Greetings!

Rome! ROMA! All Roads Lead to Rome . . . These words bring to my imagination Ancient Rome and all of its glory!!! The Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the three coins in the fountain myth, Italian food . . . Venice with St Mark’s Square and gondola rides on the canals . . . Florence with its amazing art and the statue of David . . . the Bay of Naples, Pompeii, Mt Vesuvius, the Amalfi Coast, the island of Capri and the incredible Blue Grotto and then there is Sicily . . . to begin to tell you of my adventure is somehow beyond words but what if I told you that Ancient Rome and all that we think of as OLD in Italy, is actually a newcomer to the land of Italy?

The most amazing piece that I discovered during my tour of Italy is that there were civilizations before the Romans – actually quite a few in Italy and Sicily– the Etruscans, the Greeks, the Samnites and the Phoenicians to name just a few - and Sicily is a story in itself, with its first peoples – the Sicles - coming from the Etruscans. The oldest Etruscan sites have been found in northern Italy while the oldest Greek and Phoenician colonies are in southern Italy and Sicily. In Pompeii, there is evidence of the Etruscan, Samnite, and Greek cultures in the building of the city itself through its many stages from 600 BCE until the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in August 79CE.

The oldest cultures in the Bay of Naples were the Greeks and the Etruscans, both settling communities in competition with each other around 775 BCE. Many of these sites are still in existence and we saw them on our tour – Cuma, Naples, and Pompeii to name the most recognized today.

Italy itself is a palimpsest – which means something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form. The differences and influences of these varied cultures have all impacted what we consider to be the culture of the ancient Romans – down to their clothing, the way the rooms of their homes were arranged, the design of their monuments and tombs, and so many more ways that Ancient Rome was the way it was – down to the very foundation of the Roman culture – of which nearly every facet of religious ritual, domestic organization, family structure, burial practices and government. The way the Roman people lived, worshiped, ruled themselves, organized their families and cared for their dead define their culture, and all of these areas came to them from their Etruscan neighbors.

The Etruscan people seem to have come from nowhere – in the sense that they have always been in the northern part of what we now call Italy, they did not emigrate from another place – and it would seem that these people still exist within what we considered Ancient Rome and the Italy that we know today. I found such fascination with this idea, that when I encountered the specific traces of the Etruscans in so many areas I visited in Italy, I began to experience a true respect for this hardy group of peoples who have done so much to influence my world as I know it today, as they did within the Roman Empire and even back to the last three kings of Italy that were Etruscan.

After connecting the dots in the backstory of Italy – the ancient Roman Empire being a relative new-comer to this scene, preceded by the Phoenicians, the Greeks who came to the Italian peninsula and the Etruscans who were already on this land – this trip has brought me back to the source of our Order’s Tradition with the visit to the Black Madonna at Positano in southern Italy and the exquisite Black Madonna at Tindari in Sicily.

In very ancient times, the land of Egypt was called Kemet, which means black – so named for the rich dark soil along the Nile River. Isis was the primary female goddess in Egypt and this led – over the millennia – to the portrayal of Isis holding baby Horus being portrayed as black and called Queen of the Universe – the ultimate Divine Sacred Feminine. The worship of Isis spread throughout the Mediterranean area and into Europe where Isis was continued to be venerated even to this day. Over the millennia her name changed to Minerva in Roman times and to Athena for the ancient Greeks, but it was still the same veneration of the Divine Feminine – the Source of all – the color black being associated with the fecundity of Mother Earth. It was no accident that we stayed at lodgings named for Athena and Minerva whenever they were available on this 2019 Sacred Italy tour.

The legacy of the Etruscan people – coming from the region they are associated with and still interconnected with the region today – can be compared to our beloved Order which traces its roots back to the Primordial Tradition, although the names of the cultures are different as it goes through the millennia, the underlying root of our Order is the same – only the name changes, not the Tradition or the values. This is the message I brought back from my tour of Italy and Sicily with our Grand Master in August/September 2019.

Peace Profound,

Terry Orlikoski, SRC

Colorado Regional Monitor