3

and deprived him of his skill. In sculpture he was represented holding a broken lyre. The singular compound Thrakian character and phase of thought is produced by and resolvable into a blending of the Aryan and Turanian elements, combined with a Semitic tinge, imported by the adventurous Phoenician colonists. Orpheus himself is identified by Professor Max Müller2 with the Sanskrit Ribhu, used in the Veda as an epithet of Indra and name for the sun, and in this case he is of Aryan origin. Eumolpos is Aryan in name; but his name, like that of Mousaios, who is sometimes spoken of as his son, or like that of the earliest Hellenik lyric poet who is called Olen, or Flute-player, is merely a descriptive epithet; while his being represented as a son of Poseidon points to a Semetic connection. Linos, or the Genius of Song, is also represented as a grandson of Poseidon, and not unnaturally his cult obtained especially in the form of very similar Dirges, alike in Egypt, Phoenicia, Hellas, and 'other places;' a circumstance which, although so surprising to the worthy Herodotos, is not in itself mysterious when the underlying links between those countries. are brought to light. Another incident connecting the Thrakian poets with the Semitic East is their intimate relation to Dionysos. Thus Orpheus is torn to pieces by the Thrakian Bakchanals, not like Pentheus, as a despiser of the god, but as being indifferent to the attractions of his worshippers, and his death is avenged by Dionysos, who transforms the infuriate matrons into trees. Again, all four poets, Orpheus, Mousaios, Eumolpos, and Linos, are credited with having written poems relating the exploits, or otherwise connected with the rites and in

6

honour of Dionysos. So we find Diodoros quoting certain Bakchik Hymns attributed to Eumolpos,1 and which, be it observed, appear to have represented the god in a decidedly Oriental phase. Herodotos declares that the rites called Orphic and Bakchic are in reality Egyptian and Pythagorean,'2 and Diodoros represents Orpheus as introducing the greatest part of his mystical ceremonies and orgies from Egypt.3 It is thus to be observed that the early Orphik and Bakchik rites were practically identical; Orphean and Bacchian orgies expressed quite the same thing. . . The worship of Bacchus formed the central point of this religious brotherhood.'4 But the theory which derives Orphik mysteries direct from Egypt may be unhesitatingly rejected. Herodotos himself declares that the knowledge of Bakchik rites came through Kadmos the Tyrian, i.e. through a Phoenician medium. The undescriminating acceptance of the statements of Herodotos respecting the influence of Egypt on Hellas has been productive of many misconceptions and much. confusion. Almost all early Hellenik travellers in Egypt. accepted with perfect good faith and childish credulity any sayings and opinions of the priests, and we may quite believe that Solon received with all respect the celebrated legend about the Island of Atlantis, the great deluge, the wars which were stated to have occurred 9,000 years ere his time, and other equally authentic traditions. When speaking of Dionysos, as he appears in Herodotos, I shall have occasion to consider to what extent and with what modifications the Egyptian theories of the great historian have been confirmed, and are to be received. Any strictures of this kind on Herodotos apply still more strongly to Diodoros. The historical connection between the 1 Sup. sec. i. 6.

2 Herod. ii. 81.

Diod. i. 96.

317.

5 Platon, Timaios.

6

Inf. V.

K. O. Müller, Scientific Mythol.

various elements of the Thrakian phase of thought is a subject highly interesting but exceedingly obscure, and it is unnecessary to notice it further at present, merely premising that the extant Fragments of the Orphik Theogony, whether remodelled or even in part composed by Onomakritos the Athenian in the time of Hipparchos,1 or of prior date,2 appear to have preserved an earlier, and, at the same time, in some respects, a far more correct, view of the concept of Dionysos than is to be found in the general aspect of the god as he appears in the popular religion of historic Hellas. The high position in Hellenik opinion of the three Theologers and the personified poet, Mousaios, is well illustrated by a passage in the Batrachois of Aristophanes :

Orpheus instructed mankind in religion,

Reclaimed them from bloodshed and barbarous rites;
Musaeus delivered the doctrine of medicine,
And warnings prophetic for ages to come;
Next came old Hesiod teaching us husbandry,
Ploughing and sowing, and rural affairs,
Rural economy, rural astronomy,
Homely morality, labour and thrift.
Homer himself, our adorable Homer,

What was his title to praise and renown?

What but the worth of the lesson he taught us,
Discipline, arms, and equipment of war.-Frere.

Subsection II.-Dionysos and Apollon.

The first phase of the Orphik Dionysos which requires special notice is his connection with the Sun-god, and hence with the Dorik Apollon. Thus Macrobius 4 quotes Aristoteles, Euripides, Aischylos, and others, as showing by many arguments that Apollo and Liber were one and

1 Vide inf. IX. vi.

2 Cf. Grote, Hist. of Greece, i. 21.

3 V. 1032 et seq.
4 Saturnalia, i. 18.

the same god; ' and alludes to the use of ivy by the Lakedaimonioi at the sacreds of Apollon in Bakchik manner, and to the joint worship of Apollon and Dionysos by the Boiotoi at Parnassos. He then says, 'That the Sun was Liber, Orpheus plainly lays down in this verse:'

The Sun whom men call Dionysos as a surname.

And again,

One Zeus, one Aïdes, one Helios, one Dionysos,1

'the authority of which verse is founded on the oracle of Apollo Clarius [or of Klaros, a small town on the Ionik coast near Kolophon, where was a renowned temple and oracle of the god,] in which another name also is applied to the Sun, who in the same sacred verses amongst other names is called Iao. For Apollo Clarius, being asked which of the gods should he who is called Iao be considered to be, replied thus:

Much it behoves that the wise should conceal the unsearchable orgies:

But if thy judgement is weak, and thy knowledge is quickly exhausted,

Know that of gods who exist the highest of all is Iao.

He is Aïdes in winter, and Zeus at the coming of spring time, Helios in summer heat, and in Autumn graceful Iao.

The force of which oracle and the signification of the deity and of the name by which Liber [Dionysos] is plainly meant, while the Sun is intended by Iao, Cornelius Labes has explained in his work "Concerning the Oracle of Apollo Clarius." In the Orphik verse the four varient phases of the one great divinity are Zeus, Aïdes, Helios, and Dionysos, and in the oracle of Apollon Klarios, Zeus, Aïdes, Helios, and Iao, who is thus represented as the equivalent of Dionysos. In further proof of the real

1 Frag. iv.

unity of Apollon and Dionysos, Macrobius proceeds to quote the celebrated Orphik Fragment which describes the sacred dress of the initiated,' but which, in reality, far from supporting the theory of a purely solar Dionysos, wonderfully illustrates the kosmogonic character of the god. Of course, the whole idea of the absolute unity of the two divinities is as inadmissible as the next step in the theory of Macrobius, by which Father Liber and Mars are identified; but he is practically right in so far as Apollon and Dionysos are both solar divinities, although the one is a Semitic, and the other an Aryan, study of the Sun; and his knowledge of the subject is greatly superior to the ordinary conception of Dionysos as simply Theoinos, the Wine-god. The root of the Dionysiak Myth, is, however, in Phoenicia and Egypt not merely solar, but also kosmogonic; 2 and rightly does Mr. Cox include the god among the earth-deities.3 As regards

the oracle of Apollon Klarios, and the mystic name Iao, Bunsen observes, 'Lobeck admits the antiquity of the celebrated answer of the oracle of Apollo Clarius, which Jablonsky doubted without doubted without any foundation.1 Iao is there said to be the general name of the Sun-god, "the highest of all gods; Hades, of the Winter sun; Zeus, of the Vernal sun; Helios, of the Summer sun; Adonis

1 Vide subsec. iii.

2 Ibid.

3 Mythol. of Aryan Nations, ii.

293.

4 Bishop Browne, speaking of the appellation Yahveh (Jehovah), remarks, 'Some of the German writers have tried to trace the name to an attempt at expressing in Hebrew letters the name of the Phoenician god Iao, and says that the chief support of the theory is this response of the Clarian Apollo, which has been clearly proved by Jablonsky to have originated in a Judaising Gnostic' (Speaker's Commentary, i. 26). There is, however, no reason

to doubt the antiquity of this oracular response; but the circumstance is not in itself any proof that the name Yahveh is derived from Iao, which later title is nevertheless undoubtedly of extreme antiquity (vide subsec. iii.). The mistake of Jablonsky is shown, amongst others, by Movers (Phönizier, i. 539). Mr. King well observes, 'The titles Iao and Abraxas, instead of being recent Gnostic figments were indeed holy names, borrowed from the most ancient formulae of the East' (The Gnostics, 79). Mansel (The Gnostic Heresies), somewhat singularly, does not mention Iao.