Forlong - Rivers of Life

Fire Worship.
school-books would lead us to understand. A round ovate hill was naturally a female
hill; and one more conical—as the Palatine—a male. So we see that, long before
the days of Romulus, the latter was always sacred to Saturn or the Sun. Nature had
clearly marked out this Latin site as one which Sivaites, or Phallo-Solar worshippers
would most readily select because answering to the ideas of their faith; and it must recall
to the mind of every Eastern traveller many similar ones prized by Lingam and Arkite
worshippers. In Arabia’s Sacred City—situated in the remarkable valley-gorge of
Meka, with its covered approach, in front of which stands the Lingam-like hill of
Arafat—we have another instance, which will be considered hereafter.
The ordinary school derivation of this word Pala-tine is not at all satisfactory,
read in the light of the knowledge I have endeavoured to impart. Pallā-tium or Palatium,
says Valpy, 1 quoting Scaliger, is from fal£ntion the highest hills, falai being citadels
and eminences. So Fiall, in Icelandic, and Fell in English is a mountain; Latin
Phala, “a wooden castle” (Ligneus penis?). 2 The Etruscan Falantum was heaven; so
was the Hindoo Mount Meroo, the supreme Phallus or seat of Siva, one of the highest
of hills and having a conical eminence on it. But Pala-tium, continues Valpy, may come
from falÕj “shining” or “magnificent,” which is one of Siva’s names, and clearly also
that of the Tyrian Herakles—the representative pillars of whose temple Herodotus so
particularly describes as more resplendent even in the darkness than in the light. Palladium,
thinks Va;py, was a figure of Minerva, Palla-dion. We are therefore in no doubt
as to what the figure was, and hence the idea which led to the name of the celebrated hill.
One meaning of Palla is “to vibrate.” Maha-deva is peculiarly called “the vibrator,”
and in all Phallic processions this action is given to him with strings pulled by women,
as we gather from Lucian’s Phalloporia, and other descriptions. 3
This plan of what I conceive ancient Rome to have been, shows the hills and
streams as I have personally traced them out (1857-8), often with difficulty, through
dirty and confusing suburbs. My sketeh is only a little more marked in its hills and
vales than the Rome of to-day appears to be, but this every survyor of an ancient and
modern site will understand. I include in it the “Infernal Valley,” the Vatican, and St.
Peter’s—of significant plan and section—to help my readers in comparing this plan
with existing ones. St. Angelo I hold to he on a very ancient site—its foundations
being no doubt those of a Phallic fire-tower whose inmates of course also kept watch
over the northern approaches to the young settlement. The Campus Martius, under
some other name of course, existed as a trysting-place for the early colonists, as it
had been of the autochthons; and here, we can imagine, the Fetish gods were first
worshipped, then the “Lignean” phallic ones, succeeded by Fire and Solar deities, as
those of later Rome, and even of Christian times.
Look now at the details of the Pala-tine. On this hill Romulus planted his
sacred tree—the emblematic Fig, and hung thereon his spolia opima, and after-
1 Etymol. Lat. Dict. 1828. Double or single letters here matter not.
2 Falaise, in French, is a crag, or cliff, but may have once signified more than this.
3 [This is nowadays accomplished with battery-operated electric motors. — T.S.]
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