The Myths and Deities of Ancient Egypt by Rachel Louise Driscoll

The Ancient Egyptians worshipped a pantheon of well over 1,400 gods and goddesses – possibly as many as 2,000.  Each deity was believed to have its area of power in life or in death, and would often be in human-form, or a therianthrope (a human with an animal head).  Sometimes, these mythical figures were supposed to be able to change between the form of a human and that of an animal, which is seen in the case of Isis and Nephthys morphing into kites.  Occasionally, there might be no human features at all, such as the dead-devouring deity Ammit, who was said to claim the head of a crocodile, the hindquarters of a hippopotamus, and the forequarters of a lion. 

Priests would serve at temple sites to perform rituals which they believed appeased these gods and goddesses, and certain areas in Egypt often formed particular cult followings of favourite deities.  Interestingly, these deities also had connections with those of Ancient Greece, something which is known as syncretism.  In his work Moralia, instead of using the Egyptian name Set or Seth, Plutarch speaks of the goddess Nephthys marrying ‘Typhon’ – who, according to the Hesiod, was the son of Gaia and Tartarus – and he also claims that Nephthys was also known as Aphrodite.  This was common as the Greek Empire expanded, religions blending and borrowing from each other.

Over time, different myths have evolved regarding these figures.  Some are less known, others more common, and many have multiple versions.  Perhaps the most famous myth is that of Osiris, the god who was murdered, but it begins before the infamous events of his death, and these stories are perhaps lesser known.

It was supposed that Nut, goddess of the sky, was in love with Seb or Geb, god of the earth.  She conceived quadruplets by him, but Ra, the falcon-headed god of the sun, knew that one of the deities in her womb would surpass even his powers, and he forbade her to give birth on any day of the 360-day year.  Thoth, the ibis-headed god of wisdom who also loved Nut, gambled with Khonsu, the moon god who was often depicted as a youth with a sidelock of hair.  Thoth won the game of Senet – an ancient board game said to be similar to backgammon – and with his winnings of some of the moon’s light, he fashioned 5 extra days, which both extended the calendar year and also enabled Nut to give birth.  First came green-skinned Osiris.  Then Set was said to pierce her side when he came out, choosing not to be born the usual way but proving his violent tendencies already in those first moments.  He had the head of an animal which is still unidentified.  Next came Isis and then, finally, Nephthys.

The siblings grew and Isis and Osiris formed a natural pair, as they had in the womb, and thus were married.  Nephthys married Set, but had no children by him.  One day, Osiris and Nephthys slept together.  The circumstances are hazy, some claiming that Nephthys seduced him, others than Osiris mistook her for Isis as the sisters looked so alike, but she conceived and gave birth to Anubis, the jackal-headed god, whom she hid in a cave.  After this, Set sought a way to kill Osiris, perhaps because he had heard of the affair, or because he was jealous of his brother’s power.

Set constructed a box and said that the god who could fit inside could have it.  Osiris fell for his trick, and was nailed within where he suffocated.  Isis went in search of his body and eventually found it, but Set realised this and cut his brother into fourteen pieces which he scattered across Egypt.

Isis and Nephthys worked together to reclaim those pieces.  One was swallowed by a fish, but Isis formed a replacement with clay, and the sisters joined their brother’s body back together so that he would be whole to enter the afterlife.  At this stage, Isis conceived a son by Osiris posthumously, and he would go on to be the falcon-headed god, Horus.  Meanwhile, Anubis mummified Osiris, and this was supposed to be the first case of mummification, setting a precedent for the dead in Ancient Egypt.

Nephthys went with Osiris to the afterlife where he now became the ruler, and here she found her place as a guide through the underworld.  Because of this and the part the sisters played in Osiris’ restoration, she and Isis are linked with funerary rites, and women would often dress as the sister goddesses at funerals, quoting The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys.

For more on the myths and deities of Egypt, I would highly recommend checking out translations of Ancient Egyptian texts, and Plutarch’s Moralia.  There are so many books on Egyptian mythology, and the Egypt Exploration Society also provides information and courses which explore these subjects more.

In the well-known myth of Osiris, Nephthys is probably the least remembered character, despite playing such a pivotal role.  Because of this, I wanted to explore her more in my debut novel which is entitled Nephthys in the UK, The House of Two Sisters in the US, Les Sœurs Du Nil in France, and La Custode Delle Anime in Italy.  My novel tells the myth of Nephthys alongside a 19^th century Gothic tale of Egyptomania and archaeology.  You can find it here. 

Egyptomania by Rachel Louise Driscoll

 

When we think of the rise of Egyptology, I think our minds often turn to the Art Deco Egyptian Revival of the early 20^th century with Carter and Carnarvon’s hunt for King Tutankhamun’s tomb.  In truth, however, Egyptomania – the fascination for all things Ancient Egypt – actually goes back further than that to the 19^th century and beyond.  This was a time when the Rosetta Stone arrived at the British Museum, the hieroglyphs were deciphered in a race between Britain and France, Amelia Edwards published her travelogue about her journey through Egypt and Nubia entitled A Thousand Miles up the Nile, and characters like “Mummy” Pettigrew hosted their infamous ‘mummy unwrapping parties’.

Thomas Pettigrew, known by the sobriquet “Mummy” Pettigrew, was a 19^th century surgeon and antiquarian.  A founding member of the British Archaeological Association, he had a particular interest in mummies.  In fact, upon the association’s first meeting in 1844, he apparently unwrapped a mummy in front of his rapt audience.  At such events, Pettigrew was known to not only unroll the layers of cerement from the preserved corpse, but to also perform an autopsy.  His knowledge of Egyptian mummies was so vast that in 1834 he wrote a book called A History of Egyptian Mummies.  This work explored the ancient funerary rites of the Ancient Egyptians, including how sacred animals were worshipped and embalmed. 

Animals such as cats, dogs, ibises, crocodiles, and birds of prey were amongst the varieties of species that the Egyptians would embalm, usually through a connection to a deity.  For instance, Bast or Bastet had the head of a cat, and so cats were seen to be linked to the goddess.  Ibises were sacred and Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing, was often depicted with the head of an ibis.  Many of the Ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses had heads of animals, or were said to be able to change their form into animals – like Isis and Nephthys, the sister goddesses who could shapeshift into kites.  Mummified animals would often be buried at the sites that held particular worship for the deity that was associated with that animal, such as the many cats buried at Bubastis, the centre of Bast’s cult.

The term Egyptomania, from the Greek ‘Egypto’ for Egypt and ‘mania’ for madness, came into existence around the end of the 18^th and start of the 19^th century, and this was really when we see the increased interest in this ancient land and its rich history.  Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign helped Egyptomania take flight, inspiring the hunger for antiquities.  There was such a cry for mummies and relics when travellers came to Egypt, that supply could not meet demand, and mummy snatchers and forgers became commonplace.  New laws arose to halt illegal digs and export, but the black market of antiquities continued as more travellers sought to own their piece of history, and the mummy unwrapping parties continued.

Despite this, there were many who came to Egypt with permits for legal digs, amongst them the Scottish archaeologist Alexander Rhind, and Margaret Benson, the first woman to be granted a permit by the Egyptian Department of Antiquities.  In cases such as these, when the excavations were carried out in accordance with local law and with historical insight, provenance was not lost and knowledge increased.

I’m not sure that Egyptomania has waned so very much over the years.  Even today in the 21^st century, Egypt is consistently ranked as a top tourist holiday destination, the Egyptian exhibits are often the busiest in museums, and we still feel a thrill of excitement over the mysterious hieroglyphs on obelisks and papyri.  The age of Egyptomania is far from over, although I’m glad to say we no longer host mummy unwrapping parties or have powdered mummy in our paints like the Pre-Raphaelites did. 

If you’d like to read more about the 19^th century fascination for Ancient Egypt, then I highly recommend Amelia Edwards’ book A Thousand Miles up the Nile.  For fictional writings from the era, you might like Lost in a Pyramid; or, The Mummy’s Curse by Louisa May Alcott (quite a different read from her more famous Little Women series) and Some Words with a Mummy by Edgar Allan Poe.  And to investigate these themes further, especially those of mummy unwrapping parties and the preservation of Egyptian history, you might enjoy my debut novel Nephthys which explores the 19^th century fascination for Ancient Egypt in a gothic tale of adventure, mythology, and mystery.  Nephthys is available in hardback, with the paperback out with Vintage in February 2026, and you can purchase your copy here.  If you’re in the US, it is published by Penguin Random House under the title The House of Two Sisters, and is available here.

Instagram: @rachel.louise.driscoll

Web-surfing and a C16th entrepreneur by Elisabeth Storrs

 

As an historical novelist, I encounter both joy and tribulation in researching via the internet. Surfing the web provides a plethora of reference articles with helpful hyperlinks to other pages. Woe betide the novelist who is tempted to click on one of these links! You can be transported down a wonderous rabbit hole but end up in the tarpit of research. Instead of writing your novel, you find yourself whiling away hours on fascinating sidetracks.

One example of this occurred when I was writing The Golden Dice, the second book in my A Tale of Ancient Rome trilogy. One of my central characters is Marcus Furius Camillus (pictured), the famous Roman stateman who came to be known as the ‘Second Founder of Rome’ (the metro train station ‘Furio Camillo’ in Rome is named after him). He initially gained fame as the general who besieged the Etruscan city of Veii for ten years, the legend of which forms the underlying story line in my series.

Researching Camillus involved reading classical sources such as Livy and Plutarch but, inevitably, I also surfed the web for other references to him. One page was illustrated by an image of a woodcut engraving in the form of a medallion depicting Camillus’ head. Underneath was a hyperlink to the source of the portrait…click! Down, down, down I went into the 16th century world of humanist, printer, bookseller and entrepreneur, Guillame Rouille.

Rouille was born in Tours in 1518, moving to Venice to complete his printing apprenticeship before returning to France and residing in Lyon. He is attributed as being the inventor of the pocket book format called sextodecimo with 16 leaves to the folio sheet. He gained prestige for producing iconography books which were popular in the C16th and C17th. Such books featured icons with mottos together with text explaining the connection between the two.

Rouille’s most famous book on iconography was Promptuarii iconum insigniorum à seculo hominum, subiectis eorum vitis, per compendium ex probatissimis autoribus desumptis or Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum for short (roughly translated as ‘a compendium of icons of famous men across time’). Published in 1533, the book featured 828 woodcut engravings of famous people in the form of medallions. In 1577 a further 100 icons were added.

Frontispiece with Rouille's emblem

Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum consisted of two parts bound into one tome but separately paginated. The first part included figures born before Christ starting from Adam and Eve. The second part featured people born after Christ ending with the French King Henry II. Examples are the biblical Abraham and Noah, the pagan deities, Janus and Vesta, together with heroes such as Romulus and Hercules. Even the minotaur scored a guernsey. Figures in the CE included Christ himself,  Pontius Pilate,  Roman emperors, Attila the Hun, Muhammad, early Ottoman sultans, and the Holy Roman Emperors.

Ever the entrepreneur, Rouillé published different language versions with an eye to courting favour with royalty by dedicating the editions to them: the Latin edition to Henry II of France, the Italian edition to Catherine de' Medici, and the French edition to Marguerite de Navarre.

The legendary characters (such as Camillus) were drawn from Rouille’s imagination based on his ideas about the person’s deeds and personality. As for the real personages, the portraits reflected images on paintings, coins, seals and intaglios. Unfortunately, there were was one glaring error. Rouillé mistook the portrait of the goddess Athena on the obverse side of a Macedonian stater coin as Alexander the Great.

Amazingly, the engraver’s name is, unfairly, not mentioned. Indeed, Wikimedia Commons still lists the images as ‘artist unknown’. Instead, it is Guillame Rouille who stands first and foremost. He saw the book as an entertaining collection of succinct illustrated lessons for a general audience. It became a bestseller in its era outstripping rival iconography books. And because the medallions had the appearance of coins, Rouille quipped in his preface he included fictitious images of individuals before the biblical account of the Flood so as not to be accused of spreading counterfeit money to the public!

Medallions featuring Adam, Dante, Olympias (Alexander's mother), 

Charles II de Orleans, Andromache, King Priam, Clovis, Cornelia Sinna and Camillus

Guillame Rouille may have faded into obscurity but I wonder what he would think about his book still being available at Abebooks for $1,000+ or Amazon for a more affordable prize. I imagine he’s grinning. If you’re interested in seeing more of the medallions, please visit here.

As for being diverted by hyperlinks, I will confess this blog post was supposed to feature Cornelia Cinna Minor, wife of Julius Caesar and daughter of Cinna, but when her Rouille medallion appeared on a search, I knew it was the C16th entrepreneur who beckoned me to tell his story first!

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the A Tale of Ancient Rome series. Her latest release, is Fables & Lies: A World War II Novel about stolen treasure and the Aryan Myth. She is also the founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Learn more at www.elisabethstorrs.com

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, in particular, Jenny Kirby History

Labyrinths and initiations by Elisabeth Storrs

Labyrinths have always been a source of fascination to me. None more so than the famous lair of the Minotaur in ancient Crete. According to Greek myth, this bewildering structure was designed by the inventor Daedalus (father of the doomed Icarus) at the behest of King Minos. The maze was built in the city of Knossos to hold the half man/half bull monster to whom 7 youths and 7 maidens were sacrificed each year as tribute owed by the Athenian King Aegeus to Minos for killing the Cretan king’s son. The minotaur was ultimately slain by Aegeus’ son, Theseus, who was sent as one of the sacrificial youths to Knossos. Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with the prince and assisted him to kill the monster and then escape the labyrinth by giving him a ball of thread to enable him to retrace his path.

Classical pattern, medieval pattern, modern walking labyrinth and hedge maze

A seven course single path design known as ‘unicursal’ became associated with the labyrinth on Cretan coins as early as 430 BCE, and became common as a visual depiction of the legendary labyrinth from Roman times onwards. In later religious tradition, large labyrinth designs set into floors were walked and used for private meditation or for therapeutic purposes based on the concept of a pilgrimage from the entrance to the centre where God awaits. In comparison, a maze is a complex pattern with branches and dead ends known as ‘multicursal’ which require a series of choices to be made in order to safely navigate. Medieval garden hedges are a fine example of these.

In the ancient world, the feat of escaping a labyrinth was associated with a triumph of life over death. In some cases, navigating one was seen as a form of initiation where a boy was required to enter as a child and emerge as a man after surviving danger. One such initiation ritual was known as ‘The City of Troy’ in Rome and Etruria.

The City of Troy was a reference to the labyrinth of Crete. Yet what was the connection between the legendary cities of Troy and Knossos? An explanation comes from both archaeological evidence and the poetry of the Roman poet, Vergil.

Tragliatella Vase

In his great epic, The Aeneid, the Roman poet Vergil tells of the wanderings of Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Venus, following the fall of Troy. After fighting to defend the besieged city, Aeneas escaped carrying his father on his shoulders while leading his young son Ascanius (who later came to be called Iulus) to safety. According to Roman tradition, during the funeral games for his grandfather, Ascanius took part in a processional parade or dance called the Game of Troy (Lusus Trojae) while mounted on a horse given to him by the Carthaginian queen Dido. The young prince and his companions performed a complex weaving pattern by riding between and around each other as though threading their way through a labyrinth. Vergil drew a comparison between the tortuous convolutions of the rite to the twisting pathways within the Minotaur’s den at Knossos. He also referred to the manoeuvres of the game as mimicking the ‘Crane Dance’ performed by the youths Theseus saved from the Minotaur. From Vergil’s description it is clear that completing the game involved great skill to avoid injury or death.

The column split apart
As files in the three squadrons all in line
Turned away, cantering left and right; recalled
They wheeled and dipped their lances for a charge.
They entered then on parades and counter-parades,
The two detachments, matched in the arena,
Winding in and out of one another,
And whipped into sham cavalry skirmishes
By baring backs in flight, then whirling round
With leveled points, then patching up a truce
And riding side by side. So intricate
In ancient times on mountainous Crete they say
The Labyrinth, between walls in the dark,
Ran criss-cross a bewildering thousand ways
Devised by guile, a maze insoluable,
Breaking down every clue to the way out.
So intricate the drill of Trojan boys
Who wove the patterns of their prancing horses,
Figured, in sport, retreats and skirmishes                

(Aeneid, V. 5.580–593 Translation by Robert Fitzgerald)

Vergil conjured the image of the Lusus Trojae when writing in the 1st century CE, but there is archaeological evidence of its existence dating from the late C7th BCE. The Tragliatella Vase discovered near the Etruscan city of Caere (modern Cerveteri) depicts two horsemen emerging from a spiral marked with the word ‘Truia’. A line of marching warriors is also displayed on the wine jug which seems to suggest that the vase portrays a military ceremony similar to the one of legend. As the Romans were heavily influenced by the Etruscans, it is plausible that the equestrian ceremony that was later referred to by Vergil was in fact an Etruscan tradition.

Detail Tragliatella Vase City of Troy design

The Game of Troy was ‘revived’ by Julius Caesar who claimed to be a descendant of Iulus (Ascanius) and was performed by the young sons of high ranking families. It was not associated with any particular religious festival and was conducted at funeral games and in military triumphs. Suetonius and Tacitus also wrote of the Lusus Trojae which appears to have become more of a military review by the time of Nero.

With my love of all things Etruscan, I found the etchings on the humble Tragliatella Vase intriguing enough to inspire me to include an episode in my book The Golden Dice: A Tale of Ancient Rome involving the Troy Game. Yet what strikes me most about the Lusus Trojae is how legend, poetry and history are intertwined and held fast by a strong thread from two epic stories that inspired three great civilisations: Etruria, Greece and Rome. 

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the A Tale of Ancient Rome series. Her latest release, is Fables & Lies: A World War II Novel about stolen Trojan treasure and the Aryan Myth. She is also the founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Learn more at www.elisabethstorrs.com. 

Images are courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The Elusive Search for Dionysus by Elisabeth Storrs

My two great passions are writing and history. Melding them together provides me with an opportunity to escape from the worries of the everyday while venturing into the ancient societies of the Romans, Etruscans and Greeks. The exercise of trying to understand the emotions and plights of my characters is both exacting and rewarding. Sitting at my desk in 21st century Australia, I’m required to delve into the psyches of 4th century BCE women who survived in a masculine culture as the possessions of men, and whose worth was measured in how many warrior sons they could bear.

The novels in my Tales of Ancient Rome saga describe the ten year siege between the early Republican Rome and the Etruscan city of Veii. These cities lay only twelve miles apart, separated by the Tiber River, but their societies were so opposite in their culture and beliefs that you could travel from a world similar to the Dark Ages to somewhere akin to the Renaissance simply by crossing a strip of water. 

Dancing Maenad, 27 BCE

In the era in which my books are set, Roman women were restricted to hearth and home in a rigid, insular and self-righteous culture. In comparison, the sophisticated Etruscans (known as the Rasenna) afforded independence, education and sexual freedom to females well beyond the constraints of cloistered Greek women or second class Roman matrons. Learning of such strikingly diverse societies in close proximity gave me the idea of exploring the differences between the pleasure-seeking people of Etruria and those of the austere emergent Rome. And so I created the story of Caecilia, a young Roman ‘treaty bride’, who is wed to an enemy Etruscan nobleman to seal a tenuous truce. At first she struggles with conflicting moralities, determined to remain true to Roman virtues as she lives among the sinful Etruscans. However, both her husband and his society’s freedoms seduce her. When war is declared at the end of the first book, The Wedding Shroud, she must choose between Rome and duty or Veii and love. In the second book, The Golden Dice, she grapples with living as an alien amid her former enemy as she strives to prove her loyalty to her adopted city. In the third book, Call to Juno, Caecilia realises survival depends on seeking her birthplace’s destruction. She also faces the final hurdle of converting to being wholly Etruscan by forsaking her Roman religious beliefs for those of her husband’s people.

The pantheons of the Romans and Etruscans contained equivalent divine counterparts. This did not mean their religions were the same. Roman faith and law were established in custom. There were no holy texts apart from the sacred verses contained in the Sibylline Books. In contrast, the Etruscans developed a sophisticated system of beliefs that were enshrined in a codex known as the Etrusca Disciplina. It consisted of various scriptures which established rules relating to prophecy and the afterlife. Indeed, the Etruscans raised the art of divination to a science, believing that they could defer destiny through observing the rigorous rites of their Book of Fate. They also believed in the concept of the ‘Beyond’ where a deceased’s soul remained intact and would feast with their ancestors. Achieving this salvation was obtained through following a death cult involving human sacrifice. Dionysiac worship, with its concept of rebirth, was also an alternative avenue to eternal life. This was in direct contrast to the early Romans’ belief in the Di Manes or ‘Good Ones’ who were a conglomerate of spirits who existed underground and needed to be appeased to prevent them from rising up en masse to torment the living. In other words, there were no individual souls in the Roman afterlife, or hope of resurrection.

My research into the Etruscans (which extended for over fifteen years) proved extremely challenging. The quandary of an historical novelist who writes about ancient times is the ‘elasticity’ of sources – the further you go back in time the more putative the history becomes. I was at pains to consult academics, archaeologists and historians to try to elicit answers to fill the ‘gaps’ in the evidence. What I ultimately concluded was that Etruscan and early Roman history is subject to considerable supposition from the experts and so offers the possibility for a writer to hypothesize. 

Etruscan couple, Tomb of the Shields

Despite this authorial licence, I was frustrated by the lack of certainty about Etruscan religious practices. I craved an answer as to the true nature of Rasennan worship to enable Caecilia to determine whether she should relinquish her belief in a soulless Roman afterlife or be reborn through orgiastic rites she finds both morally and physically confronting. I was able to obtain secondary sources which explored the Etrusca Disciplina, the death cult, and human sacrifice, but the nature of Dionysiac worship in Etruscan society remained elusive – particularly my quest to determine if the Rasenna believed in the wild Dionysism of the Greeks or instead observed a less intense form of the cult. (Please note that the Roman Bacchus was not yet worshipped during the period in which my novels are set). My problem was compounded by the fact that, although recent archaeological digs are revealing more about the Etruscans, their civilization is often dubbed ‘mysterious’ because none of their literature has survived other than the remnants of ritual texts. Consequently, most of our knowledge comes from accounts recorded by historians many centuries after Etruria’s demise. In effect, the conquerors of Etruria wrote about Etruscan history with all the bigotries of the victor over the vanquished. Some of these records are ‘fragments’ from contemporary travellers to Etruscan cities which were quoted by later ancient historians. These Greek commentators (who came from a society that repressed women) described the licentiousness and opulence of the Etruscans and the wickedness of their wives. One notorious example is Theopompus of Chios, a C4th BCE Greek historian, who expressed his shock at the profligacy of the Etruscans. He wrote, among other scurrilous observations, that his hosts had open intercourse with prostitutes, courtesans, boys, and even wives at their banquets. Furthermore, ‘They make love and disport themselves, occasionally within view of each other, but more often they surround their beds with screens, made of interwoven branches over which they spread their mantles’. The validity of such fragments is often criticized by modern historians because of their authors’ prejudices but the gossip does raise the possibility some Rassena may have, indeed, led flagrant sex lives.

Yet the world view of the Etruscans is not totally opaque. An insight can be gained by decoding their paintings, sculpture, furniture and votive statuettes. Yet the portrayal of the sexes in funerary art poses a further conundrum. Men and women are depicted in loving embraces that extend through a spectrum from tender and modest spousal devotion to erotic, and sometimes, pornographic coupling. So what were Etruscan women like? Faithful or wanton? Or both? Did they indulge in manic sexual worship or was their adoration of the wine god tempered?

Tomb of the Leopards Etruscan Banqueting Scene

If the primary sources were almost non-existent on the Etruscan Dionysus (known as Fufluns), modern secondary sources were just as scarce. The internet provided a tantalising glimpse of an American journal article by Larissa Bonfante, and one Italian essay by Giovanni Colonna. As I live in Australia, it was not possible to access out of print copies from our library system. And so I reached across the ether by adding a comment on Dr Bonfante’s Facebook page without any expectation of a reply. Six months later she contacted me on Academia to say she had uploaded the article to that site. And the eminent Etruscologist, Iefke van Kampen, was kind enough to obtain the Colonna essay for me. Alas, I don’t read Italian but the virtual world once again came to the rescue when I located an enthusiastic student on Upwork to translate it for me.

What was the result of my success in tracking down these obscure sources? Inconclusive. The historians’ analyses were fascinating but not definitive. Funerary art depicting symposium scenes of Etruscan women and men enjoying a world of wine and music are interpreted as evidence that inebriation connects participants to the ‘otherness’ of a divine dimension. Hedonism is therefore linked to the concept of exorcising death in a celebration of a passage to the afterlife. But this more decorous ‘Dionysism without Dionysus’ also sits side by side with Etruscan representations of maenads and satyrs (attendants in the wine god’s retinue) on bronzes, vases and sculptures that hint at more frenzied orphic mysteries reputed to include maenads eating raw flesh (omophagia) and flagellating novitiates.  I learned, however, that because the Dionysiac cult granted equality to women, slaves and foreigners, the Greeks invented a gruesome mythology to discourage this subversion of the social order. Such legends included the ‘Dying God’ driving mothers to tear apart their children and his opponents suffering the most horrendous retribution. This made it absolutely clear to me that there is a difference between mythology and cult which can cloud the truth as to the actual rituals that were followed. The use of the term ‘The Mysteries’ is very apt.

So how did I finally solve my dilemma concerning my character’s internal conflict? Did Caecilia decide to accept that the infidelity involved in communing with Fufluns was a sacred act? Was her desire to attain eternal life greater than her fear of dark, ecstatic worship? I’m afraid the answer will only be given to those who choose to read Call to Juno – A Tale of Ancient Rome.

As for connecting across the ether, I was thrilled when Iefke van Kampen asked to use the dialogue of my characters to voice an audio-visual exhibition of votive statues in her museum. As a result ‘Saga Storrs’ is now on show at the Museo dell’Agro Veientana outside Veio near Rome – a wonderful, passionate collaboration of writing and history.

Elisabeth Storrs is the author of the A Tale of Ancient Rome series. Her latest release, is Fables & Lies: A World War II Novel about stolen Trojan treasure and the Aryan Myth. She is also the founder of the Historical Novel Society Australasia and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Learn more at www.elisabethstorrs.com. 

 

Images are courtesy of the MET project, Skira Colour Studio and Museo Dell'agro Veientano.