After Long Winter
Two Thousand Years Ago
It is just before dawn on a beautiful day at the beginning of summer. Although it’s early, and the stars are still bright above, the sky has begun to pale in the east, and the procession moving through the streets needs the illumination of the torches in their iron cressets. There must be fifty people, but they walk silently, as though at a funeral. The man in the midst of the procession wears the folds of his toga over his head like a hood just as a mourner, or perhaps a penitent, would. The procession makes its way slowly through the twisting streets of Rome, some streets overhung by insulae—apartment buildings four or five stories tall with shops on the ground floors. A few people watch from the windows, and a street sweeper pauses on a cobbled side street to watch the procession pass. They use no litters, but go on foot, their treads marking out the paths of the city.
The sky lightens to a shell pink on the horizon when they reach the high altar on the hill. The breeze freshens, torches streaming in the air. There is more of a crowd here, including a choir of boys and girls, whispering and pushing each other nervously until their director tells them to be quiet. There are priests as well, bringing platters of twenty-seven cakes, nine each of three kinds. There is no blood sacrifice today. This is a day to forgive blood. Instead, the offering is cake.
The man at the center of the procession steps forward, baring his head to the lightening sky. He’s young, no more than 35, with a square jaw and wavy brown hair. He is Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, the husband of Julia—the only child of the Emperor Augustus—and the emperor’s best friend. He is the greatest general of his generation—the man who defeated Marc Antony at Actium and Alexandria, who conquered Egypt for Augustus and ended the Roman Civil War. A few years ago he celebrated Augustus’s Triumph, Antony’s and Cleopatra’s children walking in chains through the streets of Rome. He is either a great hero or a great villain, depending on one’s point of view.
For decades civil war had convulsed Rome. Battles had fallen out as literally brother against brother: members of the same family backing Caesar or Pompey, Caesar’s assassins or Caesar’s avengers, Augustus or Antony. Casualties from each battle numbered in the thousands, and battle followed battle for years. Augustus finally triumphed not ten years before this morning, and Agrippa won the battles that made his victory so. But this morning he is not here to make war. This morning, he is here to make peace.
He lifts the first offering plate, looking out across the expectant crowd. The children’s choir stills as a gray-haired man steps up, the poet and composer of the day’s rites. His voice carries, the voice of a man used to speaking in public and commanding audiences. “Oh Phoebus, Oh Diana Queen of the Woodlands, bright heavenly glories now worshiped and cherished forever, now grant what we pray for at this sacred time!”
Agrippa places the plate on the altar just as the rising sun lifts clear of the horizon, Apollo’s bright chariot climbing the heavens, sunlight striking the top of the hill, the men, the choir, and the white altar. A saeculum has ended by night. Another began with the dawn.
Invoking Concordia in Rome
These events are true and part of the historical record, occurring in 17 BCE early in the reign of the Emperor Augustus. We know who participated, where the rites were held, what the sacrifices were, and even parts of the ritual itself. The procession began at the Temple of Concordia and, after the offerings this morning, returned there in celebration as part of a three-day festival called the Saecular Games, the official beginning to a new saeculum. Theater performances and athletic contests were held as well as six rites. The rite described here was the penultimate rite.
How do you end a civil war? How do you end a period beginning with “let loose the dogs of war?” 60 How do you bring people back together into a society that is not constantly struggling against itself? A few years after the defeat of Antony, the lasting rifts must have been apparent. Was there any chance that this peace was more than an interlude before another round of war began?
A conscious decision was made to seek reconciliation instead of revenge, to ritualize peacemaking. This is not to say that Augustus was a good man, or that he had any other motive than the selfish one of securing his throne, but he clearly recognized that if the government and individual citizens continued to seek revenge, restitution, or even justice for all the acts that had been committed during the decades of internal war, Rome would simply collapse. The state would dissolve into warring provinces again, held by one senator or contender against the others, just as it had for the last twenty-five years. There would be no lasting peace as long as any group claimed grievances against another and acted upon them.
This is a strange notion to our modern eyes. We are certain that peace results from justice, and that unless all guilty parties are punished there can be no reconciliation. But what do you do if all parties are guilty? What do you do if there has been so much bloodshed, so much persecution, so much tit for tat, that to punish the guilty would be to punish nearly everyone? You can’t jail the whole society. You can’t put on trial 50 percent of the population. You can’t punish by deprivation or loss of income and freedom most of a society unless you simply reduce the entire society to poverty and a fringe existence. That’s happened before. History teaches us this always goes badly because it results in another round of grievances, in the anger of children who grow up deprived because of the sins of their ancestors and who want to get back at those whom they now perceive as oppressors. And it results in the triumphant party carrying punishment out too far, becoming the oppressors they once denounced. An examination of the revolutions of the last two centuries provides myriad examples of this. This was also what was happening in Rome.
Augustus and Agrippa understood that if they were to build a stable state, they needed to not only defeat Antony’s party, but also to reconcile Romans to one another and to at least outwardly restore civility and the rule of law. Toward this end in 17 BCE, they revived the ancient festival of the Saecular Games, last celebrated in 146 BCE. There were six main rites over three nights and three days. The nighttime rites were respectively dedicated to the Fates, to the Ilythiae (goddesses of childbirth), and to Terra Mater (Mother Earth), and were rites of penance and propitiation. The daytime rites, in contrast, were invocations, asking Jupiter, Juno, and Apollo and Diana to favor the Roman state and to return prosperity and peace.61
Propitiation, penance, punishment—at this point, it’s necessary to examine the difference between these ideas. Punishment is most straightforward: to hurt someone in retribution for something they have done, said, thought, or supported. This can be physical punishment, like whipping or confinement, or the removal of rights and privileges like voting, attending school or public meetings, or speaking in public. It can be social punishment, like shunning or shaming or forcing people to wear humiliating clothing or insignias. Punishment is imposed on people by other people. It is not consensual.
Penance is entirely consensual. Penance is a self-imposed limitation that a person chooses to make up for something they have done, said, or thought. It may be physical, like fasting or self-flagellation, or it may be social, like engaging in community service or denying oneself companionship, sex, or pleasure. Penance is restitution or self-denial: paying for the car you wrecked, speaking out for the people you harmed, or giving up using Twitter if you harmed someone there. Penance is personal and internal and cannot be done to someone else.
Propitiation is more complex. Propitiation assumes that an individual’s actions are part of a larger pattern—part of the work of the Furies, as the Greeks would have said: part of a frenzy of activities, a wild moment. For example, in wars, people do things they would not ordinarily do. Mobs and riots take actions that the individuals wouldn’t have undertaken alone. Crimes are committed, people are hurt, and terrible things happen in this frenzy. Later, individuals may wonder how: How could we have been part of that? How could we have thought that was okay? Who are we to have done that? In the Classical world, there was a phrase for this: “The Furies possessed us.” Eris, Discordia, and the Furies walked in human form within us. Therefore, the deities who have been offended, those who have been misused, must be apologized to.
It is interesting which deities Augustus and Agrippa decided to propitiate, to apologize to for the Roman Civil Wars, and to beg forgiveness from going forward. First, the Fates, the Moerae, received their sacrifice on the night of May 31. If this had simply been the fate of so many to perish, surely the Fates could be kinder! If it was simply time for social upheaval, for the end of the saeculum, then now it was time to turn the wheel forward and let the Fates spin a new thread.
The Ilythiae, the goddesses of childbirth and of children unborn, received their sacrifice on the next night. This is the most obscure and difficult of the choices—was this for so many children and mothers killed during the wars? For the children who would never be born because of so many premature deaths? For the Ilythiae in their chthonic role as guides who bring children out of the underworld and into our world at birth? Virgil’s Aeneid, a work contemporary to this festival and associated with both Augustus and Agrippa, shows the souls of children yet to be born dwelling in the underworld just as the souls of the dead do, awaiting the moment when the Gates of Ivory open above them, and they rise into the light as though traversing a birth canal. Perhaps the apology was intended for those children who were never given life and who waited in vain.
Lastly, on the night of June 2, sacrifices were made to Mother Earth. She and all her works—animals and plants, fields and waters—had borne the damage of war. Propitiation was offered for orchards burned, horses slain in battle, forests destroyed, rivers running with blood. Mother Earth herself had been offended by the slaughter, and apologies to her had to be rendered by the Emperor Augustus himself.
Once the offended deities had been appeased and discord abjured, healing could begin. The three daytime ceremonies were designed to invoke the deities who fed concord rather than discord and to invite them to once again rule over the Roman state and restore peace, prosperity, and happiness.
On June 1, the morning after the first propitiation, the invocation was to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Jupiter Most High. As the king of the gods, he was the patron of good governance, of the well-run state operating within the rule of law for the benefit of its citizens. Strong of arm, he did not need to resort to war to achieve his aims but could simply exert authority—auctoritas, the power of correct action. Under auctoritas, individuals and nations act rationally to do the right thing, bringing to bear what we now call “soft power.” Rome triumphs with roads and theaters, markets and trade ships, language and culture, as well as with the power of her legions.
The second invocation was to Juno Regina—queen of the heavens, wife, mother, and divine protector. She is bountiful, the giver of riches. Grain barges, workshops brimming with pottery and cloth, gold, and honey flowing in inexhaustible wealth belong to her. She is plenty. Even the poor have enough to eat, and all the people can rejoice in her riches. Life just keeps getting better as a rising tide lifts all boats. There is enough for everyone.
Lastly, the final invocation was to the twins, Apollo and Diana. We know exactly what was said because it was written by the poet Horace and survives to this day.
Gentle and peaceful Apollo, lay down your arms,
And listen now to the young lads’ supplications:
Luna, crescent-horned queen of the constellations,
Give ear to the girls …
Then, you divinities, show our receptive youth
Virtue, grant peace and quiet to the old, and give
Children and wealth to the people of Romulus,
And every glory …
Now Faith and Peace, Honor, and ancient Modesty,
Dare to return once more, with neglected Virtue,
And blessed Plenty dares to appear again, now,
With her flowing horn.
May Phoebus, the augur, decked with the shining bow,
Phoebus who’s dear to the Nine Muses, that Phoebus
Who can offer relief to a weary body
With his healing art,
May he, if he favors the Palatine altars,
Extend Rome’s power, and Latium’s good-fortune,
Through the fresh ages, show, always, improvement.62
They prayed that the old may have peace, quiet, and good health, that the young may have virtue and glory, and that all may have honor, plenty, faith, and dignity. It ended with this: “May we always show improvement.” What a prayer for the state! May we always show improvement! May we continue to be a better people and a better nation.
In the decades after this great civic rite, Rome reached an unimagined apex of power—Pax Romana, Roman Peace, an empire extending from Britain to Sudan. While scandals and tragedies beset the imperial family—bad emperors squandering wealth and good emperors building it—for the most part, it was an era of peace and prosperity. As the decades turned, of course new injustices grew beneath the surface and old ones festered, but for many people within the empire it was an era of unprecedented mobility and civilization. Augustus and Agrippa achieved what they meant to do with this rite, the Saecular Games. They ushered in a new era that outlasted their lifetimes.
Invoking Concordia in More Modern Times
Eighteen hundred years later, another people deliberately invoked Concordia for exactly the same reasons.
Visiting Paris today, La Place de la Concorde is a beautiful square in the midst of the city, with elaborate nineteenth-century fountains and an obelisk given to France by Egypt as a symbol of friendship. It’s a lovely place. It’s hard to imagine that a little more than two hundred years ago it was the site of 1,119 cruel killings.63 Men and women were executed in this square, their heads chopped off by the guillotine, including the former king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The French Revolution began in 1789 as the result of decades of widening disconnection between the elites and the people. Wealthy aristocrats wielded greater and greater economic power, while more and more people at the bottom fell into poverty. Efforts to change things, to ameliorate poverty and to modernize law and economy, were stalled or halted by the elites. King Louis XV’s attitude was key: “Après moi le deluge.” After me, the flood. After me, chaos. Who cares what happens after I’m dead?
Unaddressed problems grew worse until they reached a breaking point. While the Revolution began as an attempt to force the king to accept a constitutional monarchy constrained by the rule of the Estates General, once the floodgates were opened, the flood could not be contained. Between 1792 and 1794, more than one hundred fifty thousand French citizens were killed either in the Terror or in fighting between various factions and rebel groups, not counting the forty thousand or more soldiers killed either in internal fighting or in the war with Austria. Everyone with a grudge to settle settled it, neighbors denouncing neighbors guilty of wrong thinking, of wrong sympathies, or even of not being sufficiently enthusiastic about revolutionary ideas. An accusation was enough to send people, and perhaps their families, to the guillotine. We have the idea today that only aristocrats were denounced and killed, but most of the victims of the Terror were not wealthy—merely people who drew the wrath of the mob. As each group of revolutionaries was denounced by the next faction, those who followed the previous ideology were imprisoned or killed.
For a little more than two years anyone and everyone was in danger, and thousands of people denounced people they disliked—an annoying neighbor, a mother-in-law whose property was attractive, a boss who had been unsympathetic, or simply a stranger who held different opinions. Tens of thousands of people were part of the mob, the denouncers, those who cheered at the foot of the guillotine, and tens of thousands feared for their lives in this constantly moving coil of ideologies and opinions. Today’s correct words were tomorrow’s horrible offense. How could a person know what to say or do? How could anyone avoid being the target of everyone’s grievance? Any person who had ever disliked you could turn you in.
How does a society come back from that? How do you walk away from the bodies and other atrocities and get back to any kind of functional society when your former employee killed your son and your wife’s disgruntled former brother-in-law caused her to be imprisoned and abused? When you, yourself, are responsible for the death of the person who argued rudely with you and whom the mob literally tore apart? When your sister denounced the man whose shop she used to work in and caused the death of his entire family? How do you stop?
In October 1795, a new government was formed, the Directory, which hoped to somehow leash these Furies. The executions stopped and the guillotine was removed, but that was simply the beginning. How could France heal? What do you do when everyone is perpetrator or victim, and many people are both? The process of forging a new national identity that sought to bring together all French would be a lengthy one, and would certainly not be accomplished swiftly or without lasting scars, but one of the first steps had to be the symbolic cleansing and reconsecration of civil spaces. After all, a large public square in the middle of the capital city can’t be ignored! There it is. Everyone knows what happened there. The space first known as Place Louis XV under the king and then Place de la Revolution under the guillotine had to be addressed.
The Directors were mindful of symbolism and sought to use it wisely. Therefore, before the end of 1795, the square was physically cleaned of all traces of the guillotine and renamed in a public ceremony invoking the Classical principle of Concordia. As Place de la Concorde, it was a focus of renewed civil authority, of the idea of the rule of law bringing just order rather than discordian Liberty with her Phrygian cap and bloody hands. Tamed, Liberty became a just goddess, a guardian of public virtue and the Rights of Man. Concordia reigned.
Why We Need Concordia: Action vs. Identity
One of the keys to concord is the question of action vs. identity. What is the difference between the phrases “you have committed a crime” and “you are a criminal”? The first is an action, a thing that a person chose to do, and they may in the future choose to do otherwise. The second is an identity, which in our society is an unchosen, irreducible fundamental of personality. Our society has taught us that you can’t change your identity. You are born with it, and it is who you are. If you appear to change, it’s merely revelation—you were always really X, and you have only now discovered it or revealed it to the world. If you are a criminal, it is simply your destiny to commit criminal acts. There is no rehabilitation because there is no choice. You cannot choose to be other than your identity.
This is a model the left has embraced because in many ways it made the debate easier on issues like sexual orientation. This model breaks down completely on other issues, like minority religious identity. After all, don’t we have a choice about which religion we practice? We choose to do something nonmainstream when we practice Paganism. The only way to claim we don’t choose—and of course some see it this way—is to say that we are in a cult and lack the free will to decide what we believe. We must argue that there is absolutely nothing wrong with our nonmainstream choice. It’s not biological. It’s not a cult. We are choosing to do something because we want to and we think it’s right and it harms no one in society if we do so. We have to make a positive argument for what we believe, rather than argue that we can’t help it.
Of course there are people who say, “I’ve always been different, and I’ve always known I belonged to the Old Gods even before I knew what that meant.” And there are others who say, “I never heard of any of this until I was forty, but it makes so much sense!” Both of them are right. Both of these are valid experiences. We defend our beliefs and our identity, whether they were heartfelt from infancy or suddenly discovered decades later. In other words, it doesn’t matter why someone is Pagan. It doesn’t matter whether they came in desperation, in love, or simply because somebody invited them to a party. They all belong. If you choose to be here, here you are. You are a Pagan if you do Pagan stuff. Needless to say, a person can stop doing Pagan stuff and stop identifying as Pagan anytime. Nobody is going to go after them and bring them back or judge them because they once went to a ritual and then decided it wasn’t for them.
But that’s not how the mainstream in our society sees things. Identity is growing more and more codified, and as it does, identity depends less and less on actions that you choose to take—or rather, an action defines identity forever.
What is the difference between “you have committed a crime” and “you are a criminal”? A criminal has no choice. They simply are a criminal, and there is no way they can stop being a criminal. They have no free will. When it’s phrased as “you have committed a crime,” the equation changes. Think about these:
• “You drank too much and wrecked your car.” “You are a drunk.”
• “You teased a classmate and made him cry.” “You are a bully.”
• “You said something offensive to a coworker.” “You are a sexual harasser.”
• “You stole something.” “You are a thief.”
An action can be undone or atoned for, broken things restored, restitution given. An action can be put in the past, unlike an identity, which is forever. An action can be regretted and not repeated. An identity can only be embraced. An apology can be rendered and accepted. A person can say, “I’m sorry I said this thing. I won’t do it again,” and then go on with life, rather than being shunned forever.
This is critical when many, many people have committed the offense. Imagine, for example, that every person you know who had been part of an online shaming mob was called to account. Imagine if every participant had to embrace the identity “online bully” in every social space for the rest of their lives. Imagine if every person they met, every potential client or employer, every future son-in-law, every grandchild, had to understand why they were a terrible person. What would result from that? Identity is immutable. Online Bully is their new name.
Would that solve problems or would that create more? If enough people are being punished together, don’t they instead deny the crime and fight back? Don’t they especially do so when the punishment begins to outweigh the original offense in terms of severity?
Viewing offenses as actions rather than identities does not excuse the actions. However, it allows them to be atoned for. Restitution is possible. And then it’s over. Punishing identity rather than action only leads to another cycle. In a situation like the French Revolution, where many people had both committed terrible acts and been victims of terrible acts, identity as perpetrator or victim could not offer a way forward. Only concord and reconciliation could offer any hope of coming out of this as a nation.
Journaling Exercise
For this journaling exercise, you will need a notebook, a journal, or an electronic means of writing. You will also need a quiet space and some uninterrupted time.
Think about a time you were punished in what you feel was an out- of-proportion response to what you did. It may be something that happened when you were a child—you lost a toy for a week for being a smart-mouth—or it may be something much more serious, like serving jail time for possession of a small amount of marijuana. How did you feel about it? Were you repentant or angry? How do you feel about it today?
Think about something you did in the past that you truly regret, whether or not you were punished for it. Maybe it’s hurtful words to a lover that led to a breakup, or maybe it’s something more serious—a moment of carelessness that caused a car accident that killed someone. How does your regret change you? What have you done differently because of your regret?
Do you believe in second chances? Do you believe a person can change? Or do you believe that once someone has shown their true colors, no change is possible?
Think about a time you have forgiven someone. What had they done? Why did you forgive them? What happened after that?
Do you believe that people are responsible for the crimes of others in a group they belong to, whether that group is religious, ethnic, racial, political, or otherwise? Do you believe that the children of perpetrators are tainted by their parents’ crimes? Do those children or other members of the group owe restitution? Or do you believe that only the perpetrators of the crime should be punished?
These are not easy questions, and you may need to take some time to think about each one. How we answer these questions as individuals and as a society will shape how we interact with each other and what we are able to build in the next saeculum.
We can know, however, that Concordia will be necessary to bring us into the new era. She will be critical to help us reconcile, just as she was in the wake of the Roman wars of the triumvirates and as she was in the wake of the French Revolution.
Reconciliation is often done by the creation or reconsecration of public spaces and by large civil rites that are designed to bring people back together. Look for these kinds of activities as positive indicators that change is coming based on inclusion rather than exclusion, on consent rather than force. If the activities are well designed, they will celebrate coming together rather than the defeat of any person, ideology, or people. Celebrations of defeat continue grievances into the next saeculum, whereas reconciliations create lasting concord.
There is a difference between celebrations of victory and celebrations of defeat. Contrast Augustus’s Triumph with the young children of his dead enemies walking through the streets in chains, with the celebrations in New York at the end of World War II, where Axis symbols, prisoners, captives, or loot were completely absent. No German or Japanese prisoners of war were paraded through the streets in chains in the United States. Victory and vengeance do not go hand in hand. There are choices about how to win, and we must make them deliberately.
Welcoming Concordia
While large civic rituals are beyond the scope of this book, we can each welcome Concordia quietly into our own lives. Now that we’ve thought about our hopes for (and fears of) the aftermath, the next rite will help us invoke Concordia as we enter the next phase.
You will need:
a white candle
a means to light it
your previous journal entries or notes
The Rite
Find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted. Light the candle. Say, “Concordia, we stand at the turning. The world is changed. My life is changed. We set a new course. Help us to reach for you. Help us to seek your reconciliation between individuals and peoples. Help us to end the war of all against all and find respite and hope again.”
You may wish to add those with whom you hope to become reconciled. Perhaps you have loved ones who have been on a different path. Perhaps you have lost people you hope to find. Perhaps you simply wish that parts of your life could be less dominated by conflicts. Say aloud those hopes. Express them positively. Say, “I would like to find common ground with my in-laws and be able to be a family again,” rather than “I would like my in-laws to see that I was right.” This is not about winning. This is about peace. Your notes can help you think through what you want to say and how you want to say it.
Then offer your hopes for healing. Say, “Concordia, help us heal the wounds we have taken, as individuals and as a society. Help us begin to heal.” You may find this very emotional if your experiences are raw. Remember, you are not asking for healing to be complete. It may not be for many years. You are asking for her aid to begin the process.
When you have expressed yourself to Concordia, thank her for listening and blow the candle out.
You are ready to move into the next phase. It’s time to think about how to heal the world in the aftermath of the fire.
60. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004).
61. Inscription found in Rome at the Tarentum, dating from 17 BCE.
62. Horace, Carmen Seculare, trans. A. S. Kline (London: Poetry in Translation, 2005).
63. “25 Avril 1792: Première Utilisation de la Guillotine sur un Condamné,” France-pittoresque.com, April 25, 2019, https://www.france-pittoresque.com/spip.php?article5744.