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My first foray into comparative mythology was the book Martian
Metamorphoses, a compendium of traditions about the Red Planet from antiquity until modern times.
There I documented that Mars was conceptualized as the archetypal warrior
hero, and as a central player in the catastrophic natural events attending
creation and the ordering of the cosmos. My basic strategy was to investigate the
earliest literary and astronomical texts, mentioning Mars, to see if recurring patterns could be found.
In time I succeeded in identifying well over 200 motifs associated with the red
planet, including dragon slayer, eclipse agent and fire god. Many of these motifs are shared by Mars
gods around the globe: compelling evidence that they trace to the witness
behavior of the planet Mars in relatively recent prehistoric times.
The picture that emerged from my research, is that Mars represented an
awe-inspiring celestial form, one prone to drastic distortions in its
relative size and luminosity, to say nothing of its propensity for hurling
great thunderbolts and generating world- engulfing storms. All of these ideas are difficult to
reconcile with Mars’ present benign appearance, needless to say.
In ancient Mesopotamia, the homeland of the first scientific astronomy,
Mars was identified with the god Nergal, the latter described as a raging warrior
whose incendiary behavior threatened the world. Numerous hymns attest to Nergal's
prowess as an invincible warrior. Quote, ”Warrior! Raging storm-tide, who flattens
the lands in upheaval, Warrior!” Nergal's belligerent nature knew no
bounds. According to one hymn, the god's wrath threatened the domain of the gods as well.
Quote “O warrior... Perfect one without rival among all the gods, who grasps the
pitiless deluge-weapon, who massacres the enemy, Lion clad in splendor, at the
flaring-up of whose (fierce) brilliance, the gods of the inhabited world took to secret places...”
Babylonian astronomical texts, interestingly, warned that if a person is born during
the appearance of Mars, he will be quick to anger. While such traditions can only
appear bizarre and incongruous by reference to the Red Planet's innocuous
behavior in today's skies, the fact remains that analogous reports should be found around the globe.
Far removed from ancient Mesopotamia the Skidi Pawnee of the North American
plains are known to have had an astronomically-based religion.
Indeed, it has been said that they were obsessed with the planets and had a
sky-oriented theology, perhaps without parallel in human history.
For the Skidi sky watchers, Mars was described as an irascible warrior, whose
interactions with Venus at the time of Beginning sparked creation.
During a ritual in which human sacrifices were offered to the Red
Planet, the celebrants sought to channel Mars's anger. Quote, “I become ferocious: I
became like him.” End of quote. In another ritual, the Mars impersonator chanted the
following refrain when pretending to conquer Venus. Quote, “I become myself when
I become angry.” End of quote. Yet another hymn quotes the god himself
”This is the way I did when I became angry.” Analogous traditions will be found in
Egypt where early astronomical texts identified Mars with the god Horus. In
literary texts dating to the third millennium BCE, Horus described as raging against the
gods, thereby reminding us of the Akkadian traditions attached to Nergal.
So too, in the pyramid text Horus is described as the “Lord of Wrath,” whose
seething fury shakes the very foundations of Heaven. Quote, “Unis will
come with the face of the great god, Horus, who is lord of wrath...; he will
strike Shu's arms from under the sky.” End of quote. The Latin god Mars, whose name was
assigned to the Red Planet during Hellenistic times, was remembered as a warrior whose
terrible fury knew no bounds. Although the vast majority of Roman
mythology has been lost, a few vestigial remnants can still be found.
The Carmen Arvale, the oldest bit of Latin text from antiquity, invokes ‘fere Mars.
Literally, “the fierce or furious Mars.” In his classic, Archaic Roman Religion,
George Dumezil offered the following portrait of the Roman War God. Quote, “The
ambiguous character of Mars, when he breaks loose on the field of battle,
accounts for the epithet “caecus,” or blind, given him by the poets.
At a certain stage of furor, he abandons himself to his nature, destroying friend as well as foe.”
Why, it must be asked, would a distant diminutive planet, moving on a supposedly
eternally stable orbit about the Sun, be described as angry or furious or as
raging against the Gods? A major portion of Martian metamorphoses
was devoted to investigating the mythological traditions associated with
the great heroes identified with the planet Mars. Figures such as the Greek
Hercules for example, to see if there was any discernible
overlap with the aforementioned Mars gods. As I documented, the overlap is at once
substantial and archaic in nature, tracing to the earliest literary
traditions in the third millennium BCE, while it would be impossible to do
justice to this vast wealth of material in a 10-minute video, it might prove
instructive to examine a few traditional tales recounting the Warrior Hero's
terrible anger. The Greek Heracles, expressly identified as the planet Mars during the
Hellenistic period, was renowned for his fiery anger and deemed to be a major threat to the gods.
The poet Virgil describes Heracles as follows in the Aeneid.
Quote, “Suddenly Hercules ignited in rage. Here the word ‘rage’ is ‘ira’, literally ’anger’ or ‘rage’."
Seneca wrote an entire play on the subject: Hercules Furens. Ovid in turn speaks of the fire
generated by Heracles’ seething wrath. The Celtic hero ‘Cu Chulainn’
offers a striking parallel to Hercules. In traditional accounts of the great
hero's fury, it is reported that he radiated intense heat, became crimson all over
and assumed a gigantic form. The epithet ‘the distorted one’,
commemorates the radical distortion of features that distinguished the Celtic
hero during his battle frenzy. Indeed, The Tain describes the hero's
furor as follows. Quote, “It was then that, as before, Cu Chulain’s distortion came on,
and he was filled with swelling and great fullness, like breath in a bladder,
until he became a terrible, fearful, many- colored, wonderful giant.” End of quote.
The swelling of the warrior hero, while in the midst of his furor, is a
universally occurring motif, as I have documented. Ovid in his description of Heracles’
Apotheosis on Mount Olympus, notes that the hero suddenly took on a gargantuan appearance.
So too, Beowulf was said to swell with anger as he prepares to meet the dragon Grendel.
Marie Sjoestedt, summarizing the Celtic traditions, was among the few scholars to
call attention to this motif. Quote, “We see that all the words for ‘hero’
express the notions of fury, ardor, tumescence, speed. The hero is the furious one, possessed of
his own tumultuous energy.” End of quote. That the hero's sudden swelling traces
to a witnessed planetary event, is strongly suggested by the fact that
ancient astronomers called attention to Mars’ propensity for swelling.
Thus it is that Polynesian sky watchers knew Mars as Horo-Pukupuku, ’Quick-swelling.’
So too Babylonian scribes describe Nergal as pes-gal, literally the “furious” or impetuous god.
Yet the word ‘pes’ also denotes, to ‘swell’ or to ‘expand’. A classic example of the warrior heroes
offered by the ascetic Batraz, renowned for his terrible furor and erratic behavior.
In a popular tale recounting the hero's birth, Batraz is said to burst forth from
a giant's abscess on high, whereupon he fell headlong towards Earth.
Quote, “When he came down from heaven to earth he was burning.” End of quote.
The igneous nature of the infant hero who fell from heaven like a thunderbolt,
or meteor, is a decided point of emphasis. In a number of tales the townsfolk are
said to have gone to great lengths to cool him down through one means or another.
In one account, the newly delivered infant plummets down from heaven and is
forthwith dunked into a tub of water in an effort to quench his warrior ardor.
Quote, “Batraz ...grew so furious that his steely body became red hot.
He peered around, then leaped down from the heavenly heights, straight onto the
roof of the seven tower... He burned his way through ceilings, one after another with his red-hot body.
In the lowest story of the tower, there stood a huge water tub, and into that
fell the glowing-hot Batraz. Having cooled off in the water, he climbed out
of the tub.” End of quote. In a variant account of his birth, Batraz
is thrown into the sea to cool him off, at which point he assumes a gigantic
form. Quote, “When the little boy came out of the abscess at the time of this birth
they carried him to the sea and threw him in. All at once he became as big as a
mountain.” End of quote. Such traditions have nothing to do with
human biology, needless to say. Rather these vignettes encode extraordinary i.e.
cataclysmic natural events. The curious report that Batraz became as
big as a mountain upon descending from heaven, represents an invaluable clue.
As we have documented elsewhere, when the planet Mars descended towards Earth as a
meteor-like bolide along the axial column uniting the various planets, it
assumed a colossal form. Like countless other warrior heroes,
Batraz is a notorious shape-shifter. Especially relevant here are the
traditions that describe the hero as taking the form of lightning.
Quote, “After a turbulent and marvelous childhood, somewhat reminiscent of that
of Heracles, he went to heaven, where he lived from that time on, never leaving
except to fall (literally) onto the earth, in the manner of lightning, sometimes to
save his fellow Narts when they were in danger, but sometimes to decimate them
cruelly and blindly without any clear motive. Each of these ‘descents’ is described in
terms and images that express his lightning nature.” End of quote.
On those occasions when Batraz descended from heaven, it is reported that he was
wont to assume a brilliant red form and become furious. The red color assigned to the descending
bolide, together with the hero's identification with Aries, is tantamount
to the DNA left at the scene of a crime and allows us to positively identify
Batraz as the planet Mars. Here it is significant to find that
Mesopotamian sky watchers expressly compared the Red Planet to a meteor, or
fire falling from heaven. Thus it is that the star god Nergal was
given the epithet miqit isatu, denoting ”the fall of fire” from heaven.
Equally telling is the fact the same phrase was employed to describe
”lightning” or “meteor”. Far from being confined to ancient
mythological traditions, the warrior hero's capacity for destructive feats of
furor left an indelible mark on countless ancient rituals and customs,
not to mention warriors’ initiation rights around the globe. If Skidi
warriors used to prepare for battle by emulating Mars's fiery anger, the
Spartans and Batavian berserkers of old Europe whipped themselves into a frenzy by
singing of the deeds of Heracles in the hopes that they too,
might be possessed by his spirit and prove equally formidable and
invulnerable to fire or pain. Quote, “Archaic warriors everywhere
re-enacted in masked dances the deeds of the gods and ancestors. They did so to
gain the divine ecstasy of ‘the beginning of time’...In battle when it mattered most
to live in mythical time, warriors bodied forth gods and ancestors fighting in their style.
Batavi going to battle sang of ‘Hercules,’ their ancestral, club-wielding hero.” To summarize,
traditional tales attached to the warrior hero describe him as red-hot in
nature, swelling in anger, possessed by seething wrath, and radiating intense heat or
lightning-like flashes. Such attributes point unequivocally to
the Martian origins of the warrior hero archetype.
Is it any wonder then that indigenous warriors around the globe formerly
smeared their bodies with red ochre in order to embody and advertise their
furor?
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