3

Here the innovation of Onomakritos is evident. He did not compose, in the sense of inventing, the Dionysiak Ritual, which had been in existence centuries before; nor did he invent the story of the sufferings of the god which, as noticed,' was sung at Sikyon more than a century at least before his time. But he, according to the assertion of Pausanias which may or may not be correct, first introduced the Titanes, who names had been handed down from the time of Homeros,2 into the myth, and described them as the murderers of Zagreus. Another passage from Pausanias will further illustrate this subject. Methapos was an Athenian, an arranger [Sunthetes, as opposed to Poietes, a maker or author] of the celebration of mysteries and of secret rites of all kinds. The same man arranged for the Thebans the Ritual of the Kabeiroi.' Methapos, like Onomakritos, was or pretended to be an ecclesiastical expert; and he was retained by the Thebans to codify and set in order the foreign Kabeirik Ritual of which they were ignorant.' 4 No one would venture to assert that the obscure Methapos invented that wonderful Kabeirik cult which was wide-spread along the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean ages before his time. Such was the office and position of men like Onomakritos and Methapos; they were simply rearrangers and remodellers, not inventors or even introducers, of great dogmas and mystic rituals. Their tamperings (if any) with the relics of antiquity were for political, not religious, purposes. Thus it is both possible and probable that Onomakritos, who was an adherent of the Peisistratids, may have forged an oracle or two to induce the Persian king the more eagerly to invade continental Hellas; but that he was a setter forth of strange gods,' or of new

1

Sup. IV. iii. 3.

2 Cf. Il. xiv. 279.

3 Paus. iv. 1.

4 Vide inf. X. i.
5 Cf. Herod. vii. 6.

5

and startling theories about the gods, there is absolutely no evidence whatever. Herodotos was firmly persuaded, and with good reason, of the identity of Dionysos and Uasar, and of the great antiquity of the Dionysiak cult in Hellas. He was, moreover, well acquainted with the sufferings of Uasar; and also, both of necessity and as appears from his notice of Kleisthenes and otherwise, with those of Dionysos, for if Dionysos had never endured sufferings he could not have been identical with Uasar. Speaking of the circular lake at Sa,' the god-fearing historian writes: On this lake it is that the Egyptians represent by night his sufferings whose name I refrain from mentioning, and this representation they call their Mysteries. I know well the whole course of the proceedings in these ceremonies, but they shall not pass my lips.' 2 Is it to be believed for a moment that the notion of the sufferings of Dionysos Zagreus had been introduced into Hellas from Kam little more than fifty years before the time of the visit of Herodotos? If such had been the case, must he not have known of it, and how could this most careful and truthful of historians have described as having existed for centuries, i.e., since the remote era of the mythical Melampous, that cult which, if sprung from Onomakritos, would have been to him the child of yesterday? Again, what connection is shown to have existed between Onomakritos and Kamic regions? Was he ever there, and when, and what did he learn there? The priests told but very little to strangers. It is palpably evident that Herodotos, with all his painstaking and advantages derived from being on the spot, knew but very little and far less even than he supposed. But it is

1 Sais.

2 Herod. ii. 171.

3 At the close of the Funereal Ritual is written, 'This Book is the

greatest of mysteries; do not let the eye of any one see it; that is detestable. Learn it, hide it.'

unnecessary to pursue the subject further. The only specific myth or portion of Dionysiak Ritual which is stated by Grote to have been introduced into Hellas from Kam during the period in question, i.e., from the era of Psammetik the Great to the visit of Herodotos, proves on examination to have not been thus introduced; and it is idle to embarrass ourselves with attempts to support a negative proposition such as, No religious rite was introduced during this time. The theory, therefore, that the Ritual or all its more remarkable features (for what is left when the Semitic element is removed?) was borrowed from Kamic regions since the era of Psammetik, falls to the ground for want of evidence in its favour, and as being contrary to existing evidence.' We are reduced, therefore, to fall back upon the only two other possible suppositions, either the Ritual was obtained from Kam in very early, almost in prehistoric times, or it was obtained elsewhere. What evidence is there for the first of thesę two possibilities? None at all. Herodotos did not believe it, for he, as we have seen, was of opinion that the Dionysiak cult was introduced by Phoenicians. Grote did not, for he says 'the orgies of Dionysus were not originally borrowed from Egypt.' No one at present, so far as I am aware, accepts this view. There seems to have been an early connection between Hellas and Kam, but this part of ancient history is still almost as obscure as interesting; and their intercourse was chiefly of a hostile character, and so altogether unsuitable to the propagation of the religion of either party, as neither of them fully subdued the other." The early Hellenes possessed

1 For further examination of the question, vide inf. IX. vi. Zagreus.

2 As to the early connection between Hellas and Kam, vide Hom. Il. ix. 381-4; Od. iv. 81-5, 351483, 581-5; xiv. 245-86; xvii. 42343; Lenormant, Ancient History of

the East, 259-61; Bunsen, Egypt's Place, i. 112-15; iii. 603-39; Lauth, Homer und Aegypten; Gladstone, Juventus Mundi, 144-8: Homeric Synchronism, in which the latest dist coveries in Egyptology are most ably and acutely discussed in their bear

some knowledge of Aigyptos, and they were to some extent acquainted with Uasar as Rhadamanthos-Rhotamenti, a being naturally localized in Krete, an island not unaffected by the influence of the Nile Valley.' But the very fact that Uasar reached Krete as Rhadamanthos, shows us that he did not reach it as Dionysos, and so negatives any idea of the early introduction of the Dionysiak Ritual from Kam. The admitted connection between Uasar and Rhadamanthos lends great interest to the latter who, otherwise, like many adoptions, is a very colourless personage, in fact merely a kind of duplicate of his Phoenician brother Minos.2 According to Homeros, 'godlike Rhadamanthos,' is the son of Zeus and the daughter of Phoinix. He dwells on the Elysian Plain at the ends of the earth where no snow, or winter, or storms disturb the happy region, but where life is most pleasant,* 'where the ocean breezes blow around the blessed islands, and golden flowers burn on their bright trees for evermore.'' His usual Homerik epithet is Golden-haired,' a solar appellation corresponding to Dionysos Chrysokomes. It would be interesting, but somewhat beside the point immediately in question, to trace and illustrate in detail his identity with Uasar, and his mysterious journey in the ships of the Phaiakes to see Tityos in Euboia. Being identical with Uasar, he is of course in fact identical with Dionysos, but not in Hellenik idea. Rhadamanthos is an importation from Kam; Dionysos is not, for we shall necessarily be compelled to adopt the

vide Poseidon, xix.

2 Cf. Grote. Hist. of Greece, i.

212-13.

3 Пl. xiv. 322.

4 Od. iv. 563-8.

5 Ruskin, Queen of the Air, i. 50; cf. Pind. Ol. ii.

6 Cf. Od. iv. 564; vii. 323.

last supposition mentioned, namely, that the Dionysiak Ritual, having been neither derived from Kam in earlier or in later times but yet being foreign in character, was introduced, as Herodotos conjectured, from some other Semitic region, and that region the whole enquiry tends to show was Phoenicia.

Subsection V.-Basis and Starting-point of the
Uasario-Dionysiak Cult.

It has been mentioned that the religion and civiliza. tion of the Hapi,' were admittedly posterior to and derived from or developed out of the early systems of Western Asia.2 Egypt was colonised from the North, by way of Palestine, by Asiatics, who brought their language and gods with them.' It being admitted, then, that the Kamic religion was originally the product of Western Asia, we have next to consider in what part of that region it probably arose. Nor is this enquiry at all a wide one, for the countries to which our choice is necessarily limited are Western Aram or Syria, including Palestine, and Phoenicia, Eastern Aram, Aram-Naharaim, ie. Aram-of-the-two-rivers, or Mesopotamia, and Kaldea, which included great part of Eastern Aram. Assur is admittedly the daughter of Kaldea," and the same remark applies to Elam, i.e. Kissia or Susiana, which latter also lies further off from Kam. Syria and Kaldea alone remain, and as the former must be crossed on the overland route between Kam and the latter, it is towards Syria that our attention must, in the first instance, be especially directed. The principal inhabitants of Syria in

1 Neilos.

"Sup. subsec. iv.

3 Egypt's Place, iv. 327.

Cf. Herod. iii. 5; vii. 89.

5 Cf. Gen. x. 10, 11; Rawlinson, Anct. Mons. ii. 52-3.

6 Gen. xiv. Anct. Mons. i. 26; ii. 435.

P