I am Maxine Culpa. Along with my late daughter Mia, I first became aquainted with Saint Sybian through our husband, Composer Felix Sebastian Culpa. He was born and raised in Calabria, Italia, near the site of the ancient Greek settlement of Sybaris, in the last century. When he was thirteen, Sybian began to appear to him, initiating him into her spiritual and sensual world. Felix, who was forced to disappear after unfortunate and definitely unsaintlike events , told us of Sybian's devotion to the pleasures of the father's creation: food, drink, the arts (particularly music and dance) all nature ---especially the body!! With the help of American Musicologist Patrick Lockwood, I have written these entries. Now, He also has been taken from us. Our new Scribe is Daniel Pierce, and our new Goddesss is Esperanza, whom Sybian herself has ordained. I hope that all who view this site will be encouraged to let their minds and senses wander to discover the voluptuous gifts the father freely gives us. Newcomers are urged to go to the earliest postings.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

The Destruction of Sybaris:Defeat Dances to the Melodies of Decadence



Sybaris was attacked by neighboring Croton in 510 B.C.According to Athanaeus, the Sybarites had even trained their horses to dance at their feasts to the accompaniment
of pipes (similar to today's "Lippizan Stallions".) The people of Croton knew this when they made war on the Sybarites. "As the cavalries opposed each other on the field, Croton's musicians began to play the horse-marching music, whose tune was revealed by a Sybarite flute player seeking revenge for some insult. When the horses heard the pipers, they went into their ceremonial march and became useless for battle, dancing with their riders to the side of Croton. The Crotoniats with very inferior forces were completely victorious. They razed Sybaris to the ground and turned the waters of the Krathis River* to flow over its ruins."
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*named after Krathis, a young goatherd who "under an impulse lay with the prettiest of his goats." From this union a baby was born with the legs of a goat and the face of a human, who was deified and worshipped as a god [a PAN.] The goatherd was rammed in the fore-part of his skull as he slept by the he-goat leader of the flock and was killed.
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