#indo-european

[cervenakoviny]

Love the detail of his golden beard and silver hair straight from descriptions of his idols. As for his partner... Fellows from Lumyd pondered her too. Those who understand slovak can read the article, for the rest I shall provide english translation.

Ancient Slavs begged her for rain: Did Perun have a consort who was forgotten?

Dušan Valent, 2020-11-03 07:59:00 According to one of the most significant linguists of 20th century fragments of old Indo-european traditions suggest that Perun and his predecessor was accompanied by a female partner or “concubine“.

When summer drought beat upon fields and wells of southern Slavs, they turned to higher powers for help. Ritual they conducted to summon rain was quite peculiar.

It centred around a young girl, 5 to 12 years old[1]. The ceremony necessitated her absolute innocence. This girl had to be unable to conceive as of yet, while her mother had to be past her child-bearing age (post-menopausal).

People dressed this chosen maiden into woven twigs underneath which she wore nothing or only old tattered dress. Upon her head she bore flower crowns and occasionally also bouquet in her hands. Followed by other children she walked through the village, stopping at each house to sing songs and praise to Perun or later st. Elias so as to make them water and fertilize Land. While other children danced in circle old women came out to pour water upon the girl. The was followed by feasting and drinking in honour of Perun.

After all, Perun wasn’t merely a god of storms, lightning and thunder, but also of rain and fertility. And once Christianity replaced Slavic paganism, elements of his cult were incorporated into veneration of saint Elias who too was associated with storms and rain.

In some places aforementioned ritual lasted into 20th century, practiced not only by Slavic nations of Balkans, but also in Romania and northern Greece. Many researchers reason it spread there from Slavs.

Relict of a forgotten goddess?

Roman Jakobson, one of the greatest linguists of 20th century, remarked upon the fact that the ritual and the young girl on whom it is focused bear “reduplicated name of Perun”. Through reduplication of word root “per“ in Perun we arrive at Perperuna (per-perun-a): according to Jakobson the original expression from which local variations derive - prporuľa, perperuda, peruniga etc.

Did this expression emerge as name of the specific ritual and its main character. In opinion of this Russo-American linguists not. Roman Jakobson claims we are dealing with tradition that hails from prehistoric paleolithic times and Perperuna ritual captures precious relict of an ancient, mostly forgotten mythical being, a concubine of god Perun.

Of course, nowadays researchers of folkloric traditions (especially those of Balkans) tread very carefully. Instead of automatically assuming they are paleolithic relicts reaching as far as stone age, they understand that many are products of folk creativity not older than few centuries.

However, in this case Roman Jakobson states that when we use lens of historical linguistics, which study mechanisms of word evolution in various languages, and combine them with comparative mythology of Indo-European nations, we find many clues pointing towards Perperuna’s origin in deep Indo-European prehistory.

Balto-Slavic or Balkan roots?

Let’s take a closer look at origin of the ritual. Number of Balkan and Romanian researchers are of the mind that the ritual originally wasn’t Slavic and in fact Slavs borrowed it from older pre-Slavic Balkan populations, like Thracians. These researchers support their claims with written evidence of Perkos or Perkon cult dated to antiquity, apparently a Thracian deity etymologically corresponding to Perun.

But here’s the catch. Rainmaking ritual very similar to that of Balkan people is attested among Balts. This is very important. Balts are the nearest, “brotherly”, branch of Indo-European tree to Slavs and according to historical linguists they share centuries of intertwined – Balto-Slavic past.

For example, there is a Lithuanian record from 1610 describing a ceremony in honour of Perkunas, Baltic equivalent of Perun: “When there is a great drought upon land and no rain to be seen, in mountains and in very deep forests they start to make noise and bring him red heifer, black male goat, black rooster as sacrifice, hallowed by this ritual they gather in great numbers from neighbourhoods, feasting and drinking there, summoning Perun, a god of thunder, most of all pouring beer into vessels and thrice carrying them around bonfire they started there and then emptying the vessels into the flames and praying to Perkunas so that he would give them rain and moisture.”

And we have some more supporting evidence for Baltic connection. Among Balkan Slavs there is another attested term beside Perperuna (and its variants). It is dodola[2] (or dudula, dodoa), which according to Roman Jakobson shares origin with Lithuanian expressions “dundulis” meaning rumble, thunder (“dundeti” – to make thunder), used as alternative (substitutive synonym) for taboo direct naming of thunder god Perkunas. “It is difficult to explain correspondencies between these two – southern Slavic and Lithuanian – pairs of sacral synonyms without making appeal to their origin in Balto-Slavic era,” says Russo-American linguist.

Indications of presence of a ritual and a deity similar to Perperuna were found also among eastern Slavs, which speaks in favour of Balto-Slavic instead of Balkan origin. One of them is Pereplut, a lower deity recorded in 12th and 14th century. Roman Jakobson considers ceremonies in her honour to bear strong resemblance to southern Slavic and Baltic ritual: their observance was tied to water element, cups were raised and poured in honour of the deity, ritual circular dances accompanied the ceremony. “In the first component of name Pereplut We can easily recognize reduplicated root “per” with pleophonic [type of vowel shift in Slavic languages, author’s note] word form per- > pre/,” says Jakobson.

Russo-American expert however reaches far beyond Balto-Slavic area. In his opinion incantations performed during ritual of Perperuna show “remarkable similarity to Rigvedic ritual prayers to Parjanya, asking for rain and crop.”

God of thunder Parjanya is one of lesser known vedic gods. The main thunder god of Vedic tradition is Indra. But it is Parjanya in particular who shares comparable name and characteristics to those of Indo-European thunder god. He is associated with rain, assigned with a form of benevolent bull and known to be smiting demons and evildoers with lightning bolts. Anthropologist James George Frazer even shortly describes a rite akin to Blkn Perperuna taking place in Hindu town Puné, where local boys dress one of themselves into twigs and name him a “Rain king”. Afterwards they walk from house to house where they have water poured on them are food given to them, that they later eat.

It seems we really are dealing with a ritual originating from prehistoric Indo-European times.

Forgotten Indo-European goddess

What about potential goddess though? Did ancient Balto-Slavic rite tied to a god of storm and rain exist only, or do we have proofs of worship in honour of Perperuna as an actual entity and consort of Perun?

In Baltic tradition there is no female figure of similar name connected to rain-making ritual. But according to Jakobson such divine being in fact did exist in Baltic worldview. Her name was Perkunija and she was mostly known as Perun’s mother. And occasionally she was instead recognized as his wife or companion.

Germanic traditions offer another piece of puzzle. In Jakobson’s opinion supposed pairs Perun-Perperuna and Perkunas-Perkunija etymologically correspond to pair Fjörgynn-Fjörgyn.

From linguistic perspective male name Fjörgynn is almost direct equivalent to Baltic Perkunas (emergent from wordform *Perkwún(i)yos). Unfortunately, all we know about him from surviving traditions is his parentage od goddess Frigg (wife to Odin). Germanists consider him archaic relict pushed to sidelines: based on etymology of his name there is a notion it was him who originally held position of thunder god. When it comes to goddess Fjörgyn (emergent from wordform *Perkwuni), her role in Nordic myth is that of Thor’s mother.

One inconspicuous relict can be found even in ancient Greece, where role of thunder god belonged to Zeus. To be more precise, Zeus embodied complicated mixture of myths both of Indo-European origin and from Near East. He has attributes of prehistoric Indo-European god of daytime sky (*Dejeus), from whom Zeus derives his name, and prehistoric Indo-European thunder god (*Perkwunos), whose name endured in term od Zeus‘ lightning weapon (Keraunos). In ancient Greek tradition there is also female counterpart to this term, Keraunia. Sophocles and Euripides mention Keraunia as one of names of Zeus‘ lover Semele.

Kerauns and Keraunia are therefore both etymologically and through association with a thunder god equivalents to pairs Perun-Perperuna, Perkunas-Perkunija and Fjörgynn-Fjörgyn.

At last, but not least, there are hints that relict of Perun’s female companion was preserved among Slavs not only as term for the main character of rain-making rite, but also as name of an actual goddess. Its alternative title Dodola has Bulgarian variants such as didjulja, didjul, djudjul, “which we can compare to Polish Dzidziela” says Jakobson. Dzidziela is one of names of Devana[3], goddess of daylight and woods and most importantly daughter of Perun.

Pushed to the sidelines by goddess of earth?

Listed examples od goddesses associated with deity of thunder and bearing similar name to his can be traced to number of Indo-European traditions. That means they might be referring to prehistoric Indo-European times (approximately 4500-2500 B.C.), therefore a consort[4] of prehistoric Indo-European thunder god *Perkwunos. At the same time these relicts are so miniscule, sidelined or transformed by later traditions, that supposed goddess (analogically *Perkwunia[5]) had to lost her position deep into prehistoric times.

What happened?

Earth goddess is most likely at fault. In Germanic tradition in was earth goddess Jörd whose influence expandedat the expense of Fjörgyn and her association with Thor. In fact, Fjörgyn was very often even merged and identified with her.

Similarly in ancient Greek tradition Keraunia, in spite of her name characteristic of thunder deity, is identified with Semele, who etymologically corresponds to Indo-European goddesses of earth, such as Baltic Žemyna, Hittite Daganzipa and Greek Demeter and Gaia/Ge[6].

Why such development? I couldn’t find the answer in relevant literature. But Jan Korda, author of excellent blog Karug dedicated to Indo-European mythology, came with quite an interesting idea. When I consulted him, he drew my attention to the fact, that thunder god’s consort and earth goddess are not interchangeable in regards to their functions: “I suppose, that thunder gods female companion is “humble” and “cultic” deity, suitable for rain-making rituals, but with little influence in other domains. Earth is “great” deity who has not only cultic function, but even plays a role in mythic narratives and thus her mentions had better chances to last until now.”

These two goddesses were not confused because of having the same partner. “I’d rather say that earth deity overshadowed thunder god’s consort in those cases, when thunder god took upon himself role of sky deity (pr as in case of Greece when sky deity took upon himself role of thunder god)”, but did not tak over her function – female deity hailed during rain-making rituals.”

If you like our posts, please support us on Patreon. Even symbolic contribution helps.

Author of the article sends many thanks to Jan Korda for his valuable suggestions.

Notes

1 In some versions boy or numerous girls.

2 In Roman Jakobson’s view this tradition shares origin with another one. He brings up a place called Dodona situated in northern Greek Epeira, where oracle of Zeus’ sacred oak (typical tree of Indo-European thunder gods) used to stand. It was second most important oracle after Delphi one. Its priests interpreted rustling of oak branches I the wind as messages from Zeus. According to archeologic findings Dodona oracle served this purpose since 3rd millennium B.C. Philologist Olga Zolotnikova argues in one of her recent studies that this sanctum was founded by “some Indo-European tribe of herdsmen from northern Balkans as customary place of worship of a storm god”. Zolotnikova reconstructs his name as *Do(n)don. In her opinion this deity was later replaced be gods of Greeks, most prominently by equivalent *Do(n)dona Zeus.

3 Authenticity of this goddess is uncertain – nevertheless Michal Téra in one of his recent works assents that she was known in archaic or at least folkloric tradition.

4 There is a possibility, that the very „pairing“ of etymologicallly comparable Indo-European gods was a much more widespread tradition: fragments of such nature are captured in mythology of Mykens (1500-1300 B.C.). Among names of deities there is also equivalent famel companion of Poseidon named Posidaeia and female companion of Zeus (in Mykens called Diqo/Diwe) named Diwia. More about this hypothesis in future.

5 As it happens, original Celtic term for Hercynian forest has roots in prehistoric Celtic word form *perkunia and that one in prehistoric Indo-European *perkwunia „oak (forest)“. Analogically, name of Germanic goddess Fjörgyn used to be poetic phrase denoting landscape of (woody) muntains.

6 Ancient Greeks adopted various equivalent deities, not only earth goddess.

Literature

Frazer, J. G. (1890): The Golden Bough. Macmillan. Jakobson, R. (1985): Selected Writings: Volume VII. Contributions to Comparative Mythology. Walter de Gruyter. Profantová, N., Profant, M. (2000): Encyklopedie slovanských bohů a mýtů. Libri. Puhvel, J. (1989). Comparative Mythology. John Hopkins University Press. Rutherford, I. (2013). Mycenaean Religion. In M. Salzman: The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World: pp. 256-279. Cambridge University Téra, M. (2009): Perun - bůh hromovládce. Pavel Mervart. West, M. L. (2007): Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford University Press. Zolotnikova, O. A. (2019): The sanctuary of Zeus in Dodona: Evolution of the religious concept. Journal Of Hellenic Religion, Vol. 12, 85-132.

Perun and Dodola. I think they look good together. Their relationship is such that with her he's a lovely bunny and with others he's a fierce beast. Hmm. Love them))

[renegade-hierophant]

Sanskrit and Greek cognates

mind - मनस् (mánas) - μένος (ménos) great, big - मह (mahá) - μέγας (mégas) knee - जानु (jānu) - γόνυ (gónu) boat - नौ (naú) - ναῦς (naûs) water - उदन् (udán) - ὕδωρ (húdōr) winter, cold - हिम (himá) - χεῖμα (kheîma) a field - अज्र (ájra) - ἀγρός (agrós) house - दम (dáma) - δόμος (dómos) night - नक्ति (nákti) - νύξ (núx) a foot - पद् (pád) - πούς (poús) mouse - मूष् (mūṣ) - μῦς (mûs) reward - मीढ (mīḍhá) - μισθός (misthós) donor - दातृ (dātṛ) - δώτωρ (dōtōr) lady - पत्नी (pátnī) - πότνια (pótnia) star - स्तृ (stṛ) - ἀστήρ (astēr) sleep - स्वप्न (svápna) - ὕπνος (húpnos) a month - मास् (mās) - μείς (meís) man - नर (nara) - ἀνήρ (anēr) name - नामन् (nāman) - ὄνομα (ónoma) door - दुर् (dúr) - θύρα (thúra) a fox - लोपाश (lopāśá) - ἀλώπηξ (alōpex) a bend - अङ्कस् (áṅkas) - ἄγκος (ánkos) bone - अस्थि (ásthi) - ὀστέον (ostéon) intestine - अन्त्र (ántra) - ἔντερον (énteron) a reproach - निन्दा (nindā) - ὄνειδος (óneidos) ray - अक्तु (aktú) - ἀκτίς (aktís) flesh - क्रविस् (kravís) - κρέας (kréas) to bite - दशति (dáśati) - δάκνω (dáknō) to tame - दाम्यति (dāmyati) - δάμνημι (dámnēmi) lifetime - आयु (āyu) - αἰών (aiōn) power - क्रतु (krátu) - κράτος (krátos) old - जरत् (járat) - γέρων (gérōn) a yoke - युग (yugá) - ζυγόν (zugón) wood, tree - दारु (dāru) - δρῦς (drũs) stick, tree - दण्ड (daṇḍá) - δένδρον (déndron) root, herb - मूल (mūla) - μῶλυ (mõlu) flower, leaf - फुल्ल (phúlla) - φύλλον (phúllon) fat, ointment - लेप (lépa) - λίπος (lípos) dust, particle - कण (káṇa) - κόνις (kónis)

[linguisticdiscovery]

Tocharian

Around 3,000 BCE, speakers of an early branch of the Indo-European languages decided to go for a little hike, and wound up all the way in South Siberia.

A few thousand years later, scholars discovered manuscripts in northwestern China dating to 500–800 CE that were shown conclusively to be written in a language from an early branch of Indo-European. They named this language Tocharian.

The discovery of Tocharian upset decades of research on ancient Indo-European languages and revitalized interested in them for two reasons:

Nobody even suspected that another branch of Indo-European existed, let alone in China’s Tarim Basin.

It was previously thought that the Indo-European languages were divided into eastern and western groups, based on whether the /k/ sound had changed to an /s/. The western languages that retained the /k/ were called centum languages (the Latin word for ‘hundred’, pronounced with an initial /k/), while the eastern languages with /s/ were called satem languages (the Avestan word for ‘hundred’). Yet Tocharian was a centum language sitting further east than almost any other language in the family. (Linguists later hypothesized that the centum-satem split wasn’t so much an east-west split as it was a spread of /s/ from the center of the language family outward, a change which didn’t reach the furthest members of the family).

Tocharian was written in a variant of Brahmi; here’s a sample of Tocharian script on a wooden tablet:

If you really want to challenge yourself, here’s a problem about Tocharian from the International Linguistics Olympiad:

[ire-ethereal]

The Dagda

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 22: Ancient History X and Earlier

These Questions are the result of suggestions from the previous iteration.

This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct grouping.

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

[ancientstuff]

Cuneiform is such a sneaky writing system, so many languages use it. Wonderful discovery.

[castilestateofmind]

"We don't know when fairy tales began or what their origin was, but they are especially prevalent among Indo-European speakers and in the cultures with which Indo-European came in contact on the steppes".

-Brian Hayden.

Arthur Rackham's illustration for The Old Woman in the Wood.

[songs-of-the-east]

Kanun: Shattered Lives in a Hidden Albania

"Kanun is a body of law which began regulating the lives of the Albanian people between the 13 and 1400's; it is still practiced in many parts of the country, especially in the north. Blood revenge is just the best known aspect of Kanun. It regulated relations with the Catholic church, marriages, property, economic activities, social order and the punishment of those guilty of crimes. Tragedy and drama are basic elements of Kanun. It developed because State control over the administration of justice in that part of the country was historically weak. With the fall of Communism in 1991, and the resulting weakening of law and order nationally, the number of vengeance killings has multiplied. Today, in a country that is trying desperately to rebuilt itself and one where the judicial system is still not able to guarantee the enforcement of State laws, this resorting to assassins in the name of Kanun has assumed really threatening proportions. The Albanian mass media have documented that since the mid-1999's, the crimes, horrors, and atrocities committed in the name of Kanun are a growing cancer even as the precepts of the ancient code are completely misinterpreted and often used as a pretext to justify common criminal acts."

- Massimo Mastrorillo

[druidicentropy]

*Pria

*Pria was a possible Proto-Indo-European goddess associated with beauty, love, sex, and possibly war; she played a role akin to that of Aphrodite, Venus, and Freyja.

*Pria's parents are unknown in the PIE cosmogony, but based on her descendants, Dyēus or Wérunos could be her father.

It is possible that *Pria would be a daughter of Dyđus since in Homer's Teogony, Aphrodite was born from the union of a god (Zeus) and a goddess (Dione).

However, according to the Hesiod cosmogony, Aphrodite was the daughter of Uranus's blood. Ahura Mazda, who the Greeks identified with Aphrodite. created the Zoroastrian goddess Anahita, an ahura. Interestingly, both Ahura Mazda and Uranus have their roots in the proto-Indo-European nigth god Wérunos. In this instance, a potential variant of the proto-Indo-European myth might also regard *Pria as Wérunos' daughter.

*Pria most likely had Martus, the Indo-European God of War, and Dyēus as consorts, using the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus.

However, according to zoroastrianism, Anahita is Mithra's consort; therefore, it's possible that *Pria had a solar deity as her consort.

*Pria's Greek and Roman ancestry suggests that she might be the mother of an hypothetical, unreconstructible love god who predates both Eros and Cupid. Her masculine Norse ancestry further supports this theory. A potential ancestor of Fjolnir, a demigod, may have been mothered by Freyr *PriHyéh₂.

Aphrodite was depicted in Sparta with classical Spartan weapons, and Freyja, the Norse war goddess, is connected to *Pria as well as both Athena and Minerva. It's interesting that many of *Pria's descents were associated with semetic goddesses like Astarte and Ishtar, so it's possible that *Pria's figure originated from a proto-afroasiatic goddess of sex and war, or the Sumerian Inanna.

Both the English and its Spanish counterpart Viernes originate from *Pria. Friday is derived from Frigga's Day, which honors the Norse/Germanic goddess sometimes confused with Freyja,*Pria's female descendant, while Viernes is derived from dies Veneris, or Venus Day.

Similar to other proto-Indo-European gods she has also left some of her legacy within Christianity as well, where the Virgin Mary is depicted in art using traits from both Venus and Aphrodite.

Etymologically, the Slavic Saint Paraskeva Friday, who is revered in folk orthodoxy, originated from *Pria.

[renegade-hierophant]

Tocharian donors, Kizil caves, 6-7th century

[linguisticdiscovery]

Hittite

In the 1800s archaeologists discovered cuneiform tablets written in an unknown language which they named Hittite.

In the language, Hittite is called 𒌷𒉌𒅆𒇷 nišili ‘the language of the city of Neša’.

In 1902 and 1915, Hittite was shown to be a previously-unknown member of the Indo-European language family, which was remarkable for several reasons:

The Hittite tablets remain to this day the oldest written records of any Indo-European language.

Hittite lacks masculine and feminine grammatical gender like most other Indo-European languages. Instead it contrasted animate vs. inanimate nouns, providing an important piece of evidence that Proto-Indo-European too only distinguished animate vs. inanimate nouns but not masculine vs. feminine.

In 1879, linguist Ferdinand de Saussure suggested that Proto-Indo-European (the first Indo-European language) had a type of sound called a laryngeal consonant, but that this sound had disappeared from all the surviving descendant languages, leaving only subtle traces on the sounds around them. This hypothesis went unproven until the discovery of the Hittite tablets, which contained exactly the laryngeal sounds that Saussure had predicted—a remarkable confirmation of his hypothesis.

Indo-European was traditionally divided between east and west into centum and satem languages (the words for ‘hundred’ in Latin and Avestan respectively), based on whether they retained the initial /k/ sound (centum languages) or had changed to an /s/ sound (satem languages). Hittite, however, is a centum language with /k/s even though it is located to the east in the satem area. This fact (and the discovery of Tocharian, another exception) forced linguists to rethink the east-west division and instead posit that the change from /k/ > /s/ started in the center of the family and spread outward like a wave.

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of the Indo-European language family, my book recommendation is The horse, the wheel, and language:

[dedalvs]

Could you please talk more about how/why agreement systems develop in language? I always feel that agreement systems are poorly justified in my conlanging

Agreement systems are retained in language because the redundancy strengthens the signal. It's better to think about linguistics systems in terms of "why didn't speakers get rid of this" as opposed to "why did this come about in the first place". Sometimes things happen randomly. They're retained because they're useful.

But like, consider gender in English. We used to have it. Gender was mostly defined by the endings of words. We lost all the endings. We lost some major forms of agreement (consider that French still has different articles). At a certain point, it was impossible to tell if a noun was m/f/n, so of course English lost its gender system. It was no longer useful. In fact, going even further, it was the opposite of useful, because it was totally unpredictable and didn't buy you anything.

As an example of the latter, there's this sign system called Signed Exact English (SEE). It's often (not always, but often) pedaled as a replacement for ASL, because it will "help" Deaf signers learn English. One of the features it retains is the distinction between "a" and "an". English speakers know how to do this instinctively: You use "a" before a noun phrase (not a noun, but a noun phrase) that begins with a consonant sound, and you use "an" before a noun phrase that begins with a vowel sound (so "umbrella" gets "an", but "union" gets "a"). In SEE, there's a separate sign for "a" and "an", and then ASL signs are used for English words like "man" and "old". So then you have to sign:

A MAN

AN OLD MAN

But, of course, the difference is based on the sound of the English pronunciation of the word the sign stands for, so it is quite literally impossible to predict for a Deaf signer. It has to be memorized. Which is an extraordinary task. Basically, all nouns, adjectives, and adverbs (consider "a really old man") have to be dumped in either the A class or the AN class with absolutely no way to predict which will be in which.

This is a great example of a feature that would quickly die in a natural language.

So looking at gender, the question is how useful is it? If it's (a) predictable, and (b) spread across multiple areas of the language, then it's more useful, and more likely to be retained. If you look at Spanish, agreement is present in pronouns, adjectives, demonstratives, and articles. The gender of a noun highly predictable (not 100%, but highly predictable). That's a stable gender system. French is similar, but the gender is less predictable for nouns. If one was going to lose gender first, you'd predict French. Even so, it's still predictable enough that more will probably have to happen for French to actually lose it.

As for where it comes from, if you want to read a detailed account of the development of Indo-European gender, this is an intro. Most of the time it's the incorporation of pronouns or small, generic nouns that become commonly associated with particular classes and are used as modifiers. We've got a pretty good example of the development of noun class in Sarkezhe, season 4 of LangTime Studio. If you want to see it done from beginning to end, check that out.

Hope that helps!

[nerdymemes]

[ancientstuff]

I know this isn't everybody's cup of tea, but it is mine. I love the history of languages. Comes of teaching a very old one, I guess.

[castilestateofmind]

"Pizarro started from nothing, rising to a life of conquest and glory. He toppled the Inca with an act of Odyssean cunning. After years of war, he went out in a blaze of glory, fighting off assassins even in his old age… is this not Bronze Age Mindset?

Is this not greatness?".

-Alaric the Barbarian.