THESAURUS ONLINE FREE DICTIONARY
One fascinating aspect of the Akitu involved a kind of ritual
humiliation endured by the Babylonian king. This peculiar tradition saw
the king brought before a statue of the god Marduk, stripped of his
royal regalia and forced to swear that he had led the city with honor. A
high priest would then slap the monarch and drag him by his ears in the
hope of making him cry. If royal tears were shed, it was seen as a sign
that Marduk was satisfied and had symbolically extended the king’s
rule. Some historians have since argued that these political elements
suggest the Akitu was used by the monarchy as a tool for reaffirming the
king’s divine power over his people.
THESAURUS ONLINE FREE DICTIONARY
The Roman New Year also originally corresponded with the vernal equinox,
but years of tampering with the solar calendar eventually saw the
holiday established on its more familiar date of January 1. For the
Romans, the month of January carried a special significance. Its name
was derived from the two-faced deity Janus, the god of change and
beginnings. Janus was seen as symbolically looking back at the old and
ahead to the new, and this idea became tied to the concept of transition
from one year to the next.
