​Although most classes will wind up in November, I intend to deliver two more classes - one in November on the Seven against Thebes, the hero Bellerophon and review the Roman Fetial priesthoods.  This class is by way of tidying up.  

The class on 1 December will be a tour of the Roman underworld, along with instructions about how to enter (short of death!), what monsters and villains are imprisoned there and how the Romans/Greeks imagined the underworld was structured before the rise of the Mystery Religions.  The Mystery Religions changed everything because, for the first time, they held out the opportunity for a personal afterlife. If I have time, I shall review my sources with the class and recommend further reading.

Afterwards, we will finish the year with coffee at where else? - Zeus' the king of the gods.

I have enjoyed the year's class.  Although the numbers fell off dramatically (often a problem with U3A), the ones who stayed were interested, asked all sorts of intriguing questions and made the classes very enjoyable.  Sadly, I do not believe that there will be sufficient interest in Benalla to put on a second round of classes. 

And 2024 is the year I want to get away in our caravan!

​John Barry

In the first century BC, there was a prophecy spread all over the Roman world.  It proclaimed that a divus puer (a divine child) would be born in 40BC and he would usher in another golden age.  Even Virgil wrote about it in his Fourth Eclogue.  That is why Virgil was seen by later Christians as a proto-Christian saint.  That is why Dante chose him to guide Dante through the Inferno.
 
Christians, from St. Jerome through St. Augustine to the Emperor Constantine, claimed this prophecy predicted the birth of Jesus.  However, there were many others competing for the title of divus puer.  Even mad Emperor Caligula claimed that he was the subject of the prophecy. 
 
Apollonius of Tyana was another believed to be the divus puer.  Even before he was born, it was known that Apollonius would be someone special. A supernatural being informed his mother that the child she was to conceive would not be a mere mortal but would be divine. He was born miraculously, and he became an unusually precocious young man. As an adult he left home and went on an itinerant preaching ministry, urging his listeners to live, not for the material things of this world, but for what was spiritual. He travelled from town to town and village to village proclaiming his message. He gathered disciples around him, who became convinced that his teachings were divinely inspired, in no small part because he himself was divine. He proved it to them by doing many miracles, healing the sick, casting out demons, and raising the dead.

Apollonius, an undoubtedly historical man, was born in Tyana in Central Anatolia around 3 BC. He was a follower of Pythagoras.

How do we know of him?  His biography was preserved in the writings of a later follower named Philostratus. The biography was written as the request of Julia Domna, the wife of the emperor Septimus Severus, two hundred years after Apollonius died. Julia Domna's son, the emperor Caracalla, worshipped Apollonius and her grandnephew emperor Severus Alexander probably did as well.

Apollonius is mentioned by the Roman historian Cassius Dio. There are also letters written by Apollonius.

Eventually, Apollonius’ actions and preaching across the Roman world attracted unwelcome attention. His opponents fabricated charges against him and he was executed at the probable age of 85 for using magic to conspire against the emperor.

After Apollonius’ execution, some of his followers claimed that he had appeared to them; that they had touched him; and that he had ascended into heaven. Some of these followers went on to spread his message.
 
There is an inscription from a tomb in Cilicia,  now held at a museum in Adana in Turkey. Translated from the Greek, it states - ‘This man, named after Apollo, and shining forth from Tyana, extinguished the faults of men. The tomb in Tyana (received) his body, but in truth, heaven received him so that he might drive out the pains of men’.

​Make what you like of Apollonius but he was just one of many Soter (Saviours) who appeared around the time of the prophecy.  Mani and Mithras are two more Soter whose success threatened early Christianity.

​John Barry