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ANNA JUDIT TÓTH
So we can add further items to our scheme:
Cautes: torch upward, left, south, hot, birth, spring (Taurus), east, rising sun,
southern gate: Capricorn (winter), remote, soul ascending to heaven, death;
Cautopates: torch downward, right, north, cold, death, autumn (Scorpion),
west, setting sun, northern gate: Cancer (summer), near, descending souls, birth.
As I have said, the two torchbearers are interchangeable—which is just
the main goal of the whole system: to represent a paradox, i.e., the paradox
of the unity of opposing principles: a death on earth is a birth in heaven."
Another cause of the variety of the meanings is the simple fact that the scheme
tries to describe movements: the circular and cyclical movements of the sky,
while iconographically we can represent only static conditions.
For our purpose, the most important result is that in this scheme, which has
been widely accepted in Mythraic studies for decades now, we find the same
qualities as in the text of Lydus:
Cautes: winter, southern gate, east;
Cautopates: summer, northern gate, west.
The main difference is that Lydus clearly speaks about Dionysus and his
epithets, Dimétor and Dithyrambus, and hence, no Mithraic allusions can
be involved in the given context. We can observe another slight difference:
the consequent and symmetrical opposition of the specific properties is
broken if ‘eastern’ is opposed to ‘northern’ and ‘toward south’ to ‘toward west’:
Proodos 1: eastern, towards south, in the winter;
Proodos 2: northern, towards west, in the summer.
No celestial movement can take place in opposite directions so we must
assume that this pairing of the properties is a mistake, committed either by
Lydus or, more probably, by his source. We cannot exclude the possibility that
the text in our codices is corrupted. Perhaps it is not too daring to correct and
complete the scheme:
Dithyrambos Dimétor
“having two gates” “having two mothers”
proodos 1 proodos 2
southern northern
towards east towards west
in the winter in the summer
17 Beck, Mithras, 212-214.
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