HOME    ABOUT SATOR    LANDER    CONTENTS    INTRODUCTION    READ    ABOUT COVER    AVE

Page 7.

Augural Cruciform

The Sator Square was almost certainly originally an old oral saying of the Latin countryside. As such, it probably had some variants that have been lost. When it was put into written form, it solidified in the forms we know--the Sator Square, and the Rotas Square, which are interchangeable.

Modern monotheists, seeing the tenet-tenet cruciform in the middle of the Sator Square, are tempted to think that the Sator Square might be a Christian artifact. It's a notion that can neither be confirmed nor denied with absolute certainty. But one can reasonably throw cold water on such a notion. The cruciform, or cross-shape, far predates Christianity, as does god the father (pater noster).

The cross or cruciform was not a favorite Christian symbol early on. In Roman society, the cross was a mark of shame. By custom, certain types of crimes received standard punishments, in a variety of horrifying and inventive ways. Crucifixion was a particularly nasty and painful way to die, reserved for the worst criminals, slaves, and traitors. That's why the symbol of choice for early Christians was the fish, which echoed some of Christ's miracles.

Augury, reading the will of the gods, was an ancient practice already when Rome was still in the Iron Age, 1,000 BCE. As far back as we know--to ancient Sumer, at least five thousand years ago--people were practicing augury. There were many ways to read the signs of the gods. Some studied the flight of birds, or the movements of the planets. Horoscopy (study of the hour of birth, to compare with the relationships of the planets and stars at that time) is an ancient art that persists today, and its detailed studies of the heavens led to modern astronomy. Others studied the entrails and livers of sacrificed animals. The ancient Romans took augurs and chickens to war, and read the signs from heaven in whether the chickens ate or not. The very idea of numenism (based on numina, gestures or nods) suggests that the gods communicate with us, not in words or texts, but in gestures and signs.

The most common way to augur was to draw a cruciform on the ground, and then watch for any signs from nature. The Romans learned their initial method of augury from the Etruscans, their more advanced neighbors to the north in Tuscany. The cruciform was generally drawn in a standard manner. The Etruscans were even more precise than the Romans in many ways.

One drew a north-south axis called the cardo, or hinge. One drew an east-west axis perpendicular to the cardo, and intersecting it, called the decumanus. Quite likely, the word decumanus comes from a temple tax or state tax of ten percent (decim, ten + humanus, farm land, soil).

The original Etruscan method called for the observers, or augurs, to stand at the southern tip of the cross, looking north.

The left (sinister) was bad, while the right (dexter) was good. Even as the Romans conquered the Greeks, they were also absorbing the already conquered Etruscans. The Greeks introduced a slightly different method of augury, in which the observer stands at the northern end of the quadrangle, looking south. However, west, where the sun dies its daily death, contined to be associated with bad karma. The Latin word 'sinister' survives with its ill meaning intact, into modern times.

The two quadrants closer to the observer signified events happening in the near term, while the more distant quadrants signified events further in the future. The past, of course, is finished, and requires no augury.

Homer's The Odyssey describes an eagle flying over the sailors' right shoulders at a critical time of decision about where to head. The eagle was a totem bird related to Zeus; since that particular bird flew over the right, the eagle's presence was taken as a positive sign from the father of gods and men.

The Etruscans compiled centuries' worth of observations for comparison. The Romans relied on the Etruscans through much of the monarchy and the early republic. Wealthy Romans sent their sons to Etruscan schools to learn the Disciplina Etrusca, or Etruscan Method.

The Romans, and indeed most people around the ancient Mediterranean, extensively used augural methods to read the will of the gods in building public structures, all of whom tied in to the state religion.

That state religion evolved from animist beginnings, whose ritual beliefs and practices stayed embedded in polytheism and survived, in many cases, into monotheism. Purifying the altar with incense, holding processions, and lighting candles are just three of many surviving ritual practices.

To people who have only known and understood monotheism in their lifetimes, it may well seem that the Sator Square must be Christian. That is a flimsy assumption—one without merit, I think. At the same time, while Sator’s origins are not Christian, the long-term effect of the Sator aphorism is stunning.

One can find neo-Platonist echoes in Christian medieval theologies forward into modern times, like vines growing around the subjects of free will, sin, and redemption. If indeed Father God holds the Plow (Sator Fate), there must still be Rotas Fate (you turn the furrows; you make daily moral decisions), and the latter affect your standing both in this life and in a hypothetical afterlife like posited for Christians and their salvation (or lack thereof due to sin induced by free will and all the other antecedents in this chain of consequence).

NOW AVAILABLE: The book (article) by John T. Cullen is now available for purchase at Amazon.com and other sites or stores. Visit:

TOP