CHAPTER IX

DIONYSIAC RELIGION IN GREECE

ITS AMALGAMATION WITH APOLLINE RELIGION. ECSTATIC PROPHECY. RITUAL

PURIFICATION AND EXORCISM. ASCETICISM

The Greeks received from the Thracians and assimilated to their own

purposes the worship of Dionysos, just as, in all probability, they

received the personality and worship of Ares and the Muses. Of this

assimilation we cannot give any further particulars; it took place

in a period lying before the beginnings of historical tradition. In

this period a multiplicity of separate tendencies and conceptions,

freely mingled with features borrowed from foreign creeds, were

welded together to form the religion of Greece.

Homer is already acquainted with the fanatical worship of Dionysos;

the god is called by the name under which Greek worshippers made

themselves familiar with the stranger.[1\9] But in Homer, Dionysos

appears only once or twice for a moment in the background. He is not

the bountiful giver of wine; he does not belong to the Round Table

of the great gods assembled on Olympos. Nowhere in the story told in

either of the Homeric poems does he influence the life and destiny

of human beings. There is no need to seek far for the reason of

Dionysos' subordinate position in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer's

silence makes it quite plain that at that time the Thracian god had

not yet emerged from a position of insignificance or merely local

importance in the life and faith of Greece. Nor is this hard to

understand; the cult of Dionysos only gradually won recognition in

Greece. Many legends tell of the battles that had to be fought by

the new worship and of the opposition that met the invader. We hear

how the Dionysiac frenzy and the _ekstasis_ of the Dionysiac

dance-festival took possession of the whole female population of

many districts of Central Greece and the Peloponnese.[2\9] Sometimes

a few women would venture to join the wandering choruses of wild

Bacchants who danced upon the mountain tops; here and there the king

of the land would oppose the progress of this tumultuous worship.

Such stories are told of the daughters of Minyas in Orchomenos, of

Proitos in Tiryns, of King Pentheus at Thebes, and Perseus at

Argos;[3\9] their opposition to the Dionysiac form of worship,

occurring in {283} reality at no precise date, assumed a deceptive

distinctness in the artificial systems of the mythologists and

developed the character of historical events. In reality what we are

told of these individuals--how the opponents of Dionysos themselves

fell into even wilder frenzy and in Bacchic delirium slew and tore

in pieces their own children instead of the victim-animal, or (as in

the case of Pentheus) became themselves the victim slain and torn in

pieces by the raging women--all this belongs to the class of

_ætiological_ myth. They are legends in which special features of

worship (for example, the existing or dimly remembered sacrifice of

human beings at the feasts of Dionysos) are provided with a mythical

prototype in the supposed historical past of mythology, and thus

receive their justification.[4\9] Still, there remains a substratum

of historical fact underlying such stories. They all presuppose that

the cult of Dionysos arrived from abroad and entered into Greece as

something foreign. This presupposition notoriously corresponds to

the actual facts of the case, and we are bound to assume that the

account which they immediately proceed to give of the violent

opposition which this cult, and only this cult, met with in many

parts of Greece, is not pure fiction.[5\9] We are obliged to

recognize that such stories preserved a trace of real historical

memory expressed in the one form which was invariably assumed by the

earliest Greek tradition, namely mythology, in which all the

accidents and varieties of earthly experience were condensed into

types of universal applicability.

It was then not without opposition, it appears, that the worship of

Dionysos, descending from the north into Boeotia, spread from thence

to the Peloponnese and at an early period invaded even some of the

islands as well. In truth, even if we had no evidence at all on the

point, we should have expected the Greeks to feel a profound

repugnance to this disorderly and tumultuous Thracian worship; a

deep-seated instinct must in their case have resisted such

extravagance of emotional excitement and refused to lose itself in

the limitless abyss of mere feeling. This unchecked roaming over the

mountain sides in nocturnal revelry might be suitable enough for

Thracian women-folk, but respectable Greek citizens could not give

themselves up to such things without a struggle--without, indeed, a

break with all inherited propriety and decorum.[6\9] It seems to

have been the women who were the first to give in to the invading

worship,[7\9] carried away in a real frenzy of inspired enthusiasm,

and the new cult may really have owed its first success chiefly to

them. What we are told of the irresistible progress and widespread

success[8\9] of the {284} Bacchic dance-worship and its exaltation

reminds us of the phenomena which have attended similar religious

epidemics such as have in more recent times occasionally burst out

and overflowed whole countries. We may in particular recall to mind

the accounts which we have of the violent and widespread

dance-madness which, soon after the severe mental and physical shock

suffered by Europe in the Black Death of the fourteenth century,

broke out on the Rhine and for centuries could not be entirely

stamped out. Those who were attacked by the fever were driven by an

irresistible impulse to dance. The bystanders, in convulsions of

sympathetic and imitative fury joined in the whirling dance

themselves. Thus the malady was spread by contagion, and soon whole

companies of men, women, and girls, wandered dancing through the

country. In spite of the insufficiency of the surviving records, the

religious character of this dance-enthusiasm is unmistakably

apparent. The Church regarded it as a "heresy". The dancers called

upon the name of St. John or of "certain demons"; hallucinations and

visions of a religious nature accompanied their ecstasies.[9\9] Can

it have been another such popular religious malady which attacked

Greece--perhaps in the train of the disturbance of spiritual

equilibrium caused by the destructive migrations which take their

name from the Dorians? The circumstances of the time must have

predisposed men's minds in that direction and made them ready to

accept the Thracian Dionysos and his enthusiastic dance-worship. In

any case this invasion did not, like its mediæval counterpart, break

down by coming into conflict with a well-established religion and an

exclusive ecclesiastical organization of a very different temper

from its own. In the deceptive twilight of myth we can only dimly

discern the arrival and progress of the Dionysiac religion in

Greece. But so much at least is evident: the Bacchic cult, though it

had to overcome many obstacles, at last established itself in Greece

and triumphantly overran both mainland and islands, until in the

course of time it obtained a profound and far-reaching importance in

Greek life of which Homer could scarcely give a hint.

§ 2

It was no longer simply the old Thracian Dionysos who now took his

place beside the other great gods of the Greek Olympos as one of

themselves. He had become Hellenized and humanized in the meantime.

Cities and states celebrated him in yearly festivals as the giver of

the vine's inspiring fruit, as {285} the daimonic patron of

vegetation, and the whole of Nature's rich and flourishing growth.

He was worshipped as the incarnation of all natural life and vigour

in the fullest and widest sense: as the typical exponent of the most

eager enjoyment of life. Even Art, the highest expression of the

courage and pride of life, drew much of its inspiration and its

aspiration towards the infinite from the worship of Dionysos; and

the drama, that supreme achievement of Greek poetry, arose out of

the choruses of the Dionysiac festival.

Now the art of the actor consists in entering into a strange

personality, and in speaking and acting out of a character not his

own. At bottom it retains a profound and ultimate connexion with its

most primitive source--that strange power of transfusing the self

into another being which the really inspired participator in the

Dionysiac revels achieved in his _ekstasis_. The essential features

of the god as he first arrived in Greece from foreign lands, in

spite of much alteration and transformation of the primitive type,

were thus not entirely lost. There remained also, in addition to the

cheerful festivity of the daylight worship of Dionysos, as it was

celebrated more particularly in Athens, certain vestiges of the old

ecstatic worship which drove men and women over the mountains in

nocturnal revelry. In many places there were still celebrated the

_trieteric_ festivals[10\9] in which at recurrent intervals the

"Epiphany" of Dionysos, his appearance in the world of men and

ascent from the underworld, was **solemnized by night. The primitive

character of Dionysos the Lord of Spirits and of the Souls of the

dead--a very different figure indeed from the tender and delicate

Wine-God of later times--was still obscurely present in many

features of the Dionysiac festivals, in those of Delphi especially,

but even to some extent at Athens too.[11\9] The ecstasy and the

violence, even the dark savagery of the ancient cult did not quite

die out in the midst of all the refinements of Greek civilization;

recognizable traces of such things were preserved in the _Nuktelia_

and _Agrionia_ and in the various trieteric festivals that were

offered to the god in many different localities.[12\9] In Greece the

awful god received the blood of human victims.[13\9] Nor did the

outward signs of delirious frenzy, such as the eating of raw flesh,

the killing and tearing in pieces of snakes, entirely

disappear.[14\9] So little indeed, did the Bacchic frenzy that could

exalt and lift the worshipper to communion with the god and his

train, disappear before the gentler attractions of the gracious

wine-god and his festival, that the raving and "possession" which

characterized the cult of Dionysos were {286} now actually regarded

by foreign peoples as the essentially _Hellenic_ form of the worship

of the god.[15\9]

Thus, a sympathetic understanding of the orgiastic cult and its

tremendous capabilities lived on. The "Bacchants" of Euripides still

preserves for us a breath of its magic, a trace of the enthusiasm

and exaltation that overwhelmed the senses and enthralled the will

and consciousness of those who gave themselves up to the powerful

Dionysiac influence. Like an irresistible current that overwhelms a

swimmer or like the mysterious helplessness that frustrates the

dreamer, the magic power emanating from the neighbourhood of the god

took complete possession of the worshipper and drove him whither it

willed. Everything in the world was transformed for him; he himself

was altered. Every character in the play falls under the spell as

soon as he enters into the magic circle. Even the modern reader who

turns over the pages of Euripides' poem feels something of that

strange power to subdue the soul wielded by the Dionysiac mysteries

and experiences in his own person a faint reflexion of these

extraordinary states of mind.

Probably as a result of this profound Dionysiac fever which had once

raged through Greece like an epidemic and was liable to periodic

returns in the nocturnal festivals of the god, there remained in the

constitution of the Greek people a certain morbid weakness, a

susceptibility to suddenly appearing and as suddenly disappearing

crises in which the normal powers of perceiving and feeling were

temporarily overthrown. A few stray accounts have come down to us in

which we read how such brief attacks of passing insanity ran through

whole cities like an infectious disease.[16\9] The Korybantic form

of the malady, which was religious in character[17\9] and took its

name from the daimonic companions of the Phrygian Mountain Mother,

was a phenomenon quite well-known to doctors and psychologists.

Those affected by such fevers saw strange figures that corresponded

to no objective reality, and heard the sound of invisible flutes,

until at last they were excited to the highest pitch of frenzy and

were seized with a violent desire to dance.[18\9] The initiation

festivals of the Phrygian deities were specially directed to the

discharge and so eventually to the cure and "purgation" of such

emotional states; the means employed being principally dance and

music--more especially the music composed for the flute by the old

Phrygian masters; music that could fill the soul with inspiration in

suitably disposed natures.[19\9] By such methods the ecstatic

element was not simply suppressed or expelled, it was taken {287} up

as a special disciplinary process by the physician-priesthood who

recognized in it a vital movement and added it to the regular

worship of the god.

In a similar fashion Greece in its most enlightened period accepted

and practised the "enthusiastic" cult of Dionysos. Even the

tumultuous night-festivals of the Thracian god--festivals closely

related to those of Phrygia from which they had borrowed and to

which they had given so many features--were made to serve the

"purgation" of the ecstatically exalted soul. The worshipper in such

festivals "initiated his soul into the company of the god in holy

purifications, while he raged over the mountains in Bacchic

frenzy".[20\9] The purification consisted in this case, too, of

violent excitement in which the soul was stimulated to the highest

pitch of religious ecstasy. Dionysos as "Bakcheus" awoke the holy

madness which he himself again, after it had reached its highest

point of intensity, stilled and tranquillized as Lysios and

Meilichios.[21\9] The old Thracian cult of ecstasy has here been

modified in a fashion that belonged only to Greek soil and to Greek

modes of thought. Legend, allegorizing the facts, threw back this

final development of the Dionysiac worship into the remotest

antiquity. Even Hesiodic poems[22\9] related how the daughters of

King Proitos of Tiryns wandered in the holy frenzy of Dionysos[23\9]

over the mountain of Peloponnesus, until at last they and all the

**multitude of women who had joined them were healed and "purified"

by Melampous the Seer of Pylos famed in legend.[24\9] The cure was

effected through the intensification of the Dionysiac frenzy "with

loud crying and inspired dancing,"[25\9] and, further, by the use of

certain special purificatory devices.[26\9] Melampous did not put an

end to the Dionysiac cult and its "enthusiasm"; he rather regulated

and developed it. For this reason Herodotus can even call him the

"Founder" of the Dionysiac cult in Greece.[27\9] Legend, however,

always recognized in this "founder" of the Dionysiac festival an

adherent of the specifically _Apolline_ form of religion. "Apollo

had favoured him especially," and bestowed upon him the Seership

which became ancestral in his family.[28\9] Legend used him as a

type in which the reconciliation between the Apolline and the

Dionysiac was figuratively expressed. The reconciliation is an

historical fact, but it did not happen in the primitive past of

legend.

It is a fact, however, that Apollo did at last, doubtless after

prolonged resistance, enter into the closest alliance with this

remarkable divine brother of his, the Hellenized Dionysos. {288} The

covenant must have been made at Delphi. There at least on the

heights of Parnasos, in the Korykian Cave, the trieteric festival of

Dionysos was held every second year in the close neighbourhood of

Apollo the Lord of Delphi. Nay, more, in Apollo's own temple the

"grave" of Dionysos was shown,[29\9] and at this grave, while the

Thyiades of the god rushed over the mountain heights, the priests of

Apollo celebrated a secret festival of their own.[30\9] The festal

year of Delphi was divided, though unequally it is true, between

Apollo and Dionysos.[31\9] To such an extent had Dionysos taken root

at Delphi,[32\9] so closely were the two gods related, that while

the front pediment of the temple showed the form of Apollo, the back

pediment represented Dionysos--and the Dionysos of the nocturnal

ecstatic revels. Apollo, too, shared in the trieteric festival of

Dionysos,[33\9] while Dionysos in later times at the penteteric

festival of the Pythia, received, as well as Apollo, his share of

sacrifice and the contests of cyclic choruses.[34\9] The two

divinities have many of their titles and attributes in common; in

the end the distinction between them seems to disappear

entirely.[35\9]

Antiquity never forgot that at Delphi, the radiating centre of his

cult, Apollo was an intruder. Among the older deities whom he

supplanted there, the name of Dionysos also occurred;[36\9] but the

Delphic priesthood thought it wise to tolerate the Thracian god and

his ecstatic cult that at first seemed so opposed to that of their

own deity. Dionysos may have been too vigorous a spirit to allow his

worship to be suppressed like that of the Earth divinity who sent

the prophetic dreams. Apollo is the "Lord of Delphi"; but the

priesthood of the Delphic Apollo, following in this the tendency to

religious syncretism which is so recognizable in them, took the

worship of Dionysos under their protection. The Delphic Oracle in

fact introduced Dionysos into localities where he had hitherto been

a stranger, and nowhere so successfully or with such momentous

consequences as at Athens.[37\9] It was this promoting of the

Dionysiac form of religion by the great corporation which had the

leadership in Greece in all matters of religion, that did more than

anything else to secure for the god and his worship that profound,

wide-reaching influence on Greek religion that Homer, who knows

little even of the Delphic Oracle, completely ignores.

But it was a gentler and more civilized Dionysos whom Delphi

popularized and even helped to re-shape; the extravagance of his

ecstatic abandonment was pruned and moderated {289} to suit the more

sober temper of ordinary city-life, and the brighter, daylight

festivals of urban and countryside worship. Hardly a trace of the

old Thracian worship of ecstasy and exaltation is discoverable in

the Dionysiac worship of Athens. In other places, and especially in

the districts ruled over by the Delphic Apollo himself, Dionysiac

worship preserved more of its primitive nocturnal wildness. Even

Athens, in obedience to an oracular command, sent a religious

embassy of elected women to the Delphic Trieteria. It is plain

enough however, that in all this there was nothing but a dim

counterpart of the former tumultuous mountain-worship of the god,

and its profound soul-stirring ceremonies; the worship of Athens and

Delphi had reduced all that to a vague ritual traditionalism.[38\9]

§ 3

But in spite of all attempts to moderate and civilize it outwardly,

the cult of Dionysos retained as its most enduring feature a

tendency to the ecstatic and the extravagant that was continually

breaking out in threatening or alluring guise. So strong indeed was

the ecstatic element in Dionysiac worship, that when the Apolline

and Dionysiac forms of religion became united, as at Delphi, it was

the Apolline worship--once so hostile to anything in the nature of

ecstasy--that had to accept this entirely novel feature.

The "prophecy of inspiration", deriving its knowledge of the unseen

from an elevation of the human soul to the divine, was not always a

part of Greek religion. Homer, of course, knows of the prophetic

_art_ in which specially instructed seers explained such signs of

the gods' will as occurred accidentally or were purposely sought out

by men, and by this means claimed to discover the will of heaven

both at the moment and for the future. This is, in fact, the sort of

prophecy that Apollo bestowed upon his seers.[39\9] But the prophecy

of which there was no "art" and which "no man could be taught"[40\9]

(for it came in a moment by "inspiration")--of this Homer shows no

trace.[41\9] In addition to professional and independently working

prophets the Odyssey, and even the Iliad, too, are aware of the

enclosed oracular institutions belonging to the temple of Zeus at

Dodona and that of Apollo at Pytho.[42\9] Both these used the names

of the gods with whose service they were concerned to increase the

effect and the credit of their utterances. In the Odyssey (but not

the Iliad) there is a reference to the influence wielded by the

oracle of Apollo in the more important circumstances of a people's

{290} life. But whether at that time it was an inspired prophetess

who gave replies at Delphi we cannot be sure from the poet's words.

There must have been oracles of sortilege[43\9] at that place from

an early period under the protection of the god and it is these we

should naturally expect a poet to mean who nowhere[44\9] shows any

knowledge of the striking phenomena of ecstatic _mantikê_.[45\9]

In any case this new _mantikê_ of inspired prophets, which

subsequently enjoyed such enormous development and gave the Delphic

oracle such peculiar power, was a late-coming innovation in the

Apolline cult. Over the chasm in the rock at Pytho, out of which

arose a strange and potent vapour from the depths of the earth,

there had once existed an oracle of Gaia at which perhaps inquirers

had received their instruction through the means of premonitory

dreams by night.[46\9] The earth-goddess was displaced by Apollo

here as at many other oracular sites.[47\9] The accuracy of this

tradition is confirmed by the Delphic temple legend which speaks of

the overthrow of the oracular earth-spirit Python by Apollo.[48\9]

The change may have been gradually brought about; in any case, where

once the earth-divinity had spoken directly in dreams to the souls

of men, there Apollo now prophesied--no longer indirectly through

the intervening medium of signs and omens, but directly answering

those who, in open-eyed wakefulness, inquired of him, and speaking

to them out of the mouth of his ecstatically inspired prophetess.

This Delphic prophecy of inspiration is as far removed from the old

Apolline art of interpreting omens as it is closely allied to the

_mantikê_ which we found attached from the earliest times to the

Thracian cult of Dionysos.[49\9] It appears that in Greece Dionysos

but rarely obtained an official priesthood that could have organized

or maintained a permanent oracular institute attached to a

particular place or temple. In the one Dionysiac oracle in Greece,

however, of which we have certain knowledge a priest gave prophecies

in a state of "enthusiasm" and "possession" by the god.[50\9]

Enthusiasm and ecstasy are invariably the means of the Dionysiac

prophecy just as they were the means of all Dionysiac religious

experience. When we find Apollo in Delphi itself--the place where he

most closely allied himself with Dionysos--deserting his old

omen-interpretation and turning to the prophecy of _ekstasis_, we

cannot have much doubt as to whence Apollo got this new thing.[51\9]

With the mantic _ekstasis_, Apollo received a Dionysiac element into

his own religion. Henceforward, he, the cold, {291} aloof, sober

deity of former times, can be addressed by titles that imply Bacchic

excitement and self-abandonment. He is now the "enthusiastic", the

Bacchic god: Aeschylus strikingly calls him "ivy-crowned Apollo, the

Bacchic-frenzied prophet" (_fr._ 341). It is now Apollo, who more

than any other god, calls forth in men's souls the madness[52\9]

that makes them clairvoyant and enables them to know hidden things.

At not a few places there are founded oracular sites at which

priests or priestesses in frenzied ecstasy utter what Apollo puts

into their mouths. But the Pythian oracle remained the pattern of

them all. There, prophecy was uttered by the Pythia, the youthful

priestess who sat upon the tripod over the earth-chasm and was

inspired by the intoxicating vapour that arose from it, until she

was filled with the god, and with his spirit.[53\9] The god, so ran

the belief, entered into the earthly body; or else the soul of the

priestess, "released" from her body, received the heavenly

revelation with spiritual sense.[54\9] What she then "with frenzied

mouth" proclaimed, that the god spoke out of her; when she said "I",

Apollo was speaking of himself and of what concerned him.[55\9] It

is the god who lives, thinks, and speaks in her so long as the

madness lasts.

§ 4

A profound and compelling tendency of the human mind must have been

the source of the great religious movement that could succeed in

establishing, with the ecstatic prophecy of the Delphic priestess, a

seed of mysticism in the very heart of Greek religion. The

introduction of _ekstasis_ into the ordered stability of the Delphic

mode of religion was only a symptom of that religious movement and

not its cause. But now, confirmed by the god himself, and by the

experience which the mantic practice seemed to make so evident, the

new belief, so long familiar to Dionysiac religion and worship, must

have at last invaded the older and original type of Greek religion,

and taken hold of it in spite of that religion's natural antipathy

to anything of the kind. And this belief was that a highly exalted

state of feeling could raise man above the normal level of his

limited, everyday consciousness, and could elevate him to heights of

vision and knowledge unlimited; that, further, to the human soul it

was not denied, in very truth and not in vain fancy, to live for a

moment the life of divinity. This belief is the fountain-head of all

mysticism, and tradition still records a few traces of the way in

which it grew and spread at that time. {292}

It is true that the formal and official worship of the gods in

Greece (where their cults were not obviously affected by foreign

influence) remained as fast-bound as ever within the confines of

order and lucidity. We hear very little of the entrance of ecstatic

exaltation into the constitution of the older cults.[56\9] The

irresistible religious impulse to such things found an outlet

through other channels. Men and women began to appear who on their

own initiative began to act as intermediaries between the gods and

the needs of individual men. They were natures, we must suppose, of

unusual susceptibility to "enthusiastic" exaltation; having a

strange capacity for projecting themselves into the infinite.

Nothing in the organization of Greek religion prevented such men and

women, if they could not obtain authority from any religious

community of the state itself, from acquiring a real influence in

religious matters simply from their own experience of divine

favour,[57\9] their own inward communion with divine powers.

In the darkness and ferment of this period of growth, from the

eighth to the sixth centuries, we can vaguely discern many such

shadowy figures; they look uncommonly like those strange products of

the earliest infancy of Christianity when prophets, ascetics, and

exorcists wandered from land to land, called to their work by

nothing but the immediate grace of god (~cha/risma~), and not

attached to any permanent religious community. It is true that what

we hear of Sibyls and Bakides--men and women who wandered from land

to land prophesying the future, independently of and uncommissioned

by any particular oracular institute--is mostly legend; but these

are the sort of legends that preserve real historical tradition

condensed into single types and pictures. The nomenclature itself

tells us much: Sibyls and Bakides are not individual names, but

_titles_ belonging to various types[58\9] of ecstatic prophet, and

we are entitled to suppose that the types so named once existed. The

appearance in many places of Greek Asia Minor and the old mainland

of Greece of such divinely inspired prophets is among the

distinguishing marks of a clearly defined period in Greek history;

the age of promise that came immediately before the philosophic

period of Greece. The later age, entirely given up as it was to the

pursuit of philosophic enlightenment, made so little claim to the

inheritance in their own time of the divine favour that had once

enabled the Sibyls and Bakides to see their visions and utter their

wisdom, that there actually began to appear in large numbers

prophets at second-hand, who were satisfied {293} with preserving

the traditional wisdom of the inspired prophets of the past, and

with the judicious interpretation of their treasures.[59\9] The age

of _enthusiastic_ prophets was evidently a thing of the past. The

very literature of Sibylline and Bakid oracles, which began to

appear just at that time and showed itself capable of an almost

indefinite extension, was itself largely responsible for the veil of

myth and legend which completely enveloped the original bearers of

the prophetic title. Earlier and earlier became the historic events

of the past which they had foretold; further and further into the

mythical past, _before_ the time of the events prophesied, receded

the imaginary period of the great prophets.[60\9] In spite of which

the scientific chronologists of antiquity, who were far from being

imposed upon by the delusive anticipations of prophetic poems, found

reason for fixing the date of particular Sibyls--which means for our

purpose the whole prophetic age of Greece--in the fully historical

period of the eighth and seventh centuries.[61\9]

We may recognize, in what we hear of these prophets, the shadowy

representatives of a once real and living past; they are

reminiscences of a striking and therefore never quite forgotten

phase of Greek religious life. The Bakids and Sibyls were

independent agents--though not entirely without connexion with the

regular worship of the gods, they were not attached to any

particular temple--who wandered from land to land according to the

needs of those who sought their counsel. In this respect, at least,

they resembled the Homeric omen-interpreters,[62\9] and continued

their work; but they differed from them profoundly in the mode of

their prophesying. They were "seized by the god" and in ecstatic

clairvoyance saw and proclaimed unseen things. It was no academic

skill that they possessed, enabling them to interpret the meaning of

signs and omens that anyone could see--they saw what was visible

only to God and to the soul of man filled with God.[63\9] In hoarse

tones and wild words[64\9] the Sibyl gave utterance to what the

divine impelling power within her and not her own arbitrary fancy

suggested; possessed by the god, she spoke in a divine distraction.

An echo of such daimonic possession, and of the horrible reality and

terror that it had for the possessed, can still be heard in the

cries and convulsions which Aeschylus in the _Agamemnon_ gives to

his Kassandra--a true picture of the primitive Sibyl, and a type

that the poets of that prophetic generation had reflected backwards

into the earlier past of legend.[65\9] {294}

§ 5

The activity of the seer was not confined to foreseeing and

foretelling the future. We hear of a "Bakis" who "purified" and

delivered the women of Sparta from an attack of madness that had

spread like an epidemic among them.[66\9] The prophetic age of

Greece must have seen the origin of what later became part of the

regular duties of the "seer": the cure of diseases, especially those

of the mind;[67\9] the averting of evil of every kind by various

strange means, and particularly the supply of help and counsel by

"purifications" of a religious nature.[68\9] The gift or art of

prophecy, the purification of "the unclean", the healing of disease,

all seem to be derived from one source. Nor can we be long in doubt

as to what the single source of this threefold capacity must have

been. The world of invisible spirits surrounding man, which ordinary

folk know only by its effects, is familiar and accessible to the

ecstatic prophet, the _Mantis_, the spirit-seer. As exorcist he

undertakes to heal disease;[69\9] the _Kathartic_ process is also

essentially and originally an exorcism of the baleful influences of

the spirit-world.

The wide popularity and elaboration given to the notion--hardly

hinted[70\9] at as yet in Homer--of the universally present menace

of "pollution", which is only to be averted or got rid of by means

of a religious process of purification--this is one of the chief

distinguishing features of the over-anxious piety that marked the

post-Homeric age when men could no longer be content with the means

of salvation handed down to them by their fathers. If we confined

our attention to the fact that now we find purification required for

such actions as murder and the spilling of blood which seem to imply

a moral stain to the doer of them,[71\9] we might be tempted to see

in the development of Kathartic practices a fresh step in the

history of Greek ethics, and to suppose that the new practices arose

out of a refinement and deepening of the "conscience" which now

desired to be free from the taint of "sin" by the help of religion.

But such an interpretation of Katharsis (favourite as it is) is

disposed of by a consideration of the real essence and meaning of

the thing. In later times the methods of Katharsis were nearly

always in competition and conflict (rarely in friendly alliance) with

"conscience", with the independently developed ethical thought that

based itself upon the unchanging requirements of a moral law

transcending all personal will and feeling, and even the will of

daimonic powers. In its origin and essence Katharsis {295} had

nothing whatever to do with morality or with what we should call the

voice of conscience. On the contrary, it usurped the place which in

a more advanced and morally developed people would have belonged to

a true morality based on an inner feeling for what is right. Nor did

it fail to hinder the free and unfettered development of such a

morality. Kathartic practices required and implied no feeling of

offence, of personal guilt, of personal responsibility. All that we

know of these practices serves to bring this out and set the matter

in a clearer light.

Ceremonies of "purification" accompany every step of a man's life

from the cradle to the grave. The woman with child is "unclean" and

so is anyone who touches her; the new-born child is unclean;[72\9]

marriage is fenced about with a series of purificatory rites; the

dead, and everything that approaches them, are unclean. Now, in

these instances of the common and almost daily occurrence of

purification ceremonies, there can be no moral stain involved that

requires to be washed off, not even a symbolical one. Equally little

can there be any when ritual purifications are employed after a bad

dream,[73\9] the occurrence of a prodigy,[74\9] recovery from

illness, or when a person has touched an offering made to deities of

the lower world or the graves of the dead; or when it is found

necessary to purify house and hearth,[75\9] and even fire and

water[76\9] for sacred or profane purposes. The purification of

those who have shed blood stands on exactly the same footing. It was

necessary even for those who had killed a man with just cause, or

had committed homicide unknowingly or unwillingly; the moral aspect

of such cases, the guilt or innocence of the doer, is ignored or

unperceived. Even in the case of premeditated murder, the remorse of

the criminal or his "will to amend"[77\9] is quite superfluous to

the efficacy of purification.

It could not be otherwise. The "stain" which is wiped out by these

mysterious and religious means is not "within the heart of man". It

clings to a man as something hostile, and from without, and that can

be spread from him to others like an infectious disease.[78\9]

Hence, the purification is effected by religious processes directed

to the _external_ removal of the evil thing; it may be washed off

(as by water from a running spring or from the sea), it may be

violently effaced and obliterated (as by fire or even smoke alone),

it may be absorbed (by wool, fleece of animals, eggs),[79\9] etc.

It must be something hostile and dangerous to men that is thus

removed; since this something can only be attacked by {296}

religious means, it must belong to the daimonic world to which alone

Religion and its means of salvation have reference. There exists a

population of spirits whose neighbourhood or contact with men

renders then "unclean", for it gives them over to the power of the

unholy.[80\9] Anyone who touches their places of abode, or the

offerings made to them, falls under their spell; they may send him

sickness, insanity, evils of every kind. The priest with his

purifications is an "exorcist" who sets free those who have fallen

victims to the surrounding powers of darkness. He certainly fulfils

this function when he disperses diseases, i.e. the spirits who send

the diseases, by his ministrations;[81\9] when he employs in his

purificatory ritual hymns and incantatory formulæ which regularly

imply an invisibly listening being to whom they are addressed;[82\9]

when he uses the clang of bronze instruments whose well-known

property it is to drive away ghosts.[83\9] Where human blood has

been shed and requires "purification" the Kathartic priest

accomplishes this "by driving out murder with murder",[84\9] i.e. he

lets the blood of a sacrificed animal fall over the hands of the

polluted person. Here, the purification is plainly in the nature of

a substitution-sacrifice (the animal being offered instead of the

murderer).[85\9] In this way the anger of the dead is washed

away--for this anger is itself the pollution that is to be

removed.[86\9] The famous scapegoats were nothing but sacrifices

offered to appease the anger of the Unseen, and thereby release a

whole city from "pollution". At the _Thargelia_ or on extraordinary

occasions of need in Ionic cities, and even in Athens, unfortunate

men were in ancient times slain or stoned to death or burnt "for the

purification of the city".[87\9] Even the materials of purification

that in private life served to free the individual and his house

from the claims of invisible powers, were thought of as offerings to

these powers: this is proved clearly enough by the custom of

removing such materials, when they had served their purpose as

"purifications", to the cross-roads, and of making them over to the

unearthly spirits who have their being there. The materials of

purification so treated are in fact identical with offerings to the

dead or even with "Hekate's banquets".[88\9] In this case we can see

most clearly what the forces are which Kathartic processes

essentially aim at averting. In them no attempt was made to satisfy

a heartfelt consciousness of sin or a moral sense that has become

delicate; they were much rather the result of a superstitious fear

of uncanny forces surrounding men and stretching out after them with

a thousand threatening hands in the darkness. {297} It was the

monstrous phantasies of their own imagination that made men call

upon the priests of purification and expiation for much-needed aid

and protection.

§ 6

It is simply the invasion of human life by the sinister creatures of

the daimonic world that the clairvoyant _mantis_ is supposed to

avert with his "purifications". Among these sinister influences

Hekate and her crew are particularly noticeable. This is without

doubt an ancient product of religious phantasy--though it is not

mentioned by Homer--which did not till a late period emerge from the

obscurity of local observance and obtain general popularity: even

then it only here and there ceased to be a private and domestic cult

and reached the dignity of public city-worship.[89\9] The cult of

Hekate fled the light of day, as did the wild farrago of weird and

sinister phantoms that surrounded her. She is _chthonic_, a goddess

of the lower world,[90\9] where she is at home; but, more easily

than other lower-world creatures, she finds her way to the living

world of men. Wherever a soul is entering into partnership with a

body--at birth or in child bed--she is at hand;[91\9] where a soul

is separating from a body, in burials of the dead, she is there.

Amidst the dwelling-places of the departed, the monuments of the

dead and the gloomy ritual of their worship, she is in her

element.[92\9] She is the queen of the souls who are still fast

bound to the upper world. It shows her deep-seated connexion with

the primeval worship of the dead at the household hearth,[93\9] when

we hear of Hekate as dwelling "in the depth of the hearth",[94\9]

and being honoured together with the underworld Hermes, her

masculine counterpart, among the domestic gods who "were left to us

by our forefathers".[95\9]

This domestic cult may be a legacy from times when in familiar

intercourse with the lower world men did not yet fear "pollution"

therefrom.[95a\9] To later ages Hekate was the principal source and

originator of all that was ghostly and uncanny. Men came upon her

suddenly and to their hurt by night, or in the dreamy solitudes of

midday's blinding heat; they see her in monstrous shapes that, like

the figures in a dream, are continually changing.[96\9] The names of

many female deities of the underworld of whom the common people had

much to say--Gorgyra (Gorgo), Mormo, Lamia, Gello or Empousa, the

ghost of midday--denote in reality so many different

personifications and variations of Hekate.[97\9] {298} She appeared

most frequently by night, under the half-light of the moon, at the

cross-roads. She is not alone but is accompanied by her "crew", the

hand-maidens who follow in her train. These are the souls of those

who have not had their share of burial and the holy rites that

accompany it; who have been violently done to death, or who have

died "before their time".[98\9] Such souls find no rest after death;

they travel on the wind now, in the company of Hekate and her

daimonic pack of hounds.[99\9] It is not without reason that we are

reminded of the legends of "wild hunters" and the "furious host", so

familiar in modern times in many countries.[100\9] Similar beliefs

produced similar results in each case; perhaps there is even some

historical connexion between them.[101\9] These night-wandering

spirits and souls of the dead bring pollution and disaster upon all

who meet them or fall into their hands; they send evil dreams,

nightmares, nocturnal apparitions, madness and epilepsy.[102\9] It

is for them, the unquiet souls of the dead and Hekate their queen,

that men set out the "banquets of Hekate" at the cross-roads.[103\9]

To them men consign with averted faces the remains of the

purificatory sacrifices[104\9] that they may not come too close to

human dwelling places. Puppies, too, were sacrificed to Hekate for

"purifications", i.e. "apotropaic" sacrifices.

Gruesome inventions of all kinds were easily attached to this

province of supernaturalism: it is one of the sources which, with

help from other Greek conceptions and many foreign creations of

fancy, let loose a stream of anxious and gloomy superstitiousness

that spread through the whole of later antiquity and even reached

through the Middle Ages to our own day.

Protection and riddance from such things were sought at the hands of

seers and "Kathartic priests" who, in addition to ceremonies of

purification and exorcism had other ways of giving

help--prescriptions and recipes of many strange sorts which were

originally clear and natural enough to the fantastic logic of

superstition and were still credited and handed down as magic and

inexplicable formulæ after their real meaning had been entirely

forgotten. Others, again, were driven by a fearful curiosity to

attempt to bring the world of surrounding spirits--of whose doings

such strange stories were told in legend[105\9]--even closer to

themselves. By magic arts and incantations, they compelled the

wandering ghosts and even Hekate herself to appear before

them:[106\9] the magic power forces them to do the will of the

spirit-raiser or to harm his enemies.[107\9] It was these creatures

of the spirit-world that {299} magicians and exorcists claimed to

banish or compel. Popular belief was on their side in this, but it

is hardly possible that they never resorted to deceit and imposture

in making good their claims.

§ 7

The mantic and Kathartic practices, together with what arose out of

them, are known to us almost exclusively as they were in the time of

their decay. Even in the brief sketch just attempted of this notable

by-way of Greek religion, many details have had to be taken from the

accounts left to us by later ages that had quite outgrown the whole

idea of mantic and Kathartic procedure. Compared on the one hand

with science, seriously engaged in studying the real and inward

sources of being and becoming throughout the world, together with

the limitations of man's estate, and on the other hand with the

practical and cautious medical study of the physical conditions of

human life in health and sickness, the mantic and Kathartic

practices and all the myriad superstitions arising from them seemed

like a legacy from a forgotten and discredited past. But such things

persisted in many circles of old-fashioned and primitive-minded

people, though by the emancipated and cultured they were despised as

the silly and dangerous quackery of mendicant priests and wizards.

But this product of the religious instinct cannot always have

appeared in such a light; it certainly was not so regarded when it

first came into prominence. A movement that was zealously taken up

by the Delphic oracle, which influenced many Greek states in the

organization of their religious cults, must have had a period when

its right to exist was incontestable. It must have answered to the

needs of a time when the dawning sense of the profound unity and

interconnexion of all being and becoming in the world still

contented itself with a religious explanation of what seemed

mysterious, and when a few chosen natures were seriously credited

with the power to communicate with the all-embracing spirit-world.

Every age has its own ideal of Wisdom; and there came a time when

the ideal of the Wise Man, who by his own innate powers has achieved

a commanding spiritual position and insight, became embodied in the

persons of certain great men who seemed to fulfil the highest

conceptions of wisdom and power that were attributed to the ecstatic

seer and priest of purification. The half-mythical stories in which

later ages preserved the memory of the times lying just before the

{300} age of the philosophic exploration of nature tell us of

certain great masters of a mysterious and occult Wisdom. It is true

that they are credited with powers over nature of a magical kind

rather than with a purely intellectual insight into the laws of

nature; but even in the scanty accounts of them which have come down

to us there are clear indications that their work already included

the first attempts at a mode of study based on theory. We cannot

call them philosophers--not even the forerunners of Greek

philosophy. More often their point of view was one which the real

philosophic impulse towards self-determination and the freedom of

the soul consciously and decisively rejected, and continued to

reject, though not indeed without occasional wavering and

backsliding. These men must be counted among the magicians and

exorcists who so often appear in the earliest dawn of the spiritual

history of civilized nations, and, as primitive and marvellous types

of the spirit of inquiry, precede the philosophers. They all belong

to the class of ecstatic seers and Kathartic priests.

Legend related how, out of the country of the Hyperboreans, that

distant Wonderland where Apollo hid himself in winter, there came to

Greece one Abaris, sent by the god himself. He was a saint and

needed no earthly food. Carrying in his hand the golden arrow, the

proof of his Apolline origin and mission, he passed through many

lands dispelling sickness and pestilence by sacrifices of a magic

kind, giving warning of earthquakes and other disasters. Even in

later times prophecies and "purifications", going under his name,

were still to be read.[108\9]--This man, and also another like him,

called Aristeas, were already mentioned by Pindar (_fr._ 271).

Aristeas, a man of high rank in his native city of Prokonnesos, had

the magic gift of prolonged _ekstasis_. When his soul left his body

behind, being "seized by Phoibos", it (as his second self made

visible) was seen in distant places.[109\9] As Apollo's attendant he

also appeared together with the god in Metapontum. A bronze statue

in the market-place of that city remained to testify to his presence

there, and to the astonishment awakened by his inspired

utterances.[110\9] But among all these examples of the type,[111\9]

Hermotimos of Klazomenai is the most striking. His soul could desert

his body "for many years", and on its return from its ecstatic

voyages, brought with it much mantic lore and knowledge of the

future. At last, enemies set fire to the tenantless body of

Hermotimos when his soul was away, and the latter returned no

more.[112\9]

The greatest master of all these magically gifted men was, {301}

according to tradition, Epimenides. His home was in Crete, an

ancient centre of Kathartic wisdom,[113\9] where Epimenides was

instructed in this lore as an adherent of the cult of the underworld

Zeus.[114\9] Through a mist of legend and fable we hear of his

prolonged stay in the mysterious cave of Zeus on Mt. Ida, his

intercourse with the spirits of the darkness, his severe

fasting,[115\9] the long ecstasy of his soul,[116\9] and his final

return from solitude to the light of day, much experienced and

far-travelled in "enthusiastic wisdom".[117\9] Next he journeyed

through many lands bringing his health-giving arts with him,

prophesying the future as an ecstatic seer,[118\9] interpreting the

hidden meaning of past occurrences, and as Kathartic priest

expelling the daimonic evils that arose from specially foul misdeeds

of the past. The Kathartic activity of Epimenides in Delos and other

Greek cities was famous.[119\9] It was in particular never forgotten

how in Athens at the end of the seventh century he brought to a

satisfactory close the expiation of the godless murder of the

followers of Kylon.[120\9] With potent ceremonies of which his

wisdom alone knew the secret, with sacrifice of animals and men, he

appeased[121\9] the anger of the offended spirits of the depth who

in their rage were "polluting" and harming the city . . .

It was not without reason that later tradition, undeterred by

questions of chronological possibility, brought all the names just

mentioned into connexion with Pythagoras or his adherents,[122\9]

and was even accustomed to refer to Pherekydes of Syros, the latest

of the band, as the teacher of Pythagoras. The practice, if not the

philosophy, of the Pythagorean sect grew up among the ideas and what

may be called the teaching of these men, and belongs to the epoch

which honoured them as Wise Men. We still possess a few scraps of

evidence to show that the conceptions guiding their life and work

tended to reach some sort of unification in the minds of these

visionaries who were yet something more than the mere practicians of

a magical species of religion. We cannot, indeed, tell how far the

fanciful pictures of the origin of the world of men which

Epimenides[123\9] and Pherekydes drew were connected with the

business and professional activity of these men;[124\9] but when it

is related of Hermotimos that he, like his country-man Anaxagoras,

attempted a distinction between pure "mind" and matter,[125\9] we

can see very clearly how this theory might arise out of his special

"experiences". The ecstasies of the soul of which Hermotimos himself

and this whole generation had such ample experience seemed to point

to the separability of the soul from the body[126\9]--and, indeed,

to the superiority of {302} the soul's essence in its separate state

over that of the body--as to a fact of the most firmly established

authenticity. In contrast with the soul the body could hardly help

appearing as an encumbrance, an obstacle to be got rid of. The

conception of an ever-threatening pollution and "uncleanness" which

was nourished by the teaching and activities of those innumerable

purification-priests of whom Epimenides is known to us as the

supreme master, had gradually so penetrated the whole of the

official religion itself with purification-ceremonies that it might

very well have seemed as though, in the midst of this renovation and

development of a type of religious thought that had been more than

half forgotten in the Homeric period, Greek religion was fast

approaching the condition of Brahmanism or Zoroastrianism and

becoming essentially a religion of purification. Those who had

become familiar with the contrast between body and soul, especially

if they lived in the atmosphere of Kathartic ideas and their

practical exercise, were almost bound to proceed to the idea that

even the "soul" required to be purified from the polluting

embarrassment of the body. That such ideas were almost a commonplace

is shown by many stories and turns of phrase which represent the

destruction of the body by fire as a "purification" of the man

himself.[127\9] Wherever these ideas--the precise opposite and

contrary of the Homeric conception of the relation between body and

soul-image--had penetrated more deeply they must have led to the

idea that even in the lifetime of the body the purification of the

soul should be prepared by the denial and inhibition of the body and

its impulses. The first step was thus taken towards a purely

negative system of morality, not attempting the inner reformation of

the will, but aiming simply at averting from the soul of man a

polluting evil threatening it from without--in fact to a morality of

religious _asceticism_ such as later became such an important and

decisive spiritual movement in Greece. In spite of all the

inadequacy of our information about these Wise Men of the early

pre-philosophic period, we can still dimly make out the fact that

their natural bent lay in this ascetic direction (the abstention

from food practised by Abaris and Epimenides are distinct cases of

it).[128\9] How far, exactly, they went in this direction is indeed

more than we can say.

Thus, the ascetic ideal was not absent even from Greece. It

remained, however--in spite of the influence it had in some

quarters--always a foreign thing in Greece, having its obscure home

among sects of spiritualistic enthusiasts, and regarded in contrast

with the normal and ruling view of life, as a paradox, {303} almost

a heresy. The official religion itself is not entirely without the

seeds of an ascetic system of morality; but the ascetic ideal, fully

developed and distinguished from the simple and normal religious

attitude, was in Greece found only among minorities who cut

themselves off in closed and exclusive conventicles of a theological

or philosophical temper. The "Wise Men" as idealized in the legends

of Abaris. Epimenides, etc., were as individuals not far removed

from the ideal of asceticism. Nor was it long before the attempt was

made to use these ideals as the basis on which to found a society.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX

[1\9: We may safely take it for granted that ~Dio/nusos~ is the

_Greek_ name of the god, though a completely convincing etymology

for the word has yet to be found. Recent attempts to derive it from

the Thracian language are not very convincing. (Tomaschek, _Sitzber.

Wien. Ak._ 130, 41; Kretschmer, _Aus der Anomia_, 22 f.; _Einl._

241.) Acc. to Kretschmer a Thracian origin for the name is proved by

the appearance of the form ~Deo/nuso~--on inss. found in a few Greek

towns surrounded by Thracian influences, e.g. Abdera, Maroneia. Acc.

to him the transition from ~i~ to ~e~ before a vowel is regular in

Thrako-Phrygian, while on the other hand "it is completely

incompatible with all the laws of Greek phonetics". Others have

disagreed with this view, e.g. G. Curtius, certainly an _auctor

probabilis_, to whom the occasional appearance of the transition

from ~i~ to ~e~ before a vowel (side by side with the much commoner

reverse process) seemed quite compatible with the laws of Greek

phonetics. He even counted ~Dio/nusos--Deu/nusos~ (Anakreon) among

the examples of this vowel change within the limits of the Greek

language (_Gr. Etym._^5, p. 608 f.). At any rate ~Ea/sôn = Ia/sôn~,

and ~patroue/an = patrôi/an~ are certain cases of it (see Meister,

_Gr. Dial._ i, 294; G. Meyer, _Gr. Gramm._^2, p. 162). Kretschmer

himself, _Einl._ 225, supplies ~Asklêpeo/dôros, Dei/ = Dii/~. To

account for these forms he postulates the influence of Thracian

surroundings on Greek pronunciation; but in the case of such a

purely Greek word as ~Asklêpio/dôros~ the Thracian influence must

have been a _secondary_ phenomenon operating to cause the alteration

of the old [=i][=o] into [=e][=o]. Why should we not use the same

explanation in accounting for the change from ~Dio/nusos~ to

~Deo/nusos~ and (_if_ Thracian influence is to be presumed--by no

means probable in view of the statement of _EM._ 259, 30,

~Deo/nusos, hou/tô ga\r _Sa/mioi_ prophe/rousin~) say that this

Thracian influence was a secondary one acting upon the original

_Greek_ form of the name ~Dio/nusos~?--It is evident that the

ancients had no idea that ~Dio/nusos (Diô/nusos, Dio/nnusos)~ was

the indigenous name of the Thracian god, for they would in that case

have said so without hesitation. They derived the conception,

figure, and cult of the god from Thrace but not this particular

name, which they regularly regard as the Greek name of the daimon

whom the Thracians spoke of as ~Saba/zios~ or otherwise. (So too

Hdt. regards ~Dio/nusos~ as the Greek name of the god whose

essential nature is Egyptian.) This is by no means without

importance; on the contrary, it provides cogent reason for doubting

the (otherwise insecurely founded) derivation of the name from the

Thracian.]

[2\9: The women in Boeotia ~entheô/tata ema/nêsan~ (cf. Eur.,

_Ba._). ~tai=s Lakedaimoni/ôn gunaixi\n ene/pese/ tis oi=stros

bakchiko\s kai\ tai=s tô=n Chi/ôn~, Ael., _VH._ iii, 42. Hdt. ix,

34, speaks inclusively of the madness of the women in Argos (~tô=n

en A/rgeï gunaikô=n maneise/ôn~), where others speak only of the

frenzy attacking the daughters of Proitos. Neither is incompatible

with the other; they simply represent two different stages of the

story. The ~mai/nesthai~ which attacks the entire female population

is not (as later accounts generally make out) the punishment sent by

Dionysos: it is simply another way of expressing the general

acceptance of his worship which essentially consisted in {305}

~mai/nesthai (= bakcheu/ein~ in Ant. Lib. 10). The ~mai/nesthai~ of

individual women who try to resist the contagious enthusiasm of the

Dionysiac revelry going on around them (e.g. the daughters of

Eleuther: Suid. ~melanaig. Di/on.~) is, however, a punishment sent

by the angry god when it leads them to murder their own

children.--The regular and widespread "mania" of the newly

introduced cult of Dionysos is referred to also by D.S. 4, 68, 4;

[Apollod.] 2, 2, 2, 5; Paus. 2, 18, 4; cf. also Nonn., _D._ 47, 481

ff.]

[3\9: Resistance of Perseus to Dionysos who in this account arrives

with the Mainads from the islands of the Aegean Sea (so Paus.);

victory of Perseus, followed, however, by a reconciliation with the

god whose worship is established and a temple built for Dionysos

Kresios: Paus. 2, 20, 4; 22, 1; 23, 7-8. So, too, Nonn., _D._ 47,

475-741; [Apollod.] 3, 5, 2, 3; Sch. V., ~X~ 319; cf. Meineke, _An.

Alex._ 51. (Dionysos is slain in the war with Perseus: Dinarchos

"the poet" ap. Eus., _Chr._ ii, pp. 44-5 Sch. = an. 718 Abr.; Lob.,

_Agl._ 537 f.).--Lykourgos does not properly belong to this series:

his legend, as told by [Apollod.] 3, 5, 1 (apparently following the

direction given to it by Aesch.), is a late transformation of the

story preserved by Homer, in which stories of Pentheus or the

Minyads or the Proitides are imitated.]

[4\9: This is esp. clear in the legend dealing with Orchomenos; cf.

the account in Plu., _Q.Gr._ 38, p. 293 D. It is very probable that

the other stories, too, were founded upon sacrificial ritual; cf.

Welcker, _Gr. Götterl._ i, 444 ff.]

[5\9: Cf. also Sch. Ar., _Ach._ 243.]

[6\9: Cf. Eur., _Ba._ 217 ff., 487, 32 ff. The daughters of Minyas

~epo/thoun tou\s game/tas~ (see Perizon. ad loc.) ~kai\ dia\ tou=to

ouk ege/nonto tô=| theô=| maina/des~, Ael., _VH._ iii, 42.

Throughout all these legends the contrast between Dionysos and Hera,

who is the patroness of marriage, is very marked.]

[7\9: ~orsigu/naika Di/onuson~--unknown poet ap. Plu., _Exil._ 17,

p. 607 C; _Smp._ 4, 6, 1, p. 671 C; _E_ ap. _D._ 9, 389 B.

~hi/lathi, eiraphiô=ta, gunaimane/s~, _h. Hom._ 34, 17.]

[8\9: Like an infection or a conflagration. ~ê/dê to/d' eggu\s

hô/ste pu=r epha/ptetai hu/brisma Bakchou=, pso/gos es He/llênas

me/gas~, Pentheus in E., _Ba._ 778.]

[9\9: See the accounts reported ap. Hecker, _Epidemics of the M.A._,

pp. 88, 153 Babington, esp. those of Petrus de Herental (ap. Steph.

Baluz., _Vit. Pap. Avinion._ i, 483): quaedam nomina daemoniorum

appellabant. The dancer cernit Mariae filium et caelum

apertum.--"The masters of the Holy Scripture who exorcized the

dancers regarded them as being possessed by the devil." (Limburg

Chronicle; see _Mon. Germ., Chron._ iv, 1, ed. Tilemann: p. 64, ed.

Wyss.)]

[10\9: Details given by Weniger, _Dionysosdienst in Elis_, p. 8

(1883).]

[11\9: At Delphi there was a festival called ~hêrôï/s~ in which the

Dionysiac _Thyiades_ took part; a ~Seme/lês anagôgê/~ was the chief

feature of the ~drô/mena phanerô=s~ (Plu., _Q.Gr._ 12). The name

~hêrôï/s~ points to a general festival of the dead (cf. Voigt in

Roscher's _Lex._ i, 1048); for another general festival of "Heroes"

at Delphi see chap. iv, n. 82. At Athens the great festival of the

dead, the Choes and Chytrai (chap. v, p. 168) formed part of the

Anthesteria. It is precisely in these ~archaio/tera Dionu/sia~

(Thuc. ii, 15, 4) that Dionysos appears as he was in primitive

belief, the "master of the souls". Thus, too, in Argos one of the

most ancient seats of the worship of Dionysos, the Dionysiac

festival of the Agriania was at the same time a festival {306} of

the dead, ~neku/sia~: Hsch., ~agria/nia~ (it was specially ~epi\

mia=| tô=n Proi/tou thugate/rôn~ [Iphinoë: Apollod. 2, 22, 8], Hsch.

s.v.: even so it was a festival of the dead).--In Plu., _E ap. D._

9, 389 A, in view of the hopeless confusion shown by Plutarch in

that chapter between Delphic cult-procedure and the opinions of

certain unspecified ~theolo/goi~, it is unfortunately impossible to

say with certainty whether it is the Delphians who ~Dio/nuson kai\

Zagre/a kai\ Nukte/lion kai\ Isodai/tên onoma/zousin~ or whether

this only applies to the ~theolo/goi~ (in which case they are

probably Orphics).]

[12\9: The _Agrionia_ to the "savage" god (~ômêstê\s kai\

agriô/nios~ as contrasted with the ~charido/tês kai\ meili/chios~,

Plu., _Ant._ 24) were celebrated in Thebes and Argos. ~agriô/nia

kai\ nukte/lia hô=n ta\ polla\ dia\ sko/tous dra=tai~ are opposed to

the ~olu/mpia hiera/~, by Plu., _QR._ 112, p. 291 A. Bacchic din,

~pso/phos~, at the ~nukte/lia~, Plu., _Smp._ 4, 6, p. 672 A.--Temple

of D. ~Nukte/lios~ at Megara: Paus. 1, 40, 6. Nocturnal festivities

(~nu/ktôr ta\ polla\~, Eur., _Ba._ 486) at the Dionysia at Lerna =

Paus. 2, 37, 6, at the festival of ~Dio/nusos Lamptê/r~ in Pellone:

Paus. 7, 27, 3. ~o/rgia~ of D. at Melangeia in Arcadia 8, 6, 5; at

Heraia 8, 26, 1. The orgiastic cult of D. seems to have been

preserved particularly in Sparta. We hear of the ~oi=stros

bakchiko/s~ that once attacked the women of Sparta from Aelian,

_VH._ iii, 42; some lines of Alkman (_fr._ 34) allude to the

fanatical Bacchic revels on the mountain tops (quite misunderstood

by Welcker, _Kl. Schr._ iv, 49). It became proverbial: virginibus

bacchata Lacaenis Taygeta, Vg., _G._ ii, 487. A special word is

applied to the Bacchic fury of these Spartan Mainads: ~du/smainai~

(Philarg. on Vg., _G._ ii, 487; Hsch. s.v.; Meineke, _An. Alex._

360). In view of these ecstatic mountain-revels we need not be

surprised at the prohibition of drunken roaming about the city and

countryside, of which Pl., _Lg._ 637 AB speaks.]

[13\9: Welcker, _Gr. Götterl._ i, 444.--But human sacrifice in the

Thracian worship of D. is nevertheless suggested by the remarkable

story of Porph. (_Abs._ ii, 8) about the ~Ba/ssaroi~ (whom he seems

to take for a Thracian tribe.]

[14\9: Clem. Al., Arn., Firm. all speak of the ~ômophagi/a~ of the

Bakchai as a still-prevailing cult-practice. Bernays, _Heraklit.

Briefe_, 73. Galen, too, speaks in the same way of the tearing in

pieces of snakes at the Bacchic festivals (quoted Lob., _Agl._ 271

a; to snare vipers ~ka/llisto/s esti kairo/s, ho\n kai\ auto\s ho

Andro/machos~ (79 ff. of his poem) ~edê/lôsen, hêni/ka kai\ hoi tô=|

Dionu/sô| bakcheu/ontes eiô/thasi diaspa=n ta\s echi/dnas,

pauome/nou me\n tou= hê=ros ou/pô d' êrgme/nou tou= the/rous~

(_Antid._ i, 8 = xiv, p. 45 K.). ~hêni/ka--echi/dnas~ are Gal.'s

words not Andromachos'. Cf. also Prud., _Sym._ i, 130 ff.]

[15\9: We need only recall the remarkable story of Hdt. (iv, 79)

about the Scythian king who in Borysthenes was initiated into the

mysteries of Dionysos Bakcheios ~ho\s mai/nesthai ena/gei

anthrô/pous~. His Scythian subjects took exception to this. For them

the religion was specifically Greek, A Borysthenite says to the

Scythians: ~hêmô=n ga\r katagela=te, ô= Sku/thai, ho/ti bakcheu/omen

kai\ hêma=s ho theo\s _lamba/nei_. nu=n hou=tos ho dai/môn kai\ to\n

hume/teron basile/a lela/bêke kai\ bakcheu/ei kai\ hupo\ tou= theou=

_mai/netai_.~]

[16\9: Cf. the remarkable account given by Plu., _Mul. Virt._ 11, p.

249 B; _fr. de An._ ap. Gell. 15, 10; Polyaen. 8, 63; and Lucian in

_H.Conscr._ (25), 1.]

[17\9: Of a different description are the attacks of temporary

insanity accompanied by similar features but not religious in

complexion described by Aretaeus, p. 82 K., and Gal. vii, pp. 60-1

K. (the case of Theophilos).] {307}

[18\9: Phenomena of ~korubantiasmo/s~: hearing the sound of flutes

Pl., _Crit._ 54 D, Max. T., _Diss._ 38, 2, p. 220 R.; cf. Cic.,

_Div._ i, 114; seeing ~phantasi/ai~, D.H., _Dem._ 22. It is this

waking dream-condition, a condition related to hypnosis, which Pliny

probably means: patentibus oculis dormiunt multi homines, quos

corybantiare Graeci dicunt, _NH._ xi, 147. Excitement, beating

heart, weeping: Pl., _Smp._ 215 E. Maddened dance: ~hoi

korubantiô=ntes ouk e/mphrones o/ntes orchou=ntai~, _Ion_, 534 A.

"Sober drunkenness" ~me/thê nêpha/lios~ of the ~korub.~, Philo,

_Mund. Op._ 23, i, p. 16 M.--The name shows that those attacked by

the disease were regarded as "possessed" by the Korybantes.

~korubantia=n to\ Koru/basi kate/chesthai~, Sch. Ar., _V._ 9. The

Korybantes ~mani/as kai\ entheiasmou= eisin empoiêtikoi/~, ib. 8.

~e/ntheos ek semnô=n Koruba/ntôn~, E., _Hip._ 142; Sch. ad loc.:

~Koru/bantes mani/as ai/tioi. e/nthen kai\ koruba/ntia=n~.--Arrian

gives an unusually good account of the Korybantic frenzy of the

Phrygians in a little noticed passage ap. Eust. on D.P. 809:

~mai/nontai tê=| Rhe/a| kai\ pro\s Koruba/ntôn kate/chontai, ê/goun

korubantiô=si daimonô=ntes~ (i.e. possessed by the ~dai/môn~, see

Usener, _Götternamen_, 293). ~ho/tan de\ kata/schê| autou\s to\

thei=on, elauno/menoi kai\ me/ga boô=ntes kai\ orchou/menoi

prothespi/zousi ta\ me/llonta, theophorou/menoi kai\ maino/menoi~.

The complete similarity between this condition and that of the

Bacchic worship is sufficiently obvious.]

[19\9: Use of dance and music to cure those who are attacked by

Korybantic excitement: Pl., _Lg._ 790 DE, 791 A. More especially the

melodies for the flute composed by Olympos, being ~thei=a~, were

able to discover and cure those liable to Korybantic _ekstasis_ (by

means of the _inspiring_ effect which they had on such persons).

This is shown particularly by a passage in Plato (_Smp._ 215 C-E);

where it is evident that the ~korubantiô=ntes~ of 215 E are not to

be distinguished from the ~theô=n kai\ teletô=n deo/menoi~ of 215 C

(C states the general rule of which E is a particular application).

This homoeopathic cure of the ~korubantiô=ntes~ by the

intensification and subsequent discharge of the disorder is implied

in all that we hear of the character of the Phrygian mode as

~enthousiastikê/~ and of the ~me/lê Olu/mpou~ as exciting the souls

of men to "_enthousiasmos_"; Arist., _Pol._ 1340b, 4, 5, 1342b, 1

ff., 1340a, 8; [Pl.], _Min._ 318 B; Cic., _Div._ i, 114. The

~korubantiô=ntes~ are also meant in Arist., _Pol._ 8, 7, 1342a, 7 ff

~. . . kai\ ga\r hupo\ tau/tês tê=s kinê/seôs~ (i.e. ~tou=

enthousiasmou=) katakô/chimoi/ tine/s eisin; ek de\ tô=n hierô=n

melô=n horô=men tou/tous, ho/tan chrê/sôntai toi=s orgia/zousi tê\n

psuchê\n me/lesi, kathistame/nous hô/sper iatrei/as tucho/ntas kai\

katha/rseôs~. Plato's analysis (_Lg._ 790 D ff.) is exactly

parallel: the cure for the ~manikai\ diathe/seis~ of the Korybantic

patients is ~ouch hêsuchi/a alla\ tounanti/on ki/nêsis~, whereby

they are assisted to regain their ~he/xeis e/mphrones~. (It is from

this religio-musical procedure and not from strictly medical

experience or practice that Aristotle, taking a hint from Plato,

_Rp._ 606, derived his idea of the ~ka/tharsis tô=n pathêma/tôn~ by

violent discharge of the emotions and transferred it to

tragedy--not, as in the explanation to which some have recently

returned, by a tranquilization of the emotions in "a final

reconciliation".) This ~ka/tharsis~ and ~iatrei/a~ of the

~korubantiô=ntes~ is the object of the initiation ceremony of the

Korybantes (whose true ~ba/kchoi~ are the ~korubantiô=ntes~, i.e.

the worshippers who are in need of and capable of cure; of the

~Koruba/ntôn mustê/ria~ which are held ~epi\ katharmô=| tê=s

mani/as~ (Sch. Ar., _V._ 119-20, ~ekoruba/ntize~); cf. the ~teletê\

tô=n Koruba/ntôn~ (Pl., _Euthd._ 277 D, including ~_thro/nôsis_~: D.

Chr. 12, p. 388 R., § 33 Arn.; Lob., _Agl._ 116, 369. There is a

parody of ~thro/nôsis~ in the initiation scene of Ar., _Nub._ 254,

where Streps. sits ~epi\ to\n hiero\n ski/mpoda. tethronisme/nos

toi=s theoi=s~ = initiated {308} in _P. Mag. Lond._ 747 f. = Kenyon,

_Greek Papyri in B.M._ i, p. 108); and cf. the ~mêtrô=|a kai\

korubantika\ te/lê~: D.H., _Dem._ 22. At the initiation ceremony

(~korubantismo/s; ka/tharsis mani/as~ Hsch.) held in the

~Korubantei=on~ (Hdn. Gr. 1, 375, 15 Lentz; _App. Prov._ ii, 23) the

famous music of "inspiration" was played; there was also ~chorei/a~

(Pl. _Euthd._), ~ê=choi~ e.g. the sound of ~tu/mpana~ (Ar., _Ves._

120 f.; Luc. _DD._ 12, 1), and also it appears incense-burning:

~osmai/~, D.H., _Dem._ 22; cf. above, chap. viii, n. 39. All these

stimulants intensified the pathological tendency of the

~korubantiô=ntes~ and gave them relief by the violent discharge of

their emotions.--There is no need to doubt the actual occurrence of

such pathological states and their medical treatment by music, etc.

It was clearly the same type of psychopathical malady that invaded

Italy in the Middle Ages under the name of Tarantism, repeating its

attacks for several centuries; in this case, too, music (and even

the sound of a particular melody) served both to excite and

eventually to cure the violent dance-mania; cf. Hecker 172, 176

ff.--There seems to be a fabulous element in other stories current

in antiquity about the cure of madness, love-passions, and even

sciatica by the music of the flute (Pythagoras, Empedokles, Damon,

Thphr. _fr._ 87). Such belief in the curative powers of music, esp.

of the flute, seems to have been derived originally from actual

experience of the ~katha/rseis~ practised in Korybantic festivals,

and then to have been exaggerated into a fable. Even doctors had no

doubt that ~mani/a~ was curable by the _cantiones tibiarum_; see

Cael. Aur., _Morb. Chr._ i, 5, 175, 178 (Asklepiades); Cael. Aur.

(i.e. Soranos), ib. 176, however, denies it. It depended entirely

upon the theory, originally derived from ~korubantismo/s~, of cure

by intensification and discharge of the emotional state.]

[20\9: ~ô= ma/kar ho/stis . . . thiaseu/etai psucha/n, en o/ressi

bakcheu/ôn, hosi/ois _katharmoi=sin_~, E., _Ba._ 72 ff.--dicunt

sacra Liberi ad purgationem animae pertinere Serv. on Vg., _G._ ii,

389; cf. also on _A._ vi, 741.]

[21\9: ~Dio/nusos _lu/sios_~ (like ~D. meili/chios eleuthereu/s~ and

~saô/tês~) is rightly taken as the "freer from orgiastic frenzy"

(and not in the ordinary political sense) by Klausen, _Orpheus_, p.

26 [Ersch-Gruber] and Voigt in Roscher's _Lex._ i, 1062. That this

is the proper meaning of ~lu/sios~ is shown by its being contrasted

with ~bakchei=os~, which by common consent means the god ~ho\s

mai/nesthai ena/gei anthrô/pous~ (Hdt.); e.g. in Korinth, Paus. 2,

2, 6; Sikyon, Paus. 2, 7, 5-6. And ~D. bakcheu/s~ and ~meili/chios~

in Naxos, _Ath._ iii, 78 C.]

[22\9: In the ~kata/logos gunaikô=n~ as it seems; _fr._ 54 Rz. But

perhaps also in the _Melampodia_ (_fr._ 184 Kink.).]

[23\9: ~ema/nêsan, hôs Hêsi/odo/s phêsin, ho/ti ta\s Dionu/sou

teleta\s ou katede/chonto~. [Apollod.] 2, 2, 2, 2, and cf. 1, 9, 12,

8. The same story (only with the name Anaxagoras substituted for

that of his grandfather Proitos--doubtless on chronological grounds)

with the words ~ta\s Argei/as gunai=kas manei/sas dia\ tê\n

Dionu/sou mê=nin~: D.S. 4, 68, 4. (~mani/a~--in the reign of

Anaxagoras--Paus. 2, 18, 4; Eust., on _B_ 568, p. 288,

28).--Otherwise, it is generally Hera who sends the ~mani/a~

Akousil. ap. [Apollod.] 2, 2, 2, 2 [_fr._ 14 Diels]. Pherekyd. ap.

Sch. on ~o~ 225. Probus and Serv. on _Ecl._ vi, 48. This is a later

version of the legend depending upon a different interpretation of

the "insanity".]

[24\9: [Apollod.] 2, 2, 2. Acc. to Hdt. ix, 34, the treatment of

Melamp. was applied generally to all the ~Argei=ai gunai=kes~ (who

acc. to [Apollod.] § 5, were also attacked by the madness); cf. D.S.

4, 68, 4. (~. . . ta\s Argei/as ê\ hô/s tines ma=llo/n phasi, ta\s

Proiti/das~ Eustath. ~kata\ tê\n histori/an~). ~therapeu/ein~ is

D.S.' word; ~eka/thêren~, Sch. Pi., _N._ ix, 30; _purgavit_ Serv.]

{309}

[25\9: ~Mela/mpous paralabô\n tou\s dunatôta/tous tô=n neaniô=n

_met' alalagmou= kai/ tinos enthe/ou chorei/as_ ek tô=n orô=n auta\s

es Sikuô=na sunedi/ôxe~ (i.e. the frenzied women who had eventually

become very numerous: § 5, 6) [Apollod.] 2, 2, 2, 7. The account in

Pl., _Phdr._ 244 D, E, corresponds closely with the proceedings of

Melampous and perhaps refers to them: ~alla\ mê\n no/sôn ge kai\

po/nôn tô=n megi/stôn, ha\ dê\ palaiô=n ek mênima/tôn pothe\n e/n

tisi tô=n genô=n hê mani/a eggenome/nê kai\ prophêteu/sasa hoi=s

e/dei apallagê\n heu/reto, kataphugou=sa pro\s theô=n eucha/s te

kai\ latrei/as, ho/then dê\ _katharmô=n_ te kai\ teletô=n tuchou=sa

exa/ntê epoi/êse to\n heautê=s e/chonta pro/s te to\n paro/nta kai\

to\n e/peita chro/non, lu/sin tô=| orthô=s _mane/nti kai\

kataschome/nô|_ tô=n paro/ntôn kakô=n heurome/nê~. This is a

description of the remedial methods used in the Bacchic and

Korybantic _enthousiasmos_ but applied to special circumstances of

the mythical past which are regarded as the standard of all later

kathartic methods.]

[26\9: ~katharmoi/~ [Apollod.] § 8. The regular kathartic materials

are ~ski/lla, **a/sphaltos~, water, etc.; Diphilus, _fr._ 126 K.,

employs them all for his own purpose, ap. Clem. Al., _Str._ vii, p.

844 P. The black hellebore (~elle/boros me/las~) was popularly known

as ~melampo/dion~ because Melampous had first gathered and employed

it for the purpose (Thphr., _HP._ 9, 10, 4), esp. when he cured and

purified the ~Proi/tou thugate/ras manei/sas~ (Gal., _Atrabile_ 7 =

v, p. 132 K.; it can only be by mistake that he calls it the white

hellebore; cf. also Diosc. 4, 149, where the old ~kathartê/s~

becomes ~Mela/mpous tis aipo/los~ [hence Plin., _NH._ 25, 47]; the

reason may be elicited from Thphr., _HP._ 9, 10, 2). The place where

the ~katharmoi/~ took place and where the ~katha/rsia~ were thrown

away differed acc. to the natural features of the locality and the

convenience they offered: thus in Arcadia it was at Lousoi, in Elis

at the river Anigros, etc.; Ov., _M._ xv, 322 ff.; Vitr. 8, 3, 21;

Paus. 5, 5, 10; 8, 18, 7-8; cf. Call., _H. Art._ 233 f.; Str. 346,

etc.]

[27\9: Melampous ~He/llêsin ho exêgêsa/menos tou= Dionu/sou to/ te

ou/noma kai\ tê\n thusi/ên kai\ tê\n pompê\n tou= phallou=~, Hdt.

ii, 49. Hdt.'s elaborate theory in this passage of a connexion

between Mel. and Egypt, etc., is of course historically quite

worthless, but the fact that he pitched upon Melamp. especially as

the introducer of the Dionysiac religion can only have been due to

the existence of ancient tradition (i.e. legendary tradition of

course). There can be no doubt that he, like Hesiod, regarded as

_Dionysiac_ the frenzy in which the Argive women were said

~manê=nai~ and to have been healed by Melamp. (ix, 34).]

[28\9: ~Mela/mpous phi/ltatos ô\n Apo/llôni~, Hes., _Eoiai_, (168

Rz.) ap. Sch. A.R. i, 118. ~phi/los Apo/llôni~, D.S, 6, 7, 7 Dind.

The poet of the family tree of the Melampodidai given in ~o~ 244 ff.

undoubtedly regarded Melamp. as an Apolline ~ma/ntis~ (like all

~ma/nteis~ in Homer). This poet at least knows nothing of the

Dionysiac side of Melampous' activities. How Mel. met Apollo on the

banks of the Alphaios and from him received his consecration as true

~ma/ntis~, we learn from [Apollod.] 1, 9, 11, 3. The same is said of

Polypheides, a descendant of Mel. ~o~ 252: ~auta\r hupe/rthumon

Poluphei/dea ma/ntin Apo/llôn thê=ke brotô=n o/ch' a/riston, epei\

tha/nen Amphia/ros~. Another descendant of Melamp., Polyeidos, comes

to Megara to purify Alkathoös from the murder of his son, and founds

there a temple of _Dionysos_: Paus. 1, 43, 4.]

[29\9: See above, chap. iii, n. 32.]

[30\9: Plu., _Is. et O._ 35, p. 365 A. Sacrifice made by Agamemnon

to Dionysos ~en muchoi=s Delphini/ou par' a/ntra kerdô/|ou theou=~,

Lyc. 207 ff.]

[31\9: Plu., _E ap. D._ ix, p. 388 F. Three winter months were

sacred to Dionysos (cf. the three chief Dionysiac festivals at

Athens which {310} occurred in the months Gamelion, Anthesterion,

Elaphebolion). Only during these three months is the god on earth.

So, too, Kore shared her rule over the underworld with Aïdoneus for

three months (or six); the rest of the year she is on earth ~para\

mêtri\ kai\ a/llois athana/toisi~.]

[32\9: ~Dionu/sô| tô=n Delphô=n oude\n hê=tton ê\ tô=| Apo/llôni

me/testin~, Plu., _E ap. D._ ix, 384 D.]

[33\9: ~ta\ de\ nephô=n te/ estin anôte/rô ta\ a/kra (tou=

Parnasou=), kai\ hai Thuia/des epi\ tou/tois tô=| Dionu/sô| _kai\

tô=| Apo/llôni_ mai/nontai~, Paus. 10, 32, 7. Parnasus gemino petit

aethera colle, mons Phoebo Bromioque sacer, cui numine mixto

Delphica Thebanae referunt trieterica Bacchae, Luc., v, 72 ff. We

hear of a Delphos the son of Apollo and Thyia the first priestess

and Mainad of Dionysos at Delphi: Paus. 10, 6, 4.]

[34\9: Apollo himself in an oracular command ~Puthia/sin

pentetê/roisin . . . e/taxe Ba/kchou thusi/an chorô=n te pollô=n

kukli/an a/millan~; so says Philodamos of Skarpheia in the Paian

(second half fourth century B.C.) _BCH._ 1895, p. 408. We must

suppose, too, that this command (i.e. decree of the Delphic

priesthood) was actually carried out.]

[35\9: ~Delphoi\ de\ diplê=| prosêgori/a| timô=sin (se/~, i.e.

Apollo), ~Apo/llôna kai\ Dio/nuson le/gontes~, Men. Rhet., p. 446, 5

Sp.]

[36\9: _Arg._, Sch. Pi., _P._, p. 297, Böckh [p. 2, 5 ff. Drch.]: ~.

. . tou= prophêtikou= tri/podos~ (in Delphi) ~en hô=| prô=tos

Dio/nusos ethemi/steuse~. And again ~. . da/ktulon~ (a part of the

~no/mos Puthiko/s) apo\ Dionu/sou, ho/ti prô=tos hou=tos dokei= apo\

tou= tri/podos themisteu=sai~. As it has been previously said that

at the Delphic ~mantei=on _prô/tê_ Nu\x echrêsmô/|dêsen~, Dionysos

seems to be here regarded as ~pro/mantis~ of Nyx. Thus, at Megara

there was a temple of ~Dio/nusos Nukte/lios~ in the immediate

neighbourhood of, and in all probability closely associated with a

~Nukto\s mantei=on~: Paus. 1, 40, 6.]

[37\9: Paus. 1, 2, 5; Ribbeck, _Anf. d. Dionysoscult in Att._, p. 8

(1869); cf. Dem. 21, 52. Regulation of a festival of Dionysos in

Kolone by the Oracle: Paus. 3, 13, 7; in Alea, Paus. 8, 23, 1 (at

which women were scourged, a substitution for primitive human

sacrifice, as at the ~diamasti/gôsis~ in Sparta, of which Paus. is

reminded). Introduction of the worship of ~Dio/nusos Phallê/n~ at

Methymna by the oracle: Paus. 10, 19, 3.--At Magnesia on the

Maeander a plane-tree split by a storm revealed a statue of Dionysos

(a true ~Dio/nusos e/ndendros~). The Delphic oracle commanded the

ambassadors sent by the city to build a temple to Dionysos (who had

hitherto been without one in Magnesia and put a priest in charge of

it; then, for the institution of the cult they were to introduce

from Thebes Mainads of the family of Ino: ~Maina/das hai\ geneê=s

Einou=s a/po Kadmêei/ês~. (The cult of Dionysos was evidently

traditional at Thebes in this family which traced its descent from

Ino, the foster-mother of Dionysos.) The three Mainads obtained from

Thebes (called Kosko, Baubo, and Thettale instituted the cult of the

god and founded three ~thi/asoi~ arranged according to locality

(there were three ~thi/asoi~ in Thebes, too, E., _Ba._ 680 ff.).

They themselves remained in Magnesia till their death and were

buried with great ceremony by the city, Kosko on the "Hill of

Kosko", Baubo ~en Taba/rnei~, Thettale ~pro\s tô=| the/atrô|~. See

the ~archai=os chrêsmo/s~ with explanatory notes in prose, restored

by ~Apollô/neios Moko/llês, archai=os mu/stês~ (of Dionysos): _Ath.

Mitth._ 15 (1890), p. 331 f.]

[38\9: See Rapp, _Rhein. Mus._ 27. In spite of his quite correct

emphasis in general upon the ritual and purely formal character of

this sacred embassy and the dance-festival that followed, Rapp makes

the mistake of underestimating the ecstatic side of the Dionysiac

festivals--a side {311} which was once predominant and was always

liable to recur. (If this element had not been real there would have

been no need for a symbolical ritualistic imitation of such

~e/kstasis~). How even in later times a true ekstasis and

self-forgetfulness seized upon the Thyiades in their sacred

night-festivals and in consequence of the numerous stimulating

influences of the occasion, we can learn very clearly from

Plutarch's description of the Thyiads who wandered in their frenzy

to Amphissa (_Mul. Virt._ 13, 249 E). Rapp., p. 22, tries in vain to

upset the historical value of this account. Other points have

already been mentioned incidentally.]

[39\9: ~hê\n dia\ mantosu/nên tê\n hoi= po/re Phoi=bos Apo/llôn~ ~A~

72.]

[40\9: ~to\ a/technon kai\ adi/dakton (tê=s mantikê=s) toute/stin

enu/pnia kai\ enthousiasmou/s~ [Plu.] _Vit. Poes. Hom._ ii, 212. The

only form known to Homer is ~hê tô=n _emphro/nôn_ zê/têsis tou=

me/llontos dia/ te orni/thôn poioume/nê kai\ tô=n a/llôn sêmei/ôn~

(Pl., _Phdr._ 244 C).]

[41\9: The Ps.-Plutarch of the last note does, however, find in

Theoklymenos' position among the suitors, ~u~ 345-57 (in any case a

passage added by a later hand), a proof that he is an ~_e/ntheos_

ma/ntis, e/k tinos epipnoi/as sêmai/nôn ta\ me/llonta~. But in that

story the abnormal state belongs rather to the suitors than the

seer. See Lob., _Agl._ 264. Still less can we (with Welcker,

_Götterl._ ii, 11) deduce Homer's knowledge of ecstatic prophecy

from ~A~ 91 ff. or ~Ê~ 34-53. The derivation of the word ~ma/ntis~

from ~mai/nesthai~, frequently repeated since the time of Plato,

would make the ecstatic element predominant in the idea of the

prophet. But this derivation is quite uncertain and a connexion with

~manu/ô~ is much more probable.]

[42\9: Pytho: ~th~ 80, ~I~ 405. Dodona: ~P~ 234, ~x~ 327 f., ~t~ 296

f. An oracle is questioned perhaps in ~p~ 402 f. See Nägelsbach,

_Hom. Theol._, p. 181 f.]

[43\9: See Lob., _Agl._ 814 f. (even the regular use of the

expressions ~anei=len ho theo/s, hê puthi/a~ suffice to prove it).

Cf. also Bgk., _Gr. Lit._ i, 334. _h. Hom. Merc._ in its own fashion

(552-66) tells how the god deserted the "lot" oracle at Delphi as

too unreliable and unworthy of the god.]

[44\9: Even the case of Helenos is no real example of this: ~Ê~ 44

([Plu.] _Vit. Hom._ ii, 212, seems to regard it as one). Cic., _Div._

i, 89, expressly distinguishes the prophesying of Helenos from the

"enthusiastic" frenzy of Kassandra.]

[45\9: Even the _h. Hom. Merc._ to the Pythian Apollo, though it

describes the institution of the cult and oracle of Apollo at

Delphi, nowhere mentions the Pythia (as Lob., _Agl._ 264, very

pertinently remarks). (Acc. to 306 f. we must suppose that at that

time the prophesying was done exclusively by male ~ma/nteis~ or

~prophê=tai~.)]