Monday, December 14, 2015

NOAA and the Sibylline Books

A text only post, and about history, afield from fauna and flora, sort of...and grim, so dear readers, a caution to read on...

I'll put the search strings in bold, these are the beginning of a quote, and the link(s), the ulr(s), which are highlighted too, will be the quote(s) end(s)...


quote...from me...

hmmph...our new found skills at monitoring the atmosphere and such uncover our errors, but they may also show some dangers to the earth from other sources...and just for that I wouldn't throw us out with the bath water!

unquote

quote is a thread response to an unexpectedly sad lament observing that we have messed up the environment to the point that maybe we just don't belong here, on the earth, anymore...an oft time observation by many, I'd say!...I tried to offer a glimmer of hope...and as I oft time do, I worried my own off the cuff remark...'there's something more to that..' my thought...and by 'worried', I mean like my dog Maya chewing on the chew toy I just gave her...this to say I can be like Maya with a chew toy, with a thought!...or a water heater packaging box...Maya had that box into less than foot square pieces within an hour!

anyway...I was a adrift with no thought for a post last few days, and thought to visit Hades...I'm not one for putting up etymology of words to further a thought, but Hades is curious!

Hades

The origin of Hades' name is uncertain, but has generally been seen as meaning "The Unseen One" since antiquity.

... ... ...

Perhaps from fear of pronouncing his name, around the 5th century BCE, the Greeks started referring to Hades as Pluto (Πλούτων, Ploútōn), with a root meaning "wealthy", considering that from the abode below (i.e., the soil) come riches (e.g., fertile crops, metals and so on).


Hades


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
 
 
In that poem by Ben Johnson, 'Queen and Huntress', I learned that Hesperus was another name for Venus, and 'The Wreck of the Hesperus' popped into my head, and  I looked it up, and gave it some study, and was reminded how gloomy 19th century poets were...they just went on and on about death...myself, I have the same superstitious aversion to 'death' in my writing that the Greeks had to mention of 'Hades'...there are things I just don't go on about least I evoke them....or in the case of my using the word 'assassins' for those named in the news, I don't name them least I 'feed' them and their ilk...much has been made, and can be made, that the media doting on such, evokes such...the ancients were well aware of this, hence superstitions and taboos...'superlatively unscientific' as they are, I find superstitions 'charming'...I don't know if John Muir was superstitious, but he seldom goes on about doom and gloom, an exception in the doom and gloom milieu of the 19th century...and it's remarkable in today's 'milieu', in the day to day, doom and gloom is sort of taboo, not mentioned...kind of like the Japanese and their reluctance to discuss illness...but in our entertainments, the movies, it is in our face relentlessly...happy endings a kind of quick dream wake up from our long indulgences in the long and gloomy nightmare!
 
 
anyway, Hades, have I given you your due!...I like your dog, and would like to borrow for a story...'Cerberus escapes from Hell...' 
 
anyway, anyway, I'm reading along wiki's Hades take and note the Sibylline Books...
 
Hades Sibylline Books
 
Kinsmen they knew not, and they formed intrigues
Against their brothers. And they were impure,
Having defiled themselves with human gore,
And they made wars. And then upon them came
The last calamity sent forth from heaven,
100 Which snatched the dreadful men away from life;
And Hades then received them; it was called
Hades since Adam, having tasted death,
Went first and earth encompassed him around.
And therefore all men born upon the earth
105 Are in abodes of Hades called to go.
 
... ... ...
 
 Hades.--The conception of Hades here set forth, as the great receptacle of the souls of men after death, is in essential harmony with both the Jewish and the Christian doctrines. The derivation of the name from Adam is noticeable as a purely arbitrary conjecture. Comp. book iii, 30, note; comp. Plato's explanation of the word in Cratylus, 404.]
 

THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES.

BOOK I. 

 
 
Don't know but Hades, the unseen one, might be one god every religion agrees on!...Hades was awarded Hell after the Titanomachy...Poseidon was awarded the ocean, and Zeus the sky...all three could have affairs on land, the earth, which had belonged to Gaia...the Titanomachy was an earlier conflict between the gods like the Gigantomachy, which I have still to go on about like I intended!
 
Insomuch as Gaia's earth after the battle comes under the purview of these three gods, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, the story would seem a good example of the ancients documenting a shift in religious preference from goddess worship to gods worship, which eventually manifested as the White Beard reaching out to Adam in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel painting...I haven't studied them out before, but I was always curious about the Sibyls and their books Michelangelo painted on the ceiling too!
 
There are two Sibylline Book sets...the first, the original, was Greek, and borrowed by the Romans, who lost them in a fire, but searched all the empire for remnants, and made another set, which lasted until like 405 a.d. .  After that, they were lost, except for fragments, and memories, as when they existed, they were a closely guarded treasure...but they're influence was such that another set arose, which was a combination of pagan and Christian and Jewish lore...
 
sibylline books
 
The Sibylline Books should not be confused with the so-called Sibylline Oracles, twelve books of prophecies thought to be of Judaeo-Christian origin.
 
... ... ...
 
Thus, one important effect of the Sibylline Books was their influence on applying Greek cult practice and Greek conceptions of deities to indigenous Roman religion, which was already indirectly influenced through Etruscan religion. As the Sibylline Books had been collected in Anatolia, in the neighborhood of Troy, they recognized the gods and goddesses and the rites observed there and helped introduce them into Roman state worship, a syncretic amalgamation of national deities with the corresponding deities of Greece, and a general modification of the Roman religion.
 

Sibylline Books

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
 
Yes, the second set of Sibylline Books are the Oracles, and those for a sometime post!...but what in the world was the first set that was so important to the Romans?
 
sibylline books Rome
 
The Roman Senate kept tight control over the Sibylline Books;[1] Sibylline Books were entrusted to the care of two patricians; after 367 BC ten custodians were appointed, five patricians and five plebeians, who were called the decemviri sacris faciundis; subsequently (probably in the time of Sulla) their number was increased to fifteen, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis. They were usually ex-consuls or ex-praetors. They held office for life, and were exempt from all other public duties. They had the responsibility of keeping the books in safety and secrecy. These officials, at the command of the Senate, consulted the Sibylline Books in order to discover not exact predictions of definite future events in the form of prophecy but the religious observances necessary to avert extraordinary calamities and to expiate ominous prodigies (comets and earthquakes, showers of stones, plague, and the like).
 
 
'and such' I would write!...
 
wiki's page has a chart of for what events the Books were consulted:
 
"205-204 BC: During the Second Punic War, upon consultation of the Sibylline Books, an image of Cybele was transferred from Pessinos (or Pergamon) to Rome."
 
Well, there's Pergamon again, and Cybele is brought to Rome because of some oracle in the Books...it, it is all very strange!
 
But, but, these Books, in their time, must have held the same place, niche, that science does now with regard to explaining, or dealing, with natural disasters. 
 
"345 BC: The books were consulted when a "shower of stones rained down and darkness filled the sky during daylight". "
 
I imagine that was a volcano...
 
"A spreading bay is there, impregnable
To all invading storms; and Aetna's throat
With roar of frightful ruin thunders nigh.
Now to the realm of light it lifts a cloud
Of pitch-black, whirling smoke, and fiery dust,
Shooting out globes of flame, with monster tongues
That lick the stars; now huge crags of itself,
Out of the bowels of the mountain torn,
Its maw disgorges, while the molten rock
Rolls screaming skyward; from the nether deep
The fathomless abyss makes ebb and flow.

Virgil

which Romans are familiar with...

NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, pronounced /ˈn.ə/, like "Noah") is an American scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oceanic_and_Atmospheric_Administration

NOAA Aetna Italy

Smithsonian / USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report

INGV reported that after a progressive intensification of activity during the evening of 2 December, an eruption at Etna's Voragine Crater peaked between 0330 and 0410 on 3 December. During the peak period sustained lava fountains rose over 1 km above the crater with some jets of hot material rising 3 km high. An ash plume rose several kilometers high and drifted NE, causing ashfall in Linguaglossa, Francavilla di Sicilia, Milazzo, Messina, and Reggio Calabria. Activity had almost ceased by dawn. This event was among the largest in the last 20 years, similar to large events occurring at the same crater on 22 July 1998 and 4 September 1999.

http://volcano.si.edu/reports_weekly.cfm#vn_211060


quote

I love you son, I love you to Pluto and back.

Alyssa Milano on her facebook page...

unquote


DavidDavid
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

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