More on St Agatha

After posting yesterday's piece on St Agatha I had a look on Google.  There are thousands of sites.  I narrowed the range by putting in history but still got far too many so I opened the first one up which was St Agatha's parish church in NSW, Australia.  They had a very brief history that told me that Quintianus was a Roman senator and that St Agatha was martyred around 251AD during the persecution of Christians at the time of Emperor Decius.  This site seemed to be aimed at young people and St Agatha was held up as a role model for saying no to sex before marriage and also for sticking by your faith commitment.

I followed up by searching for Quintianus and strangely I got an article on Quintinus and Marsaxlokk!  It seems that early historians picked up on a history by Quintinus suggesting that there was a temple to Hercules at Tas-Silg (see my previous post) near Marsaxlokk.  This idea was perpetuated and sometimes included the temple site at Birzebuggia even suggesting that the two were linked.  More recent explorations suggest that neither of these sites was dedicated to Hercules and the Tas-Silg site was actually a temple to Isis.  So I went looking for Quintianus and found something else about my home town!

Another site that came up for Quintianus was a Catholic forum site.  Here the story of St Agatha is written in old biblical language and added a few more details to the framework I have gleaned so far.  It seems that when the "lascivious advances" of senator Quintianus were rejected for the first time, he packed Agatha off to a house of prostitution run by Aphrodisia and her nine daughters.  They worked very hard on trying to persuade Agatha that if she took on the senator she would have a life of luxury and comfort.  Of course St Agatha chose to be a cult figure for the next two thousand years rather than become a housewife for a lifetime.  So Quintianus proceeded with the big stick side of his proposition.

The other thing I found out on the religious saints site was that the saint who visited Agatha in her cell after her breasts were cut off was St Peter and miraculously, after he had left having been told by Agatha that she didn't want anyone but the lord to heal her wounds, "her paps were restored."  It also seems that when Agatha was being burnt, Etna started erupting and her veil was used to stop the lava destroying the town.

I took the picture that heads the post on the evening of the third day of St Agatha's feast.  I walked down via Etnea before it got dark and enjoyed watching the candle bearers preparing for the final procession.  University square was the best spot for this.  Most of the candle bearers were men, apart from the two women that I snapped.  There is quite a knack to getting the massive candles going and the bearers carry knives to pare the wax and keep the wicks trimmed.  The padding is to cushion the shoulder once they get moving and the flaming end sticks out behind them so the hot wax drips to the ground.  The whole of the processional route had been covered in sawdust but it still looked to me like a highly risky operation!

As the time for the procession drew closer more and more candle bearers came into the square and got their candles going along the route.  As the crowd was also growing it became more and more difficult for them to get through with the heavy load on their shoulder and I began to feel overwhelmed so I escaped from the square and used some backroads to get into piazza duomo where I slipped into the cathedral.  There was a service going on and it was packed but people were wandering in and out.  One little girl had a massive Minnie Mouse balloon.

When I came out, I threaded my way through the crowded piazza and went through the gate that leads down to the river where there were market stalls set up.  As I came through the gate, something  happened in one section of the market crowd and there was a sudden surge of people away from whatever it was.  I never found out but it worried me enough to turn round and make my way back.  I used the back roads again to make my way further down via Etnea where I tried to establish a place on a corner from where I thought I could watch the parade.

As it got darker, the crowd got larger and larger and it became more and more difficult for me to avoid being elbowed or having a cigarette poked in my face.  The whistles of the candelore heralded the start of the procession but I only managed to hang on until they had reached my corner and then I gave up.  It was no longer fun!  I squeezed out of the crowd and headed off through the back roads to my hotel.  The procession goes on all night but I was in bed before the end of it had left the cathedral!