Re: Lunar Occupation of Sartar

From: Ian Cooper <ian_hammond_cooper_at_...>
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 01:07:50 -0000

> This makes sense to me. I simply think that given the long-range
> Imperial plans to actually kill Orlanth, not a lot of resources
> would be put into finding little hidden bands of worshippers. Smash
> their major cult centers, close their temples and send troops to
> bust up any big rituals, but don't worry about the folk that flee to
> the hills.

Rather than the treatment of Christians I would suggest looking to the treatment of druids in Roman Britain, particularly the expeditions against Anglesey. A useful book, Eagles over Brittania, by Guy de la Bedoyere commments:

 "It is immediately obvious that the intense political and social control wielded by the Druids was going to be unacceptable to the Roman high command. It was one thing to be a priest organizing an exotic and intriguing cult. It was quite another for that priest to exist within a seperate social and legal order."

That fits with my understanding of the suppression of Orlanth. The destruction of the social and legal order, as opposition to the rule of the Empire, is more significant to Euglyptus or Fazzur than the suppression of the belief. Tatius, well he seems more of a fanatic, so perhaps. But Fazzur seems more like Agricola, crushing the cult's leadership as the center of resistance than rooting out belief root and branch.

But YGWV in other words, I think the background has been left open enough for folks to create the stories that interet them. I suspect our viewpoints say more about the stories we want to tell than any notion of a higher truth.