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| | Sacred king - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-30) |
 | | A sacred king, according to the system of mythology developed by Sir James George Frazer in his influential book The Golden Bough, was a king who represented a solar deity in a periodically re-enacted fertility rite. |
 | | Another Roman priest given the title of "king" was the rex Nemorensis, an escaped slave who was priest of Diana at Nemi, and who attained his position of uneasy honour by killing the previous incumbent of his priesthood, after showing his worthiness by plucking a golden bough from a sacred tree. |
 | | And the sacred king, the human embodiment of the dying and reviving god, was supposed to have been an individual, made king, chosen to rule for a time, but whose fate was to suffer as a sacrifice, offered back to the earth so that a new king could rule for a time in his stead. |
| www.encyclopedia-online.info /Rex_sacrorum (599 words) |
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