locality came Bilu, Bel, or Baal, the Demiurge, and the Kabeiroi or Great Gods. The 'Song of the Seven Spirits' in Assyrian runs :—

They are seven! they are seven !

In the depths of Ocean they are seven!
In the heights of heaven they are seven!
Male they are not! Female they are not!

Like the two-natured Iakchos,' the combined UasarUasi.

Wives they have not! Children are not born to them!
They are seven! and they are seven !

Twice over they are seven!!

Nor is it to be supposed that Uasar or Dionysos affords any illustration of an exception to the foregoing rule of derivation. He, like the divinities lastly referred to, entered Kam from Kaldea by way of Phoenicia. In Kam he appears under the Uasarian aspect, in Asia Minor as Sabazios; in Hellas as Dionysos, a name which, as we shall see in the sequel, was known in Assur centuries before. From the same Aramean basis his cult in varying shades spreads Northwestward and Southwestward, and Aram in her turn received him from the Kaldean cradle of art, religion and civilization.2 An objection of Mr. Kenrick to the theory of a Phoenician Dionysos may here be noticed. He remarks, 'The connection of the history of Bacchus and the introduction of his worship, with the history of Cadmus, point to a migration of the Phoenicians from Thrace to Boeotia rather than immediately from Phoenicia. For the oldest mention of the Dionysiak worship in Grecian literature represents Bacchus as in conflict with Lycurgus, king of the Edones, and he had no

Translated by H. F. Talbot in 2 Vide inf. XII. Trans. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. ii, 58.

original or special connection with the Phoenician mythology (?). Thrace was the immediate, Lydia and Phrygia the remoter source from which it [i.e. the Dionysiak cult] came into Greece, and Thebes the first place in Southern Greece in which it gained a footing.'1 On this it may be remarked, (1) That there is nothing in the Episode of Lykourgos, which has been already considered, to show that Dionysos was a Thrakian divinity, but the myth fully demonstrates his foreign character; (2) That there is no reliable evidence that Kadmos colonized Thebai from Thrake, but the contrary; (3) That, when considering the Bakchai, we found good reason to reject with Herodotos the theory of Euripides of the Lydian and Phrygian origin of the god; (4) That even at the present time our knowledge of the Phoenician Pantheon, although it has considerably increased, is still exceedingly incomplete; so that even had we no positive information on the subject to the contrary, we should be unable to say that Dionysos was entirely unconnected with the mythology of the Syrian sea-board; (5) The general tenor of the evidence, both already adduced, and also to be subsequently referred to, is contrary to Mr. Kenrick's supposition. Thus, e.g., I presume that, according to this view, Dionysos and Uasar are distinct divinities. It cannot be shown that any mythology or divinity originated in Asia Minor, which was colonized by successive waves of Eastern immigrants, who brought their religion and ritual with them. Mr. Kenrick, after remarking the apparently Semitic character and derivation of certain Bakchik words, such as Evoe, Saboe, Bassareus, Brisaeus, etc., observes, 'As Lydia, however, had a Semitic population, we cannot argue from these coincidences the Phoenician origin of the Dionysiak rites. So, it is presumed, if Lydia had possessed a non-Semitic population, such an argument would

1 Phoenicia, 99.

2

2 Ibid. 100, Note.

have been valid. But after all, modern research, notwithstanding the opposite opinion of many great names, inclines to the view that the Lydians were a non-Semitic and Indo-European race,1 and, at all events, the question to which of the great Families they belong is a very doubtful one. Should it therefore appear that the Lydians were not Semites, I presume Mr. Kenrick would be willing to admit the Phoenician connection of the Dionysiak ritual, which latter fact is the simple and only explanation of the circumstance, otherwise incomprehensible, that Kadmos, who, Mr. Kenrick admits, is a representative of Phoenician influence in the West,2 should have been an introducer and ardent supporter of the worship of the god.

SECTION VI.

DIONYSOS IN ARABIA.

The Arabs,' says Herodotos, 'plight faith with the forms following. When two men would swear a friendship, they stand on each side of a third: he with a sharp stone makes a cut on the inside of the hand of each, near the middle finger, and taking a piece of their dress, dips it in the blood of each, and moistens therewith seven stones lying in the midst, calling the while on Bacchus and Urania. They have but these two gods; and they

548.

2

1 Cf. Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 541, mythical explanation of the traces of the Phoenicians in various parts of Asia and Greece' (Phoenicia, 80; cf. 84).

Cadmus landed in Rhodes on his search for Europa, which is the

say that in their mode of cutting the hair they follow Bacchus. Now their practice is to cut it in a ring, away from the temples. Bacchus they call in their language Orotal, and Urania, Alilat.' Does Herodotos here arbitrarily and erroneously identify Dionysos and the Arabian divinity whom he calls Orotal,-or is he correct in his supposition? It may assist us in arriving at a conclusion to consider the other divinity referred to, Ouranie-Alilat. Ouranie, the Heavenly-one, has a threefold aspect in Hellenik mythology. She is (1) the Mistress of the starry heavens, or, more familiarly, the Muse of Astronomy; (2) the 'goddess-like' daughter of Okeanos and Tethys; and (3) a personification of heavenly love which produced and sustains all things, as distinguished from Aphrodite Pandemos, earthly or common love.3 The heavenly-one, daughter of all-sustaining Ocean, and personified as god-like love, was early and naturally identified by the Hellenes with the Great Goddess Mother of the East. So Pausanias speaks of the temple of the latter at Athenai-The temple of Aphrodite Ouranie, and Ouranie was first worshipped by the Assyrians; and after these by the Paphians of Kypros and by the Phoinikians who dwelt in Askalon, in Palestine: and the Kythereans worshipped her, having learnt her ritual from the Phoinikians.' 4 He places the introduction of her worship into Attike in the remote era of the mythical king Aigeus, who, he states, introduced her cult because he had no children; and she, as we shall see, was the representative of production and mother of all. another passage he speaks of exceedingly ancient wooden statues of Aphrodite possessed by the Thebans, and one of which was called the statue of Aphrodite Ouranie.

1 Herod. iii. 8.

2 Hesiod. Theog. 350.

3 Cf. Platon. Phaidros, 259.

4 Paus. i. 14.
5 Ibid. ix. 16.

In

They were said to have been dedicated by Harmonia, and to have been made from the beaks of the ships of Kadmos, a remarkable tradition, and in exact accordance with the Phoenician custom.1 These valuable traditions, of course incorrect in their literal details from a Euemeristic point of view, aptly illustrate the way by which the cult of the Great Goddess was introduced into Hellas. To consider her history and ritual further would be foreign to the subject of this investigation; suffice it to say that she is the Artemis of Ephesos, the Kybele of Phrygia, the armed Aphrodite of Sparta, the Atargatis or Derketo of Askalon, the Uasi of Kam, the Here of the Syrian Hierapolis,2 the Anait of Persia and Armenia, the Astart of the Phoenicians, the Ashtoreth of the Rephoeem, the Ishtar of the Assyrians, the Mylitta of the Babylonians, the Alala of the Akkadians, and the Alitta,5 or Alilat of the Arabians. This last name signifies to bear children,' and, according to Canon Rawlinson, Alitta is the Semitic root El, "God," with the feminine suffix added.'6 Some learned readers may possibly be inclined to doubt the identity of the various phases of the Great Goddess Mother above men、tioned; but accurate investigation will deduce them from common origin, although by degrees they become distinct concepts, like the personified attributes of the Deity."

The Great Goddess, then, being the only, or at all events the protagonistic, female divinity worshipped by the Arabians, and they having also only one or one chief

5.

1 Cf. Herod. iii. 37; sup. sec. v.

2 Vide Loukianos. Peri tes Syries Theou.

3 Cf. Herod. i. 131, 199.

Sir G. Wilkinson, in Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii. 445 et seq. A great Goddess-mother exists in almost every human religious system, as a natural result of anthropomorphic thought.

4 Trans. Soc. Bib. Archaeol. iii. The Aryan Demeter, it may be ob

163.

5 Herod. i. 131.

6 Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 217. 7 As to the Great Goddess, vide Apuleius, De Asino Aurco, lib. xi.

served, is a perfectly distinct concept from the Semitic Goddess-mother, although inevitably identified with her when the two came into contact.