's birthday with Christmas is sketchy. While many sources claim that the god was born on Dec. 25, other sources say that this isn't true and the story seems to be a much later invention. According to Wikipedia, for instance, "It is often stated that Mithras was thought to have been born on December 25. But Beck states that this is not the case. In fact he calls this assertion 'that hoariest of 'facts'. He continues: 'In truth, the only evidence for it is the celebration of the birthday of Invictus on that date in the Calendar of Philocalus. Invictus is of course Sol Invictus, Aurelian's sun god. It does not follow that a different, earlier, and unofficial sun god, Sol Invictus Mithras, was necessarily or even probably, born on that day too.'" 

Mithra was said to have been born from a rock (in one version of the story) According to The Mysteries of Mithra, by Franz Cumont (p 131), "the tradition ran that the 'Generative Rock,' of which a standing image was worshiped in the temples, had given birth to Mithra on the banks of a river, under the shade of a sacred tree, and that shepherds alone, ensconced in a neighboring mountain, had witnessed the miracle of his entrance into the world." Like the story of Jesus's birth, the presence of shepherds in the fields suggests that Mithra was born in the spring or summer, not in the dead of winter. Whatever the case, however, the Jesus/Mithra connection is persistent in popular culture:

Related: Sol Invictus and Christmas

One interesting fact about Mithraism is that it appeared (in the Roman empire) around the same time that Christianity appeared and seems to have dropped out of sight around the same time that Nicene Christianity became the official state religion of Rome:

"The Roman deity Mithras appears in the historical record in the late 1st century A.D., and disappears from it in the late 4th century A.D.," according to The Tertullian Project. It's tempting to see this as circumstantial evidence that Christianity evolved out of Mithraism, but the truth is that all forms of pagan religion began to fade out after the church consolidated its power in the 4th century. Besides, very little is actually known about the teachings of Mithraism, an "organization of cells," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), whose beliefs have to be reconstructed mostly from inscriptions.

None of this really matters, though. Mithras probably wasn't born on Dec. 25, but then neither was Jesus so what difference does it make? The connections between Christmas, ancient Yuletide celebrations and the Roman Saturnalia are clear, so if you're a pagan you might as well go ahead and celebrate Mithra's birthday today as well. Of course, this assumes that you see Christmas as a religious holiday in the first place. A lot of people don't:

"Most Americans celebrate Christmas, but its importance to people as a religious event continues to wane, according to a new survey by Pew Research." (News & Observer, 2017).

"The poll found that while 90 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas, only 55 percent regard it as a religious holiday. Further, the survey found, a decreasing majority of Americans believe in the main elements of the Christmas story as told in the Bible: that Jesus was born of a virgin mother; that three magi came to visit, bearing gifts; that an angel announced the baby’s birth; and that the infant was cradled in a manger."

Christmas has become secularized and increasingly commercial, to say the least. The holiday has degenerated into a month-long orgy of rabid consumerism and mass insanity, a typical example of the decline of the modern world. (Video from 2018)

Personally I have mixed feelings about Christmas. I'm not a Christian, for one thing, and I can't stand what the holiday has become, but traditions are important, especially now that all of our western traditions are under relentless attack by the Cultural Marxists. 

So Merry Christmas and if saying that offends somebody I couldn't care less.

The Ancient Beech Forests Of Germany

"In ancient times, the Black Forest was known as Abnoba mons, after the Celtic deity, Abnoba. In Roman times (Late Antiquity), it was given the name Silva Marciana ('Marcynian Forest', from the Germanic word marka = 'border'). The Black Forest probably represented the border area of the Marcomanni ('border people') who were settled east of the Roman limes. They, in turn, were part of the Germanic tribe of Suebi, who subsequently gave their name to the historic state of Swabia. With the exception of Roman settlements on the perimeter (e.g. the baths in Badenweiler, and mines near Badenweiler and Sulzburg) and the construction of the Roman road of Kinzigtalstraße, the colonization of the Black Forest was not carried out by the Romans, but by the Alemanni. They settled and first colonized the valleys, crossing the old settlement boundary, the so-called 'red sandstone border', for example, from the region of Baar. Soon afterwards, increasingly higher areas and adjacent forests were colonized, so that by the end of the 10th century, the first settlements could be found in the red (bunter) sandstone region. These include, for example, Rötenbach, which was first mentioned in 819." (Wikipedia)

Videos from the Black Forest Collective.

An Overview Of The Mongol Empire

"The Mongol Empire ... existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and was the largest contiguous land empire in history," according to Wikipedia. Note: The British Empire at its height was larger than the Great Mongol Empire, but it was scattered across several continents.

The short history of the Mongols is so complex and covers so much territory that I'm not even going to try to describe it all here. Basically, Genghis Khan united the savage Mongol tribes of the steppes, invaded China, then sent some of his forces west to attack Europe. The Great Khan and his sons led these various battles, spreading terror and massive destruction wherever they went.

"The Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th century was the attempted conquest of Europe by the Mongol Empire, by way of the destruction of East Slavic principalities, such as Kiev and Vladimir. The Mongol invasions also occurred in Central Europe, which led to warfare among fragmented Poland, such as the Battle of Legnica (9 April 1241) and in the Battle of Mohi (11 April 1241) in the Kingdom of Hungary." Source: Wikipedia.

Genghis Khan died in 1227 AD. One of his sons, Ogedei, became the new Khan in 1229. The Mongol forces in the West could have conquered Europe, changing world history forever, but they began to withdraw in 1242. To this day, no one knows for sure what happened. According to Wikipedia, "the true reasons for the Mongol withdrawal are not fully known, but numerous plausible explanations exist."

The invaders might have left following the death of Ogedei in the East. It's also possible that their forces were bogged down and stretched too thin after suffering a large number of casualties. The weather may have played a role, the harsh winter making it difficult to feed their horses, and internal rebellions could have weakened them as well.

The Mongols were always an unstable coalition and their unity depended on strong, charismatic leaders like Genghis Khan. His death led to the inevitable wars of succession and by 1294 "the Mongol Empire had fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives." (Wikipedia) After that it wasn't long before Mongol rule collapsed all over Eurasia.

"In 1335, the Il-Khan (Mongol) ruler of Persia and the Middle East, Abu Said, died of bubonic plague during a war with his northern cousins, the Golden Horde. This signaled the beginning of the end for Mongol rule in the region." Source: "How The Black Death Started In Asia," Thought Company.

The Mongols may have been responsible, at least in part, for carrying the Black Death into Europe, but the growth in trade between East and West probably had more to do with the spread of the contagion. One way or another, the Mongols had a devastating effect on Eurasia. Overall, they are thought to have been responsible, directly or indirectly, for the deaths of up to 40 million people. Despite that incredible statistic, however, some historians argue that the impact of the Mongol invasions was beneficial for the regions they vanquished:

"In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege." Source: "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World," by Jack Weatherford.

All of that could be true, I suppose, though I find it hard to believe that Genghis Khan abolished torture. If so, that would mean that the Great Khan was more humane that most of our recent US presidents (which wouldn't really surprise me now that I think about it). I'm sure that the Mongols were more than just a horde of bloodthirsty marauders, but if they were such an advanced civilizing force it's difficult to understand why their empire collapsed so quickly.

Related: William of Rubrick's Account of the Mongols.

Highly recommended: Mongol, The Rise Of Genghis Khan, a 2007 semi-historical movie from Russia.

The Dark Lords Of Hattusha

"Hattusha [Hattusa] exerted dominating influence upon the civilizations of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in Anatolia and northern Syria. The palaces, temples, trading quarters and necropolis of this political and religious metropolis provide a comprehensive picture of a capital and bear a unique testimony to the disappeared Hittite civilization." Source: UNESCO World Heritage.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised),  "the site [of Hattusa] has been under excavation by German archaeologists since 1906 (1), and besides the massive Hittite occupation has produced pre- and post-Hittite levels. Among the principle finds has been the royal archives of thousands of cuneiform clay tablets."

(1) I'm not sure if the Germans were still excavating the site when the war broke out in Syria. If so, I assume that their work was interrupted.

"Hattusa is a site full of treasures, which is mentioned in history books due to the rich correspondence between the Hittite king and other rulers like the pharaohs of Egypt. The site contains many important places, including the pre-Hittite royal tombs, dating to 3,000 B.C., and have yielded stunning artifacts such as weapons, gold and silver containers and jewelry, animal sculptures made of bronze and clay, chairs, gold brooches, belt buckles, and gold leaf-covered figures." Source: Ancient Origins (2016).

Next video shows the Yer Kapi tunnel under Hattusa.

"The Hittite Empire began its decline around the middle of the 13th century BC," according to Ancient Origins, "mainly due to the rise of their eastern neighbors, the Assyrians. Moreover, raids by hostile forces, such as the Sea Peoples and the Kaska further weakened the Hittite Empire, finally resulting in its collapse during the first half of the 12th century BC. In 1190 BC, the Kaskas managed to capture Hattusa, which they then sacked and burned."

According to Wikipedia, "[e]xcavations suggest that Hattusa was gradually abandoned over a period of several decades as the Hittite empire disintegrated. The site was subsequently abandoned until 800 BC, when a modest Phrygian settlement appeared in the area."