"So that's the case, then everything will be clear." Zhu Xianfen nodded. To be honest, he has always been very interested in Rome's power system. Because this is the invisible elephant in the room, neither side understands the other's "doctrine".
"Shangluo, I wonder if the Romans have no intention of 'sneaking down' and will they give us this cornerstone."
"Probably impossible. This is the Romans' trump card."
"What exactly does this thing contain? Soul?"
"No. I also asked over there, and they said that the soul is very complicated. It does not store souls, it stores dreams."
"Dream? What does it mean? Is it a specific dream? You also said that this stone can absorb souls?" The stone looked dark and indeed a bit eerie.
"She told me that it is impossible to absorb souls. If souls could be absorbed, the Romans would have entered immortality early - this black stone can only store 'dreams', just storage. It is more like a tomb than a Some kind of paradise.”
"What's the meaning?"
"This seems to be traced back to the origin of the Cybele god."
Victoria made this clear to Shangluo at that time, which made Shangluo feel a little scary. But it seemed to be his fate.
Cybler, or Kubler, is the Earth Mother Goddess. Her official Roman title was the Mater Magna.
She is sometimes equated with Gaia, just as Zeus has many incarnations. But unlike Zeus, Cybele was a Roman god. Instead of many competing city-states with differing views, the Romans had a pantheon. So in Roman belief, Cybele had a clear image and several well-known myths.
Her characteristics can be summarized into two godheads: blood and rebirth.
The best example of this characteristic is a myth related to Zeus: Cybele fell in love with the Phrygian shepherd boy Attis, but the boy betrayed her and married Princess Oia, the daughter of King Midas of Pehennu. This is a common routine in Greek mythology, often accompanied by elements such as change, escape, and atonement.
But the Earth Mother God is an ancient god. Just like the Hunting God, who is also an ancient god, the story of the ancient god is full of blood. A lot of blood to be seen.
The furious Cybele went crazy at the wedding of Attis and Ea. Everyone went crazy and bled themselves with gravel in the pine trees, and from their blood sprouted violets in full bloom.
But after briefly falling into the Old God's rage, Cybler regretted his actions. She negotiated with Zeus, who allowed Attis to be resurrected and immortalized—in his own tomb.
In the tomb, Attis' nails and hair would continue to grow, and his fingers would still move. He received eternal life in the tomb.
Modern occultists believe that this bloody myth is actually a metaphor for the four seasons in agricultural production. The meeting of Cybele and Attis refers to spring, and Attis's betrayal and wedding refer to the "unripe wheat." The madness at the wedding is the harvest in autumn. The harvested Attis lay dormant in underground tombs, which were stored for the winter.
The Romans found in it inspiration for their festivals and beliefs. They hold the festival of the Great Mother every year on March 24, and hold a bull ceremony at the festival to reenact the story of Attis.
The bull will be brought to the altar among flowers and then bled on the spot, and the amount of bleeding will be extremely large. Blood would be sprinkled from the high altar, and the Romans under the altar would bathe and be purified in the blood, reveling like plants receiving rain and dew. Then the next day, the people would celebrate Attis's rebirth as they celebrated their own rebirth - which was what Cybol had promised.
The priests who praised Cybol chanted thus:
"Through the countless gaps in the wooden boards"
"Blood flowed into the potholes."
"Believers raise their heads to receive the baptism of blood"
"Exposing his blood-soaked clothes and body"
"He bent down and touched his cheek, his ears, his lips, his nose."
"His eyes are moist."
"I don't even care about how my taste buds feel."
"Suck the black blood to your heart's content"
After sprouting in the spring, growing in the summer, and being harvested and died in the autumn, all Romans who were properly buried according to funeral rites would be properly stored in the harsh winter, and life would continue in the tomb. When the warm spring comes, everyone will "germinate" again and be reborn as new buds. This is the eternal life promised by Cybele.
"So that's it." Zhu Xianfen nodded, "What this black stone symbolizes is this kind of tomb. Then why did you move the Roman tombs back? Hey, is this wine? The food is stored in the cellar, stored in the cellar, Just fermented? After fermentation, it turned into wine?"
[Oh~~~ He is so smart, he reacts so quickly, and he understands it all at once. 】
"." Shangluo hadn't expected that Zhu Xianxen would understand so quickly, "Yes, this is actually a wine jar. Wine can stimulate the mind, and storing it in this sea of wine is like a dream world."
"But it's all turned into wine, how can it be resurrected? Wine can't be turned back into food."
"Well, this is the cruel side of the Earth Mother Goddess as an ancient god. In fact, the promised resurrection of the Earth Mother Goddess includes a prerequisite - not to turn into wine."
"Huh? What do you mean? After death, can you still control whether you will turn into wine? Can you still control whether millet will rot?"
"Whether the millet will rot is certainly not decided by itself, but depends on whether time settles on the millet and causes it to rot. The Romans divided this rot into three stages: physiological death, social death and loss of imprints."
"I do know this. There is a similar plot in the mythology of the Aztecs. The Aztecs also believed that humans must die three times - physical death is the first time, and the subsequent funeral is the second death, which is social death. Sexual death is a declaration to society that the person has become dead. But the dead will not really leave. The Aztecs would offer marigolds to their deceased relatives and welcome them home for reunion on their Day of the Dead. They don’t want to forget their loved ones, because the undead also have a lifespan. The lifespan of the undead is the moment when they are forgotten by all the living. So..."
He looked at Shangluo: "Are the Romans like this too?"
"Yes." Shangluo nodded, "After the funeral, he just entered the cellar. And if everyone forgets, the precipitation of time will make this person's existence 'corrupt' and brew into a 'sea of wine'. But as long as it is not forgotten, there is still a possibility of being fished out in the end.”
This part also made Shangluo afraid. The element of wine also appears here. Shangluo always feels that this is as obvious as Luofengpo.
(End of chapter)
