3

6

6

developed in accordance with human nature, and hence their success; it is easy to be religious when that is only another name for fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.' Nor must it be forgotten that the Dionysiak worshipper, Eastern or Western, was often most religious when most depraved; for if religion is depravity, then frequently depravity is religion. Dikaiopolis is represented as being a very religious man, i.e. as replete with veneration for his divinity. His pretty little daughter is the Basket-bearer on the occasion. This mystic basket has been alluded to when considering the Uasario-Dionysiak symbols of chest, coffin, ark, egg, ship, boat, etc.,1 and will be again mentioned in its place in the Eleusinian Ritual. Speaking of the Palladion or sacred statue of Pallas Athene, Mr. Cox observes, The word denotes simply a figure of Pallas, and Pallas is but another form of Phallos. To the same class belong the names of Pales, the Latin god of flocks and shepherds, and of the Sicilian Palikoi.' It is possible, but highly improbable, that Pallas, the stainless virgin goddess, may be one of this phallic group. There are, as Mr. Cox notices, traditions which link her with a giant Pallas who, according to one legend, was said to have been her father, a statement which requires no explanation; but there is ever a contest between the two, and so Athene, in the war between the Giants and the Gods, which is said to have taken place near Pall-ene, slays Pallas, who is always an earthpower. The characteristics of the earth-giant and of the queen of the air are so diametrically opposite that I cannot but regard the name of the latter as given in allusion to her vibratory power. to whom Dikaiopolis addresses his pious hymn, appears

4

114, Note; cf. Ibid. i. 442.

Phales,

5 Diod. iv. 15; v. 71; Paus. i. 25. Cf. Ruskin, Queen of the Air, i.

6

to be undoubtedly identical with the Latin Pales, an Aryan Erikepeios of doubtful sex, or of both sexes, like the two-natured Iakchos,' whose festival, the Palilia, celebrated yearly on the supposed birthday of Roma, partly solemn and partly joyous, and always accompanied in the country by riotous mirth and copious potations, presents a remarkable analogy to the Acharnian cult. Similar also are the Latin divinities Lupercus and Luperca, the latter apparently identical, or at all events identified, with the mythic shewolf which suckled Romulus and Remus.1 The festival of Pales, the sire, is appropriately celebrated on the birthday of the Commonwealth. Phallos is sometimes rendered in Latin by oscillum.'" The oscilla or little mouths,' were small heads or faces of Bacchus,7 fictiles imagunculus,' which hung from trees in and near the vineyards; and, whirled about by the breeze, were supposed to produce fertility in every direction they faced, and thus appropriately represented Phales-Erikepeios. So Virgil sings, Thee, O Bacchus, they invoke in joyful hymns and to thee they hang the benignant oscilla from the lofty pine.'4 Phallic divinities are, as a matter of course, found amongst all races of mankind, although their cult is far more prominent in some special localities. It is sometimes difficult to draw the line between a licentious and an honestly religious use.

The Dionysia Lenaia, celebrated yearly in the month Gamelion, called among the Ionians Lenaion, from lenos, a wine-press, was presided over by the Archon Basileus, the second of the Nine Rulers of Athenai, and the representative in historic times of the ancient king in his priestly or sacerdotal aspect, for originally the king was,

1 Cf. Mr. F. A. Paley on IV. vì. 134.

2 Vide Aristoph. Edit. Ludolph Kusteri, 1710. A very beautiful edition,' (Moss, Manual of Classical

Bibliography, i. 94).

3 I use the Latin form when speaking of the god in Italia. 4 Geor. ii. 388-9.

6

like Melchisedek, a priest upon his throne.'1 Thus similarly at Roma there was a Rex Sacrificulus or Rex Sacrorum. The festival was held at the Lenaion or temple of Dionysos Limnaios the Marshy, where the first wine-press was said to have been erected, and which stood in a swampy quarter of Athenai, not far from the south side of the Akropolis. Thus in the Batrachoi the Chorus of Frogs exclaim, Brekekekex koax koax. Marshy children of the fountains, let us loudly utter a harmonious sound of hymns, my sweet-sounding song koax koax, which around the Nyscian Dionysos son of Zeus in Limnai we cried lustily, when the rambling-revelling crowd of people passed through my glebe on the sacred Pitcher-feast.' The Dionysiak procession walked to the temple, where a goat was sacrificed, and the Chorus sang around the altar the dithyrambic ode in honour of the gcd. Both tragedies and comedies, but especially the latter, formed an important feature at the Lenaia.

4

The Anthesteria or Feast of Flowers, celebrated yearly in the month Anthesterion (February-March), formed a link between Dionysos and the Mother and the Daughter, whose Festival of the Anthesphoria or Flower-gathering very closely corresponds with it. Both these flowerfestivals were, as of course, held in springtime, when the earth awakes from the sleep and arises from the death of winter to bloom in renewed beauty and restored vitality. The celebration lasted for three days, the first of which was called Pithoigia or Tap-barrel-day, on which they opened the casks and tried the wine of the previous year. The day was spent in merriment, and it is noticeable that in Boiotia, the Hellenik birthplace of the Dionysiak cult, it was called the Day of the Good Daemon, or favouring

1 Zech. vi. 13.

2 Thoukyd. ii. 15.

Vs. 210-19; cf. Achar. 1,000,

1202.

4 Cf. Sup. IV. iii. 2.

2

6

heavenly power who fills men's hearts with food and gladness, giving them of the fatness of the earth beneath, no mere wine-god, for as Donaldson well observes, this was not a vintage festival.'1 The type, however, of this glad earth-life was wine; and so we find that in the Bacchian Mysteries a consecrated cup of wine handed round after supper, called the cup of the Agathodaemon, was received with much shouting." The second day of the Festival was called Choes the Pitcher-feast, when every toper had his own cup and vessel, and he who first drained his jug received a prize. Thus the Herald in the Acharnes proclaims, Hear ye people: according to ancient custom the pitchers must be emptied at the sound of the trumpet; and whoever shall have emptied his pitcher the first, shall receive the wine-skin of Ktesiphon,' a man ridiculed by the Poet, according to the Scholiast, for being thick-witted and pot-bellied. Thoukydides similarly calls the Anthesteria the more ancient festival of Dionysos, and this is an important circumstance when we notice the mystic symbolism concealed beneath these apparently simple revellings. Orestes, according to one legend, when fresh from the pollution of the murder of his mother Klytemnestra, arrived at Athenai during the celebration of this Festival; and as no one could drink with him, Demophoon the son of Theseus, who then reigned over the Athenians, in order to spare the feelings of his guest, made every man drink out of his own cup, and hence the legendary origin of the custom. From this day Dionysos had the name of Choöpotes or Deepdrinker, and he who could take the most wine was honoured by a crown of leaves, the crown being an ornament which, as noticed, Dionysos was said to have

Theatre of the Greeks, 212.

2 Nicola, De Ritu Bacch. apud Gronovius, vii. 186.

3 Vs. 1000-2; cf. vs. 1070-1234.

4 Thoukyd. ii. 15.

invented. The third day of the Festival was called Chytroi or Pot-sacrifice-day, as on it the votaries offered sacred pots filled with seeds to Dionysos and Hermes in his character of Chthonios or the Infernal, and after sunset either on this or on the preceding day the peculiar sacreds of Dionysos Nyktelios or the Nightly-one were celebrated. Slaves enjoyed a temporary freedom during the Festival. Comedies appear to have been then represented, and it is probable that the Tragedians read to a select audience the Tragedies which they had composed for the festival in the following month.'1

Next, as to the mystic symbolism of the Anthesterian Ritual. The connection between Dionysos and that wonderful concept the Awful Damsel, the Maid whom none may name,'' I shall have to notice when considering the Eleusinian Mysteries; suffice it at present to remark that both divinities descend from the Upper- to the Underworld, are both lost and sought for and at length found, and alike exhibit every phase from the mildest and most attractive beauty and gentleness up to the most aweinspiring majesty and dread shadowy grandeur. At present all that need be remembered is that Dionysos represents (1) the Sun which rises, sinks, disappears, and rises again; and (2) the Earth-life, which, in the form of vegetation and otherwise, springs from the ground, fades, dies, and rises again. Remembering this, we next notice that the Wine-pitcher and the Seed-pot are in reality identical; that both alike, with slightly varied symbolism, represent the same great idea. The jar, pitcher, amphoreus, vase, or pot, in which the seeds of vitality and the wine,‘that animating principle which, infused into the various parts of the creation, gave life and support to the

1 Theatre of the Greeks, 213. 2 Eur. Alex. Frag. xxii.

S Inf. sec. ii.