Thanks for that, I will now trot off to the other forum I was on and respond to the question with all the ease of a 'someone who knows all about that stuff'. :wink:
Medicus matt post=302049 Wrote:It's not a sword though is it, it's a handbill.
A billhook for one-armed use. ...
Nonononono...an agricultural handbill. Goes with the plough (which looks more like a scythe to me). Snoeimes might be the dutch word?
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Ahhh, looking at the description in Leucippe and Clitophon, I see what you mean.
"Half sword, half sicle, a straight blade in common, then a division into two - one proceeding to the point and the other bent into a hook."
So, yes, the Gorgon was killed with an agricultural tool (are you sure it was the Gorgon? In Leucippe and Clitophon it says it's the Kraken that was killed with the harpe).
The billhook was a weapon used in many medieval battles by lesser armed farmer come soldier, but then was the pole arm simply a longer version developed from this to unseat horsemen.
The bill hook is virtually the same as the one I use for hedgelaying, and I have one on an extended pole for lopping off branches.
Never thought of them as post Roman weapons and certainly nothing to do with Mithras! You live and learn...
Moi Watson
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Merlot in one hand, Cigar in the other; body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!
I believe a lot of the ancient sources are hostile, such as early church fathers writing about it. Also, many report hearsay or what others have said. Take a look at this, for instance.
As David says, the sources tend to be hostile or hearsay: it is a mystery cult, after all. Talking to the non-initiated was strictly forbidden.
You could compare this to the final chapter of the Metamorphoses of Apuleius (also known as the Golden Ass):"The old man (...) brought out of the secret place of the temple books, partly written with unknown characters, and partly painted with figures of beasts (...) which were strange and impossible to be read of the laity: there he interpreted to me such things as were necessary to the use and preparation of my order. (...) You, studious reader, may ask what was said and done there, and I would tell you if it were lawful for me to tell (...) but both your ears and my tongue should suffer punishment." Of course, Apuleius speaks of the Isis ritual and scholars can't agree on whether the last chapter is meant to be serious propaganda or a continuation of the comedic adventures of the protagonist, but it illustrates the mystery cults well.
The non-initiated tended to be wary of such secret cults and misinterpreted whatever they heard, or saw them as rivals to their own, and misrepresented them where they could. Imagine that all we knew about Christianity was the survival of a few pictures (fishes, anchors...), a few references in Tacitus and Suetonius to the effect that they worship someone who was executed as a criminal, and the stories of cannibal activities and love orgies in mass (Minucius Felix represents the pagan beliefs of what was going on in Christian mass rather nicely). Would we be able to reconstruct the meaning of the Eucharist and neighbourly love from that?
M. Caecilius M.f. Maxentius - Max C.
Qui vincit non est victor nisi victus fatetur
- Q. Ennius, Annales, Frag. XXXI, 493
That was a great link to the mithraic cult. Thanks.
The first time I saw a picture of a Harpe it was from a relief and was sickle shaped with the back blade as per the agricultural tool and the sword looking thing in the original post.
Although it thus may be a harvesting tool
It is just as likely a savage weapon ( gladiator experiment?) and variation on the sica
or a variation on the harpe and a sacrificial weapon for use on animals/ grain(?)
