DANIEL ZAMUDIO SAINT OF ANTINOUS

WE honor Daniel Zamudio as a blessed and beloved Saint of Antinous.

Through his horrific death in Santiago de Chile at the hands of Nazi thugs, Daniel Zamudio spawned outrage throughout the Spanish-speaking world which forced politicians in Chile to enact anti-discrimation laws.

On the morning of March 3, 2012, 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio was admitted to Santiago's Posta Central Hospital with severe cranio-cerebral trauma, cranial haemorrhage, multiple cuts and contusions on the face, thorax and limbs, aspiration pneumonia and a compound fracture of tibia and fibula of his right leg.

Daniel Zamudio had been tortured for nearly six hours by four youths allegedly belonging to neo-Nazi groups, who assaulted him simply because he is gay.

In his statement, one of the suspects, Raúl López, said they "kicked and punched (Zamudio) in the head, on the face, in the testicles, on his legs, all over his body." Then they carved three swastikas on him with the jagged glass of a pisco bottle that, minutes earlier, they had broken on his head.

Zamudio, a clothing store salesman, was attacked in a park in Santiago by thugs who singled him out because he was gay.

The second of four brothers, he had hoped to study theater, his brother Diego said. "He was very loving, an excellent person and that's why it's so hard to believe that they attacked him with such hate," he said.

Antinous is the God of ALL people who have suffered and been martyred for being gay. Daniel Zamudio is in the embrace of Antinous the Gay God.

THE LEAPING PRIESTS OF MARS DANCED THROUGH THE STREETS IN MARCH

MARCH is the month dedicated to Mars, god of war and fertility. In Rome 24 young patrician men would be chosen to act as "Salii" dancers to get March off to a martial start. 

We wonder if Antinous was allowed to be one of the Salii. But at any rate, he would have watched in awe as this ancient Roman spectacle unfolded before his eyes on March 1.

The Salii were the "leaping priests" of Mars in Ancient Rome introduced by King Numa Pompilius: twelve pairs of patrician youths, dressed in outfits worn by archaic warriors. 

They wore an embroidered tunic, a breastplate, a red cloak (paludamentum), a sword, and a spiked headdress called an apex.

They carried the 12 bronze ancilia (shields).

These shields resembled a figure-of-eight, like Mycenaean shields.

One of the shields was said to have fallen from heaven in the reign of King Numa, and eleven copies were made to protect the identity of the sacred shield, on the advice of the nymph Egeria, 'consort' of Numa, who prophesied that wherever that shield was preserved the people would be the dominant people of the earth.

On March 1 they would lead a procession through the city, singing, dancing and leaping high in the air as they clashed their swords or spears against their shields.

At night the Salii would congregate in the temple and feast in honour of Mars. Emperor Claudius is said to have left his own banquet and gone to join them as their food and wine was better than his own.