festivals there were two, the Lesser Eleusinia in Spring (the month
Anthesterion, March), when the ravished one came up out of the
netherworld into the sunlight; these festivals were observed at Agrae;
and the Greater Eleusinia in Autumn (the month Boedromion, October),
when she must follow her sullen spouse again to Hades; they were
observed at Athens and Eleusis. There was a preliminary celebration at
Athens, and at Eleusis the high celebration. The preliminary solemnity
lasted six days, Boedromion 15th to 20th. On the first day Initiates
from every region wherever the Greek language was heard and Grecian
hearts beat for the gods, assembled in the Poecile at Athens and there
heard the order of the exercises proclaimed by the Hierophant, after his
aides had first in a loud voice bidden the bloodguilty to depart. On the
second day the mystae were summoned to go down to the seashore and to
perform in the sacred brine the act of purification, requisite for a
worthy observance of the solemnity. The remaining days were spent in
performing the prescribed sacrifices, sharing in the sacrificial
banquets, and making the customary solemn processions. On the sixth day
came the grand Iacchus Procession, numbering thousands of mystae, of
both sexes; these, issuing from the Sacred Gate, wended along the Sacred
Road to Eleusis. They wore crowns of parsley and myrtle, and in their
hands carried ears of corn, implements of husbandry and torches; for
though the procession set out betimes it moved slowly, and reached the
destination late, to celebrate the festival in the hallowed night.
Iacchus himself was believed to be the leader of the procession, which
was headed by his image in the form of a babe with costly toys and
cradle. The line of march lay along the brink of the sea over the same
flowery fields and grassy meadows of the Thriasian plains, which had
been the scene of the rape of Persephone. The route was fourteen miles
long, but to the participants in their festive mood it was short, and
besides they made frequent halts at the various sanctuaries on the way,
practicing mystic rites and offering sacrifices. The rude wild chorus of
the Hymn to Iacchus resounded, with intervals of animated dances and
flute-playing, and frequent shouts of Io, Iacchus, hail! But as we learn
from the “Frogs” of Aristophanes, the processionists meanwhile indulged
freely in merriment, chaffing their fellows, and making love to the
women and girls. It was customary for women to make the journey in wains
till a demagogue in the time of Demosthenes procured the abolition of
this “privilege of the rich.”
In the evening of the first day at Eleusis the mystae in common drank of
the sacred potion Kykeon, by which Demeter was comforted at Eleusis
during her wandering. It was a decoction of barley, wine, and grated
cheese; to these afterward were added, one by one, honey, milk, certain
herbs, salt, and onions. During the three succeeding nights the
performing of the mystic rites and the initiations took place, the
principal feature being the torch-processions representing Demeter’s
search for Persephone: during the day the Initiates seem to have fasted.
After the initiations the festival was transformed into a scene of
merriment and gymnastic competition. Probably the mystae returned to
Athens processionally, and there the report on the festival was made to
the Boule, whose non-initiated members had first to retire.
It was at these festivals that the rites of initiation into the
Eleusinian mysteries were performed. Initiation was in two degrees,
viz., that of the Lesser, and that of the Greater mysteries. Initiation
into the Lesser mysteries took place during the preliminary festival,
and that into the Greater mysteries either at the greater festival next
ensuing or at the greater festival of a subsequent year. The Initiates
of the Lesser mysteries were called Mystae, those of the Greater
mysteries, Epoptae (those who have seen). It is probable that at both of
the annual festivals the mystae took part only in the external
ceremonies, and that only the Epoptae (or adepts) were admitted into the
Sacred House at Eleusis, or inducted into the occult meaning of the
festivals and ceremonies: this we infer from the exceedingly large
number of the mystae.
The one who wished to be admitted to the mysteries had to apply to an
initiated citizen of Athens, who by appointment of the authorities
served as mediator between him and the priests: hence he was called
Mystagogos, guide or sponsor of the postulant. As a rule the postulant
was required to be a Hellene. Foreigners were admitted only when they
were men of distinction, such, for example, as the Scythian philosopher
Anacharsis. After the conquest of Greece by the Romans, Roman citizens
stood on equality with Hellenes. There was no discrimination on the
ground of sex. But no one stained with bloodguiltiness could be
admitted.
Those who came up for admission to the degree of Epoptes, and who, as we
suppose, had never entered the “Mystic House,” were left to wander
through its mazes, in profound darkness, meeting toils and hindrances
and dangers. Then followed rites in which the courage of the candidates
was subjected to the severest tests, so as to fill them with “fear and
trembling and dread amaze.” It is very probable that the terrors of the
test were borrowed from the Grecian ideas of the netherworld. But after
the darkness came brightness, after Tartarus Elysium, the Field of the
Blest. The epoptes was suddenly gladdened by a miraculous light; smiling
plains and meadows invited his footsteps, whence we must infer that the
Mystic House was furnished forth with most ingenious scenic mechanisms,
as trapdoors, magic lanterns, and other optical contrivances. Celestial
voices and harmonies were heard, charming dances were executed, eye and
ear were flattered by a display of the uttermost resources of Grecian
art; and last came the most impressive scene of all, when the hierophant
threw open the door of the inmost shrine of Demeter, bade the epoptae
enter in, withdrew the veils from the images of the gods (whose true
meaning was thus made known), and showed godhead in its most radiant
splendor.
That the Initiates of the mysteries regarded their chances in the
netherworld as better than those of the profane we learn not only from
the sarcastic Aristophanes, who in the “Frogs” scores the mystae as in
myrtle groves they revel amid fluting and dancing, while the profane
wander in darkness and mire, lapping water like dogs; but the
serious-minded Sophocles tells us the same thing in a fragment quoted by
Plutarch: “O, thrice blest the mortals who have witnessed these solemn
rites, when they go down to Hades: for them alone is there life in the
netherworld; for all others bootless affliction and misery.”
5. THE MYSTERIES OF SAMOTHRACE.
Next after the Eleusinia, the most ancient and renowned of the Grecian
mysteries were those of the Cabiri in the island of Samothrace. Who the
Kabeiroi were—men, or intermediate beings half human, half divine, also
how many they were, no satisfactory conclusion has yet been reached on
these points. But they date from very high antiquity, before the
evolution of the several Grecian deities. In Egypt, according to
Herodotus (III., 37), they were “worshiped as sons of Hephaestus (he
means Ptah, god of Memphis); and were, like their father, figured in the
shrine as Pygmies.” That in the language of Phoenicia Kabirim means “the
great, the mighty ones,” is of no consequence, for here “great” is not
used in the sense of bodily largeness. Neither is it any objection that
in Greece the Kabeiroi are regarded as beings subordinate to the gods:
for the earlier gods ever do take second place when new gods get
footing. In early Egyptian mythology and religion the Cabiri were
personifications of the stars; and the mysteries of Samothrace were
originally an astromythology, though in time their astral significations
were forgotten. From a remark of Herodotus (II., 51) that the Athenians
got from the Pelasgians inhabiting the island of Samothrace their custom
of figuring Hermes with the Phallus (and everyone who has acquaintance
with the secret cult of the Cabiri knows what that means), we are led to
infer that in the Cabiric mysteries the reproductive forces of nature
played an important part: the symbol of those forces, the Phallus, was
employed by the nations of the East and from them passed to the Greeks,
who originally had no leaning toward such obscene imaginings. The same
inference is suggested by Juvenal’s remark that in love affairs it was
the fashion to swear by the Cabiri. For initiation into the Samothracian
mysteries the novice was required to submit to a purification by fire
and to fumigation, and to make a sort of confession. Plutarch tells of a
Spartan who at his initiation inquired of the priest whether he should
confess his sins to him or to the gods; and on the priest replying, “To
the gods.” “Then,” said the penitent, “give way, I will tell it to the
godhead alone.” Men, women, even children were initiated, and the
professed received a purple band, which they wore around the body, in
the assurance that by this means they would be safe against perils by
sea.
The Greeks used to tell of their fabled heroes, Orpheus, Agamemnon,
Odysseus, etc., that they were Initiates of these mysteries; and Philip
II. of Macedon and his queen Olympias, parents of Alexander the Great,
underwent this initiation. There were Cabirian mysteries also in several
other Grecian islands, and in several places on the continent, both in
Greece and in Asia Minor.
6. THE MYSTERIES OF CRETE.
In the island of Crete were celebrated the mysteries of Zeus. According
to the myth, the father of the gods and lord of all the world, to foil
the designs of his father Cronos, who had devoured all his other
children, was, while yet a child, taken by his mother Rhea to that
island for refuge, and there guarded in a grotto of Mt. Ida and
nourished with milk and honey by the people, who meanwhile, by dealing
blows on each other’s shields, kept up such a din as drowned the wailing
of the babe. In Crete was also shown a sepulchre of Zeus. Regarding the
Cretan mysteries we know this only, that in the Springtime the birth of
the god was commemorated at the grotto and his death at the sepulchre,
and that the while the young people (who represented the Curetae), in
armor, with dance and song and with loud beating of cymbals and drums,
enacted the story of the childhood of Zeus.
7. THE DIONYSIA.
An ancient national cult among the Hellenes, into which a mystic element
was imported from without, was the worship of Dionysos or Bacchus, i.
e., of the sun as promoting the growth of the vine: its end was plainly
to glorify the physical world, the material world, in all its
manifestations of life and force. Hence the Bacchus cult is one
predominantly materialistic, addressed to the sense of bodily pleasure,
the appetite for food and the sexual desire; and yet, inasmuch as
viticulture, like agriculture, is one of the factors of civilization,
and as the Drama had its origin in these Dionysiac festivals, it cannot
be denied that for many elements of our intellectual and spiritual
culture we are indebted to this cult. Of the festivals of Dionysos some
belonged exclusively to the popular religion, but others were connected
with mysteries. Those of the former class had their chief seat in
Attica, the others elsewhere. Of these non-mystic festivals of Dionysos
in Attica there were seven, occurring in different months of the year,
from the season of the vintage in Autumn till toward Spring, or while
the new wine was in fermentation; and some of these festivals were held
in the country, others in the city. On such occasions gymnastic sports
of a ludicrous sort were carried on, as dancing on one leg, leaping on a
leathern bag blown up with air and greased with oil outside, and trying
to maintain equilibrium, etc. At the head of a procession composed of
men and women of all ranks and degrees were borne the sacrificial
implements, then followed the victim, a he-goat, and soon came the image
of the Phallus, borne aloft with great pomp. So little did the Greeks
possess of our peculiar sense of shame that they looked on this symbol
as something entirely proper, not scrupling even to sing satirical
verses about it. After the sacrifice came jesting, banter, travesty, and
with travesty pantomime, in which was enacted the history of the god,
including of course his fabled adventures. The stage had its rise in
such festivals as these. The Spring festival, held in the month
Anthesterion (month of flowers) was kept with special solemnity. It
marked the time when the wine was racked off into the earthen pots. It
was at this festival that the Basilissa (wife of the Basileus),
accompanied by fourteen other women, entered the holy of holies of the
ancient temple of Dionysos (at all other times women were forbidden to
enter it), and there made a secret offering with mystic rites and vows.
But we have the genuine “mysterium” in the Dionysia Trietera, or
triennial festival of Dionysos. Festivals of this class seem to have
originated in Thrace, and hence among a people of Pelasgian stock. The
spirit of the Thracians, which was naturally of a gloomy cast, but when
their slumbering passions were awakened became wildly enthusiastic,
seemed in these festivals, or rather these transports of moral frenzy,
to pass into the persons of the lighthearted and selfcontrolled
Hellenes. The mad extravaganza of this phenomenon in the history of man
and his ways is seen in the Grecian hero-myth, which tells of the great
singer Orpheus and Pentheus, king of Thebes, being torn limb from limb
by the furious Maenads at festivals of Bacchus, the former because after
the death of his beloved Eurydice he never more would hear of woman’s
love, and the latter because he had spied on the festivals. For these
festivals were observed by women exclusively, who, drunken with wine,
knew no restraints of reason or humanity: they were called maenades
(madwomen) or Bacchae, and their festivals Orgia (orgies). The orgies
were conducted on mountain sides or in mountain gorges at night under
the light of torches, the fair participants, clothed in fawnskins, armed
with the thyrsus wreathed with ivy and vine leaves, with hair
disheveled, and, as the story goes, snakes tangled with its locks, or
held in the bacchantes’ hands. This festival, which occurred in the mild
midwinter of Hellas, the time of shortest days and longest nights,
continued over several days, during which the maenads, shunning all
association with the male sex, sacrificed, drank, danced, jubilated,
made noise with the double-pipe and the brazen tymbal, nay, as the
(manifestly improbable) story runs, with their own hands tore asunder
the bull, symbol of the god, and destined to the sacrifice, and gloated
over the victim’s bellowing for pain. This feat was to show forth the
death of Zagreus, one of the forms under which Dionysos appeared, and in
which he was torn asunder by the Titans because he had been chosen by
Zeus for his successor as ruler of the universe. The flesh of the bull
was torn in shreds with the teeth by the maenads and devoured raw. Then
the raving Bacchae invented a fable about the death of their god, and
how he was lost and how he must be found again. But all the anxious
searching was vain, and hope was centered in the finding again of the
all-quickening Springtide. The observance of the Dionysia was not marked
with these extravagances everywhere: in Attica such excesses were never
seen. But Athenian women would attend the secret festival on Parnassus
near Delphi, heedless of the mantle of snow on the summit.
8. THE ROMAN BACCHANALIA.
The worst disorders of Bacchus worship, as practiced in Greece, would
seem to have been equaled, or even surpassed, in the Roman Commonwealth.
The historian Livy (xxxix., 8–20) compares the introduction of the cult
into the city and its rapid spread to a visitation of plague. According
to Livy the cult was brought to Rome from Etruria. In its Etruscan and
Roman form the worship of Bacchus was simply debauchery, under the
thinnest possible cloak of religion. The festivals or orgies were at
first observed by women; but a certain priestess of Bacchus, by command
of the god, introduced the innovation of admitting men, and instead of
three Bacchic festivals a year, instituted five festivals for each
month; and whereas in Etruria the rites had been practiced in the day
time, they now began to be held at night. From considerations of
prudence the abominations of the Bacchanalia were guarded from public
view by a hedge of ceremonial, and postulants for admission were
required to practice for several days the strictest continence. But the
term of probation being over, and the postulant admitted to the company
of the Bacchanals, he or she found themselves surrounded by all
conceivable incitements to the gratification of lust, in every way that
the depraved instincts of man or woman had ever before, or perhaps has
ever since contrived. According to Livy the Initiates of these mysteries
numbered several thousand persons in the city, many of them belonging to
the most distinguished families. In addition to the abominations of
their secret meetings the Initiates were charged with conspiring against
the commonwealth, with forgery of last testaments, with poisonings and
assassinations, with the most revolting rapes. In the year 186 B. C. the
Consul Spurius Postumius Albinus, having privately made inquiries into
the doings of the sect, resolved to employ all the resources of the
state for its suppression. The circumstances which led to this
resolution were as follows: A youth of noble birth, Publius Aebutius,
whose father was dead, was the ward of his stepfather, Titus Sempronius
Rutilus. Now Sempronius had mismanaged the estate of Aebutius, and was
unable to give an account of his guardianship, and therefore wished
either to have the youth put out of the way, or to get him under his
power. The easiest way was by debauching him in the Bacchanalia.
Aebutius’s mother, devoted to her husband, pretended to the son that
during his illness she had made vow to the gods to consecrate him to
Bacchus in the event of recovery. Aebutius, nothing suspecting, told of
this to one Hispala, a damsel of questionable reputation, with whom he
had for some time been very intimate; but she entreated him for all the
gods’ sake not to have anything to do with the Bacchanalia: that she
herself, as maid, had been initiated with her mistress, and knew what
shocking deeds were done in those assemblies. Having promised her that
he would not seek initiation, he made his resolution known to his
parents, and was by them turned out of their house. Aebutius made
complaint to his aunt Aebutia, and by her advice to the Consul
Postumius. The Consul summoned Hispala to his presence, and from her,
not without difficulty, for she feared the vengeance of the sect,
learned what she knew of the proceedings at the secret assemblies. Then
he brought the matter before the Senate, who gave to him and his
colleague, Quintus Marcius Philippus, full powers for the suppression of
the evil. Rewards were offered for trustworthy testimony, measures were
taken to prevent the escape of guilty ones, and there were numerous
arrests. Seven thousand persons in all were implicated, and all Italy
awaited the outcome of the prosecution intently and with alarm. The
ringleaders and a multitude of their accomplices were put to death,
others were condemned to imprisonment or were exiled. Aebutius and
Hispala received a large money reward; and Hispala furthermore was
admitted to all the rights and privileges of a Roman-born freewoman,
without prejudice from her previous disreputable career. A decree of the
Senate forbade forever the holding of the Bacchanalia in Rome or in
Italy. The decree provided that if any one should consider such rites
obligatory and necessary, or should think that he could not omit them
without incurring the guilt of irreligion, he must lay the case before
the Praetor Urbanus, and the Praetor must consult the Senate. If leave
were granted in a senate having not less than one hundred members
present, he (the person desiring to practice the worship of the god)
might perform the rites, provided that not more than five persons were
present at them, and that there was no common fund, nor any master of
the ceremonies, or priest. All places sacred to Bacchus worship were
ordered to be destroyed, “except there be here or there an ancient altar
or consecrated image” of the god. But the prohibition of the Bacchanalia
could not be kept in force perpetually. The abuses of the Bacchus cult
went on unchecked outside of Italy, and by degrees sprung up again even
on Italian ground, till they reached the pitch of absolute shamelessness
in imperial times, as when the notorious Messalina, and other imperial
strumpets, celebrated the most shocking orgies in the very palace.
9. DEBASED MYSTERIES FROM THE EAST.
Near akin to the Dionysos cult, in many points coinciding with it, as
well as with one another, and also, like the depraved forms of that
cult, surreptitiously introduced from the Orient into Greece and then
into Rome, we have the mysteries of the mother of the gods Rhea or
Cybele, those of Mithras, and those of Sabazios—cults and deities that
were finally grouped together by the Orphic sect, of which anon.