Page 101 [101]
DIONYSUS AND HIS DOPPELGÂNGERS IN JOHN LYDUS
Cautes: torch upward, left, south, hot, birth, southern gate: Capricorn (winter),
remote, soul ascending to heaven, death.
Cautopates: torch downward, right, north, cold, death, northern gate: Cancer
(summer), near, descending souls, birth.
So the torchbearers’ connection with birth and death can be just the opposite
of what we have assumed.
The cause of this paradox is simple: the directions of the Ecliptic are not
stable, in contrast to the directions of the poles as the sky revolves around
the poles every night. If we want to attribute fixed dates and directions to
the Zodiac constellations on the Ecliptic, we can do that by observing the sun.
The main information we can say about a Zodiac sign is that the sun is in it
at a certain moment—e.g. at the time of the winter solstice, the sun is in
the sign of the Capricorn. Winter is cold, but the sign of the Capricorn cannot
be linked to the northern direction because at the time of the winter solstice,
the sun reaches the southernmost point of its path—at least if we view it from
the northern hemisphere, where in December the sun shines in the faraway
realms of the southern hemisphere. The ambivalent meaning attributed to
the twins Cautes and Cautopates is not only an academic interpretation
(or over-interpretation) loosely based on Porphyry. It is confirmed by
the sources: the twins are interchangeable in the representations,“ since they
are ultimately symbols of the cyclical movement of the sky, and perhaps, of
the cycle of life and death."
We can add a further item to the characteristics of the Mithraic twins,
which does not derive from Porphyry, though ít is self-evident: Mithras is the
Sun, the Sol invictus—so the twins must have some link with the sun. The
simplest explanation is the following:
Cautes: rising sun (east);
Cautopates: setting sun (west).
Sometimes we find the symbols of Zodiac signs next to their figures on the
reliefs or on the pedestal of their statues: a bullhead for Cautes and a scorpion
for Cautopates. These are the so-called stereos or “solid” signs of the spring
and the autumn, when the change of the season becomes “firm”:
Cautes: bull, Taurus, spring;’°
Cautopates: scorpion, Scorpio, autumn.
4 Beck, Mithras, 208.
15 Beck, Mithras, 81.
On the connection between the torchbearers and the seasons/vegetation, see Beck, Mithras,
213-214.
+ 9 +
Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 99 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:15