Philadelphia (Brotherly Love)
Back ground
Philadelphia was situated on the Cogamus River, a tributary of the Hermus (modern Gediz) and was about 28 miles southeast of Sardis.
Its founders intended it to be a center of Greek culture and language, a missionary outpost for spreading Hellenism to the regions of Lydia and Phrygia. It benefited from its location at the junction of several important trade routes, earning it the title “gateway to the east.” The city was located on the edge of the Katakekaumene (burned land), a volcanic region whose fertile soil was ideally suited for vineyards. In A.D. 17 a powerful earthquake rocked Philadelphia, along with Sardis and 10 other nearby cities.
In gratitude for Caesar Tiberius’s financial aid in rebuilding their city, the Philadelphians joined with several other cities in erecting a monument to him.
Philadelphia was a center of the wine industry. Its chief deity was Dionysus, the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology.He was also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also the Liberator (Eleutherios), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake in his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. His cult is also a "cult of the souls"; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead.
©2012 Kenute P. Curry. All rights reserved.
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