A piece in the Principium series.
The secrets of power.
Os segredos do poder.
A phrase attributed to Publius (Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus, or simply Tacitus (55–120), referring to secret affairs of State (or of any organisation with universal ambitions). Tacitus was a Roman historian, orator and politician. He held the offices of quaestor, praetor (88), consul (97) and proconsul of Asia (around 110–113).
The "Horned God" is a modern term coined to describe numerous male deities from a range of mythologies, even historically unrelated ones. They include, for example, the Celtic Cernunnos, the Gaelic Caerwiden, the English Herne the Hunter, the Hindu Pashupati, the Greek Pan and satyrs, the Norse Odin and even Palaeolithic cave paintings such as "the Sorcerer" in the French cave of the "Trois-Frères". The traditional pantheons of horned gods are European, since that is where these beliefs were born.
The Horned God is the phallic god of fertility. He is usually depicted as a bearded man with hooves and horns. He is the guardian of the entrances and of the magic circle drawn for the ritual to begin. He is the God of the woods, the Oak and Holly King and lord of the forests. He is the God who dies and is always reborn. His cycles of death and life represent our own existence. The oldest known image of the Horned God is that of the God with the antlers of a stag or elk, the Lord of the Forests.
Illustration by Joseph Maclise, from his book "Surgical Anatomy" (1859), with a correction (reconstruction of the illustration) of the left arm.
The conch, as a symbol of concealment, hides the horned god's secrets inside him. The illustration is by A. R. d'Apreval and depicts an Argobuccinum giganteum.
