Steven Avery wrote: ↑Sat Nov 18, 2017 3:57 pm
Ulan wrote: ↑Sat Nov 18, 2017 10:39 amBy the way, similar fairy tales about his birth circumstances were even told of a contemporary of Jesus, Emperor Augustus:
According to Julius Marathus, a few months before Augustus was born a portent was generally observed at Rome, which gave warning that nature was pregnant with a king for the Roman people; thereupon the senate in consternation decreed that no male child born that year should be reared; but those whose wives were with child saw to it that the decree was not filed in the treasury,137 since each one appropriated the prediction to his own family.
Source: Suetonius, The Life of Augustus, 94,3. Julius Marathus was a freedman of Augustus and wrote a - now lost - biography of Augustus himself.
Do you view the account of the senate’s decree, as described, a fairy tale?
The likelihood is very high. Biographies of emperors and other important figures were often enough full of miracle stories. The birth house of Augustus had a consecrated room that nobody was allowed to enter without permission, as anybody entering is
"seized with shuddering and terror" or
"thrown out by a sudden mysterious force", "half-dead before the door". His reign was foretold by an omen. His mother was, during the night of a solemn service to Apollo, marked with the sign of a serpent, and 9 months later, Augustus was born, which is why Apollo was seen as his father. He commanded frogs to stay silent, and they were never heard again in that area. And so on.
Note that Suetonius places the story of the decided infanticide from the Augustus biography by Marathus into the same section as the stories I just mentioned, not in the first chapter where he discusses Augustus parents, birth and early years, or what you could consider solid biographical data. The section is introduced by the following:
"94,1 Having reached this point, it will not be out of place to add an account of the omens which occurred before he was born, on the very day of his birth, and afterwards, from which it was possible to anticipate and perceive his future greatness and uninterrupted good fortune."
Note also that this tale by Marathus contains a trick, in that it immunizes itself against the complaint that nobody had ever heard of this story before: the alleged decree of the senate was never registered with the treasury. How convenient. It's like the messianic secret in gMark, which also explains why nobody had ever heard his story before he told his tale.