the subject than has been possessed by a vast number of moderns. It is a perfect vindication, from an Hellenik standpoint, of the method which I have pursued when dealing with the mythic histories of divinities. Thus, in the Homerik Episode of Lykourgos, I noticed that Dionysos is represented as acting as if he were a child, in consequence of his cult being yet of recent introduction, and that in the Episode of the Tyrsenian Pirates, when he has been somewhat longer in Hellenik regions, he is described as a youth. And so, conversely, the practice of Homeros is an illustration and justification of the principle of Herodotos. The reader will observe his opinion that Melampous got his knowledge of the Dionysiak ritual from Cadmus the Tyrian, and the followers whom he brought from Phoenicia into Boeotia.' As he nowhere asserts or implies that the Phoenician ritual was borrowed from Kam, he evidently was not of opinion that the worship of Dionysos originally arose in that country; but I shall have occasion to refer to his views on the question when considering the general connection between Dionysos and Uasar.1 SECTION IV. DIONYSOS AND NYSA. The usual connection between Dionysos and the mysterious Nysa appears in Herodotos, as in the other authorities whose works have been examined. 'Bacchus, according to the Greek tradition, was no sooner born than he was sewn up in Jupiter's thigh, and carried off to Nysa, above Egypt, in Ethiopia.' 2 Again, he notices that the Ethiopians bordering upon Egypt, who were reduced by Cambyses, and who dwelt about the sacred city of Nysa, have festivals in honour of Bacchus.'1 Again, he relates that the sticks of cinnamon are said to come 'from the country in which Bacchus was brought up,' 2 apparently meaning Aithiopia. The Herodotean Nysa is thus deep in the Outer-world. There were evidently very many Hellenik traditions about the situation of Nysa, but, wherever it was supposed to be, it was invariably connected with the Dionysiak cult. 4 3 SECTION V. DIONYSOS AND UASAR. Subsection I-Theory of Herodotos on the historic connection between the Divinities of Hellas and Kam. According to Herodotos, all the Hellenik divinities were derived from a foreign source.' The Pelasgoi supplied Here, Hestia, Themis, the Charites, the Nereïdes, and the Dioskouroi, Kastor and Polydeukes. The Libyans introduced Poseidon, and the 'other gods have been known from time immemorial in Egypt.' The principal divinities in his opinion thus common to both Kam and Hellas are Zeus, Artemis,7 Apollon, Demeter, Athene, 10 Diony 1 Herod. iii. 97. 2 Ibid. iii. 111. 3 Vide IV. ii. 1; VIII. i. Nysios. IX. viii. 4 Vide inf. sec. vi. 5 Herod.ii. 50. 6 Amen, Hellenikos Ammon. 7 Sekhet or Pasht, Hellenikos Bubastis. 8 Har, Hellenikos Horos. 9 Uasi or Hesi, Hellenikos Isis. 10 Neith. Cf. Platon. Timaios. 'She is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene.' Bunsen inclined to this view, remarking:- Athena, i.e. Athenaia, may probably be Anaith with second reduplication at the beginning, and the Egyptian N T pro a sos,1 Hephaistos,2 Epaphos,3 Pan or Mendes, Leto or Bouto, Ares, Hermes,' and Herakles. Such is the theory of Herodotos, a most intelligent observer, but ignorant of the ethnic and philological affinities which modern research has established. We are now aware that the Hellenik Pantheon is essentially Aryan, and therefore we should as soon suppose that the Hellenik language was derived from that of Kam as that the Homerik divinities, or even the majority of them, were importations from the Black Country. The following Hellenik personages may be regarded as undoubtedly Aryan in origin and character:-Zeus, Here, Demeter, Athene, Apollon, Artemis, Ares,10 Persephone,11 Hermes, Pan, and Herakles.12 But Poseidon, Dionysos, Hephaistos, Aphrodite, are nonAryan importations. The effort to prove the entire Hellenik and Homerik Pantheons to be of Aryan origin is an undue extension of the Natural Phenomena Theory, an error which is itself a reaction from, and a result of, the opposite mistakes of former times. The theory, then, of the absolute identity of Zeus and Amen, for instance, may be unhesitatingly rejected; but, though distinct concepts, they correspond with one another, each in his respective Pantheon being 'the King of the Gods,' and therefore, in 6 nounced Ne-ith, may represent the 1. Uasar, Heshar, Hesiri (Bunsen), or Asari (P. le Page Renouf, Egyptian Grammar, 59), Hellenikos Osiris. In the present Work I have adopted the first of these forms. (Vide Dr. Birch, Names of the Principal Deities in Bunsen's Egypt's N a sense, they are practically identical. But it is difficult to see even a resemblance between some of the pairs of divinities unified by Herodotos, e.g. between Artemis and the cat-headed Pasht.1 Rejecting, then, the proposed identifications of Zeus with Amen, Artemis with Pasht, Apollon with Har, Demeter with Uasi, Athene with Neith, Pan with Khem, Ares with Mandou, Hermes with Tet, and Herakles with Khons, it will naturally be asked Why is the identity of Dionysos and Uasar to be accepted? If Herodotos admittedly errs in so many instances, is it not probable that here too he is wrong? To this highly proper enquiry, I reply that, in the abstract, it was almost certain from their relative geographical positions the nonAryan East would exercise an important influence on Hellas; that the requirements of abstract probability are satisfied by the allotment of the far greater number of the personages of Hellenik mythology to Aryan sources; that an analysis of the histories and cult of some Hellenik divinities, e.g. Poseidon, Hephaistos, Aphrodite, and Dionysos, exhibits and illustrates a distinctly non-Aryan influence; that the whole course of the enquiry into the Dionysiak cult tends, in a great variety of ways, to show its Semitic character and foreign origin; and lastly, that a comparison between the Dionysiak and Uasarian myths will evidence not only a resemblance, as if they were merely corresponding members of two distinct Pantheons, but from its minute and singular agreement, and that often in obscure and curious points and phases, will necessitate an identity of origin.2 Thus, two nations may possess a solar cult, and, in the abstract, each may have As to the singular manner in which the Hellenes bestowed the name of Artemis on most dissimilar divinities, vide inf. VI. i. 1. No personage is better represented in the British Museum than Ailouros, or Le Dieu Chat,' as Montfaucon calls her. Cf. Herod. ii. 66. 2 Cf. the previously quoted remark of Herodotos, I can by no means allow that it is by mere coincidence that the Bacchic ceremonies in Greece are so nearly the same as the Egyptian.' received and practised it entirely independently of the other. Both see the sun, and both are naturally inclined to adore or reverence it in some way. But if each community honoured it with similar rites and ceremonies, in themselves unique and peculiar, we should unhesitatingly assert that there must have been some contact between them. To deny this would be an outrage upon all probability. And, having these considerations before us, we shall neither rashly say, on the one hand, that the theory of Herodotos respecting the gods of Kam and Hellas is correct as a whole; nor shall we assert, on the other, that the Hellenes being Aryans must have had divinities purely Aryan in origin and none others, and so conclude that any apparent resemblance between Dionysos and Uasar is only illusory, and merely supported by 'the impudent assertions of Egyptian priests'; but, avoiding all excesses produced by the revenges of the whirligig of time, let us rather proceed to dissect patiently the complicated personage before us, knowing that however curious his structure and composition, he will nevertheless, like some strange and hitherto unknown beast or bird, ultimately fall into his place in the natural history of man, and so perhaps supply a link hitherto wanting in the chain of ideas.1 Subsection II.-Dionysos considered by Herodotos as identical with Uasar, but the Dionysiak cult not supposed by him to be derived from the Uasarian. Dionysos, then, is identified by Herodotos with Uasar. 'Osiris, whom they [the Egyptians] say is the Grecian Bacchus.' 'Osiris is named Dionysos by the Greeks.' 3 2 1 The view of the identity of Dionysos and Uasar is of course no novelty; but, in its usual presentation, it is nothing more than a correct guess. Satisfactory illustration of the fact is what I shall endeavour to supply. 2 Herod. ii. 142. 3 Ibid. 144. |