FROM GODDESS TO KING
A History of Ancient Europe from the
OERA LINDA BOOK
By Anthony Radford
CHAPTER 9
MINERVA AND THE STORY OF GREECE
 | A Roman representation of Minerva. |
Minerva was the Roman goddess of handicrafts, arts, professionals and later, that of war. She is commonly identified with the Greek goddess, Athene, the city protectress, goddess of war and handicrafts, an urbanized pre-Hellenic goddess taken over by the Greeks. She dwelled on the Acropolis of Athens, a virgin with no consort hence the term "Pallas Athena" which originally simply meant a maiden but came to mean a lusty youth. Tradition, and also in the writing of Plato, has it that Athena was foreign born, that she was from the sea, coming fully grown out of the head of Zeus and born on a seashell. Other myths put her birth in Libya near Lake Triton, which in ancient times was very large. The book says that Nyhellenia Minerva did stop at Libya when the ships of the sea-kings Jon and Inka were divided.
An inspiration to the heroes of Homer’s Iliad, she also epitomized wisdom for the early city occupants. Born fully armed out of the head of Zeus and that is how it must have appeared to the inhabitants of Attica when she moved there with all her Frisian soldiers. No derivation of the name "Athens" is satisfactorily given but if we read on we will see what the Oera Linda Book has to say.
The traditional beginnings of Athens recall the "unification" of the city in the reign of Theseus attesting to existing settlements at that time. This date, according to legend that is, is at the end of the high profile, Minoan period, the time of the destruction of the palace at Knossos, the end of the third tribute of youths shipped to Crete and independence for the mainland Greeks.
The story of Minerva is next found in the writings of Minno, a sea-king who spent many years in the Mediterranean and returned to record his exploits. Jon and Minerva had separated, she staying in Crete where her following had built a citadel for her and her maidens.
Minno’s writings tell of Minerva established as a Mother in Crete. It reads as though Crete and Attica was one country with Attica much less developed and paying tribute to a superior power but not necessarily to Crete. The priests and princes sought her advice that encouraged the commoners to accept the spirit of freedom she so eloquently elucidates. They did not oppose her doctrines but corrupted them into a vehicle for their own use. No wonder Minno as we will later read believed it impossible to teach the spirit of Frya to Finda’s people or to the original Greeks.
Here is explained the process by which the function and duties of the priestesses (virgins) were corrupted into political tools of the priests. The priestesses were originally set up to nurse the needy, teach the young to read, and advise according to Frya’s doctrine or Tex. They were celibate while in office but went about the people as needed. The priests turned them into institutional prisoners to give themselves legitimacy, asked for the advise to be given in an ambiguous and mysterious way like the various oracular prophesies so that they could interpret them to their own advantage. The process is recorded here for Greece, which has given us so many stories from this period concerning the machinations of the priestesses. In Roman times the Vestal Virgins became a state regulated institution of highly ritualistic authority with only a remnant of the original services such as keeping the will of the emperor or other secret state documents.
When Nyhellenia, whose real name was Minerva, was well established, and the Cretans loved her as well as our own people did, there came some princes and priests to her citadel and asked Minerva where her possessions lay.
Hellenia answered, "I carry my possessions in my own bosom. What I have inherited is the love of wisdom, justice and freedom. If I lose these I shall become as the least of your slaves; now I give advice for nothing, but then I should sell it."
The gentlemen went away laughing and saying, "Your humble servants, wise Hellenia". But they missed their object, for the people took up this name as a name of honor. When they saw that their shot had been missed they began to defame her, and to say that she had bewitched the people; but our people and the good Cretans understood at once that it was defamation.
She was once asked, "If you are not a witch, what is the use of the eggs that you always carry with you?"
Minerva answered, "These eggs are the symbols of Frya’s counsels, in which our future and that of the whole human race lies concealed. Time will hatch them, and we must watch that no harm happens to them.
The priests said, "Well answered; but what is the use of the dog on your right hand?"
Hellenia replied, "Does not the shepherd have a sheep dog to keep his flock together? What the dog is to the shepherd I am in Frya’s service. I must watch over Frya’s flocks.
"We understand that very well," said the priests; "but tell us what means the owl that always sits upon your head, is that light-shunning animal a sign of your clear vision?"
"No", answered Hellenia; "he reminds me that there are people on earth who, like him, have their homes in churches and holes, who go about in the twilight, not, like him, to deliver us from mice and other plagues, but to invent tricks to steal away the knowledge of other people, in order to take advantage of them, to make slaves of them, and to suck their blood like leeches."
Another time they came with a whole troop of people, when the plague was in the country and said: "We are all making offerings to the gods that they may take away the plague. Will you not help to turn away their anger, or have you yourself brought the plague into the land with all your arts?"
"No", said Minerva; "I know no gods that do evil, therefore I cannot ask them to do better. I only know one good spirit, that is Wr-Alda’s; and as he is good he never does evil."
"Where, then, does evil come from?" asked the priests.
"All the evil comes from you and from the stupidity of the people who let themselves be deceived by you."
"If, then, your god is so exceedingly good, why does he not turn away from the bad?" asked the priests.
Hellenia answered: "Frya has placed us here, and the Carrier, that is, Time, must do the rest. For all calamities there is counsel and remedy to be found, but Wr-Alda wills that we should search it out ourselves, in order that we may become strong and wise. If we will not do that, he leaves us to our own devices, in order that we may experience the results of wise or foolish conduct."
Then a prince said, "I should think it best to submit."
"Very possibly," answered Hellenia; "for then men would be like sheep, and you and the priests would take care of them, shearing and leading them to the shambles. This is what our god does not desire, he desires that we should help one another, but that all should be free and wise. That is also our desire, and therefore our people choose their princes, counts, councilors, chiefs, and masters among the wisest of the good men, in order that every man shall do his best to be wise and good. Thus doing, we learn ourselves and teach the people that being wise and acting wisely can alone lead to holiness."
"That seems very good judgment," said the priests; "but if you mean that the plague is caused by our stupidity, then Nyhellenia will perhaps be so good as to bestow upon us a little of that new light of which she is so proud."
"Yes", said Hellenia, "but ravens and other birds of prey feed only on dead carrion, whereas the plague feeds not only on carrion but on bad laws and customs and wicked passions. If you wish the plague to depart from you and not return, you must put away your bad passions and become pure within and without."
"We admit that the advice is good," said the priests, "but how shall we induce all the people under our rule to agree to it?"
Then Hellenia stood up and said: "The sparrows follow the sower, and the people their good princes, therefore it becomes you to begin by rendering yourselves pure, so that you may look within and without, and not be ashamed of your own conduct. Now, instead of purifying the people, you have invented foul festivals, in which they have so long reveled that they wallow like swine in the mire to atone for your evil passions."
The people began to mock and to jeer, so that she did not dare to pursue the subject; and one would have thought that they would have called all the people together to drive us out of the land; but no, in place of abusing her they went all about from the heathen Crete to the Alps, proclaiming that it had pleased the Almighty God to send his clever daughter, Minerva, surnamed Nyhellenia, over the sea in a cloud to give people good counsel, and that all who listened to her should become rich and happy, and in the end governors of all the kingdoms of the earth. They erected statues to her on all their altars, they announced and sold to the simple people advice that she had never given, and related miracles that she had never performed.
They cunningly made themselves masters of our laws and customs, and by craft and subtlety were able to explain and spread them around. They appointed priestesses under their own care, who were apparently under the protection of Fasta, our first Earth Mother, to watch over the holy lamp; but that lamp they lit themselves, and instead of imbuing the priestesses with wisdom, and then sending them to watch the sick and educate the young, they made them stupid and ignorant, and never allowed them to come out. They were employed as advisers, but the advice which seemed to come from them was but the repetition of the bidding of the priests.
Minerva received a delegation of common people from Greece who were subject to foreign domination, paying tribute to a power that some historians suggest were the Iolians in Asia Minor, from where their overlords most likely originated. The local masters were not against independence as that would leave more for themselves.
The people wanted her to come to Greece and help them with her wisdom but more practically, to have the help of the fighting skills of her Frisian seamen. Minerva did not stay in Crete but moved to Greece apparently at the invitation of the people from Attica with whom the settlers were trading. When there she was not convinced that they were ready for her teachings but predicted it would take another 5000 years.
When they had finished their story they asked respectfully for iron weapons; for, said they, "Our foes are powerful, but if we have good arms we can withstand them." When this had been agreed to, the people asked if Frya’s customs would flourish in Athens and in other parts of Greece.
The Mother answered, "If the distant Greeks belong to the direct descent of Frya, then they will flourish; but if they do not descend from Frya, then there will be a long contention about it, because the Carrier must make five thousand revolutions of his Jule before Finda’s people will be ripe for liberty."
In Attica, Minerva built a new citadel at Athens, naming it the City of Friends where in classical Greek times, the principal temple of the goddess Pallas Athena was the Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens. She failed to get the local gentry to free their slaves, as Classical Greece was a collection of slave states with citizenship reserved for the free estate-owning male minority. That this system should have become a model for democracy and is generally credited with inventing democratic methods falls so far short of the more noble principles that they failed to embrace.
When Minerva had examined the country which is called by the inhabitants Attica, she saw that the people were all goatherds, and that they lived on meat, wild roots, herbs and honey. They were clothed in skins, and had their dwellings on the slopes of the hills, wherefore they were called Hellingers. At first they ran away, but when they found out that we did not attack them, they came back and showed great friendship.
Minerva asked if we might settle there peaceably. This was agreed to on the condition that we should help them to fight against their neighbors, who came continually to carry away their children and to rob their dwellings. Then we built a citadel at an hour’s distance from the harbor. By the advice of Minerva, it was called Athens, because, she said, "Those who come after us ought to know that we are not here by cunning or violence, but were received as friends."
While we were building the citadel the principal personages came to see us, and when they saw that we had no slaves it did not please them, and they gave her to understand it, as they thought that she was a princess.
But Minerva said, "How did you get your slaves?"
They answered, "We bought some and took others in war."
Minerva replied, "If nobody would buy slaves they would not steal your children, and you would have no wars about it. If you wish to remain our allies, you will free your slaves."
The chiefs did not like this, and wanted to drive us away; but the most enlightened of the people came and helped us to build our citadel, which was built of stone.
In a later extract, their city is described as having been fortified with a wall having "two stone horns down to the sea". This is how Piraeus, the port of Athens, is now known to have been protected and therefore could date its construction to the sixteenth century BC.
