The Tauroboliad or the Sacrifice of the Constitution. A Satire
by Taurobolium
- Used
- Hardcover
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
LONDON, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Hatchard and Son..., 1831. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 12mo, 194 x 119 mms., pp. [v] - viii, 104, original binder's cloth, paper label on spine (faded), uncut and largely unopened with top margin of pp vi-vii carelessly opened, and small circular armorial bookplate (?Elton) on front paste-down end-paper The volume is inscribed by the anonymous author "To the Hereditary Guardians of the British Constitution the Peers of England This Satire is inscribed." In the preface, the author refers the founding of the ceremony of the Taurobolium by Julian the Apostate, alluding to the sacrifice of a bull, which was practiced "rom about AD 160 in the Mediterranean cult of the Great Mother of the Gods. Celebrated primarily among the Romans, the ceremony enjoyed much popularity and may have been introduced by the Roman emperor. The nature and purpose of the ceremony seems to have gradually changed during the late 2nd and 3rd centuries. At the beginning it apparently resembled similar sacrifices performed in the cults of other deities, such as Mithra. By about 300, however, the ceremony had changed drastically. The person dedicating the sacrifice lay in a pit with a perforated board placed over the pit's opening. A bull was slaughtered above him, and the person in the pit bathed in the blood streaming down. Thus the ceremony, perhaps influenced by Christianity, gradually took on the elements of moral purification" (Encyclopedia Britannica). The poem is written in decasyllabic syllabic couplets as a dialogue between a Tory and a Whig, and many of the assertions would not sound out-of-place in the current Brexit debates and debacles.
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Details
- Bookseller
- John Price Antiquarian Books (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 9413
- Title
- The Tauroboliad or the Sacrifice of the Constitution. A Satire
- Author
- Taurobolium
- Book Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- London: Hatchard and Son..., 1831
- Keywords
- politics government literature
- Bookseller catalogs
- politics;
Terms of Sale
John Price Antiquarian Books
Payment by cheque, credit card, cash. New customers will be invoiced pro forma. Books may be returned within two weeks for any reason; refund within 1 month for any reason; negotiable after that, but no returns after one year.
About the Seller
John Price Antiquarian Books
Biblio member since 2006
LONDON
About John Price Antiquarian Books
I work from home, but I am happy to see customers at almost any time by appointment.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Paste-down
- The paste-down is the portion of the endpaper that is glued to the inner boards of a hardback book. The paste-down forms an...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Inscribed
- When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- Unopened
- A state in which all or some of the pages of a book have not been separated from the adjacent pages, caused by a traditional...
- 12mo
- A duodecimo is a book approximately 7 by 4.5 inches in size, or similar in size to a contemporary mass market paperback. Also...
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...