some ten words have been preserved, recounted the youth and early nurturing of the god.1 The nymphs of Dodona, to whom he was entrusted by Zeus, were seven in number, Ambrosia, Koronis, Eudora, Dione, Aisyle, Polyxo, and Phyto." They were persecuted by Here and the impious Lykourgos, and were placed by Zeus among the stars, where they appear as the Hyades, or Rainyones, the seven stars in the horns of Taurus. Ora micant Tauri septem radiantia flammis, Navita quas Hyadas Graius ab imbre vocat, This incidental circumstance curiously illustrates the intimate connection between that animal and Dionysos, who is himself called Hyes, and his mother Semele Hye, in their phase of the Earth-life, as connected with fertilising moisture.5 Tzetzes, in his Commentary on Lykophron," quotes the line, 'Father Theoinos, yoker of the Mainades,' from some unknown play of the poet. Another passage,7 refers to him as 'Bakcheios the prophet,' and another from the Sisyphos Drapetes, the Fugitive, speaks of 'Zagreus who receives many guests; '8 and the foregoing comprise all the surviving allusions of Aischylos to the god and his cult. This is a slight residuum, but still we may truly say, 'Egregie Aeschylus Bacchi laudem declaravit,' since no less than eight or nine of his Plays were devoted to Dionysiak subjects. As the three great Attik Tragedians give a most harmonious and closely connected account of the god, I shall notice the combined Eikon which they present, after having referred to the Dionysiak allusions of Sophokles and Euripides. 1 Cf. Eur. Kyk. 4; sup. II. i. 2 Pherekydes, Frags. xlvi. lxxiv. ; Schol. in Hom. I. xviii. 486; Apollod. III. iv. 3; Hygin. Poet. Astron. ii. 21. 3 Cf. Hor. Car. I. iii. 14, 'Tristes Hyadas;' Vir. Aen. i. 744, iii. 516, 'Pluvias Hyades.' They were much H observed by 'ancient mariners.' Cf. Eur. Ion, 1156. 4 Ovid, Fast. v. 165–7. 5 Vide inf. VIII. i. Hyes. Phlias. 6 V. 1247. 7 Apud Macrob. Sat. i. 18. 8 Frag. ccxlii. edit. Ahrens. SECTION II. THE DIONYSOS OF SOPHOKLES. Subsection 1.-Dionysos and Nysa. In a fragment of the Triptolemos quoted by Strabo, we read-'I beheld the famed Nysa, the abode of Bakchik fury, which the ox-horned Iakchos inhabits as his best beloved retreat; where no bird screams.'1 The speaker in this passage is probably Triptolemos himself, who, according to the myth, was carried over the earth in a winged chariot, the gift of his patroness Demeter, and from which he distributed seeds of wheat to mankind.2 From this it is probable that the Nysa referred to in the passage was not one of the places of that name within Hellenik or neighbouring regions, as the Euboian Nysa alluded to in the invocation to the god in the Antigone,* or the Thrakian Nysa of Lykourgos. Later writers, such as Diodoros, give full accounts of Nysas in India, Arabia, and elsewhere; but this passage is peculiarly important as showing that Dionysos Boukerôs, the Ox-horned Iakchos, had in early tradition a distant and favourite abode, the renowned Nysa, evidently his original home and the true starting-point of his cult, deep in the Outer-world and as un-Hellenik as the ox-horned god himself. Among the numerous writers who treated of Dionysos and the legendary history of Thebai, was the celebrated Antimachos, an epic and elegiac poet of Klaros, a place already noticed as possessing a celebrated temple and oracle of Apollon. Antimachos, who lived at the time of the Peloponnesian war, was the author of the Thebais, 1 Strabo, XIV. i. 7. 2 Cf. ib. I. ii. 20. 4 Vide subsec. ii. 5 Il. vi. 133. Cf. Ovid, Trist. I. vi. 1. 7 Sup. II. iii. 2. a great epic poem which we may presume was of high merit, as the Alexandrian grammarians assigned to him the second place among epic writers. He, together with some other of the poets, held that Lykourgos was not king of any part of Thrake, but of Arabia, and that Nysa accordingly was in Arabia.1 His opinion about Lycourgos is untenable, but as regards Nysa he is in perfect agreement with Sophokles. Where Dionysos is there is always a Nysa,2 and hence, if he came into Hellas from the Outer-world, the original Nysa was there also.3 Subsection II.-Dionysos and Thebai. In the Oidipous Tyrannos the Chorus invoke the god as follows:- Chrysomitres [the Golden-mitred], too, I call, surnamed of this our land, the wine-faced Bakchos Euios, companion of the Mainades, flaming with beaming fir-torch.' There is a double Oriental reference in the epithet Chrysomitres: (1), an allusion to the Eastern head-dress, the turban; and (2), as being a solar epithet, like Chrysokomes,' and Chrysopes, and referring to the golden-haired, faced, or crowned Sun or Mithra." It will next be observed that the poet represents the Theban Chorus, supposed to be speaking in the time of Oidipous, that is, in the fourth generation from Kadmos, as asserting that the god had already received the name of Bakchos Euios at Thebai. It has been said that the epithet Bakchos 'does not occur till after the time of Herodotos,' whose death has been placed as late as about B.C. 407. It appears, however, more probable that the historian died about B.C. 423,10 and he himself, as well as Aischylos,11 1 Cf. Diod. Sik. iii. 65. 2 Cf. Sup. II. i. 1, 5. 3 Vide inf. VIII. i. Nysios. Cf. Sup. sec. i. 3, 'Yoker-of-the Mainades.' Oid. Tyr. 209–14. 6 Cf. Herod. i. 195. 7 Hesiod, Theog. 947. 8 Eur. Bak. 553. 9 Inf. XII. iv. 10 Cf. Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 26. 11 Frag. ccccxi. speaks of Dionysos as Bakcheios,1 the Exciter-to-phrensy,2 while the name Baccheus occurs in the Antigone, which was brought out at least as early as B.C. 440, and Bakchos in the passage before us. The obvious inference is that this whole class of epithets originated at a much earlier date. The god is further addressed as 'flaming with beaming fir-torch.'5 Here we have an igneous cult, which also includes the solar and astral phases. The kosmogonic, igneous divinity is lord equally of day and night, at once Pyropos the Fiery-faced, and Chrysokomes the Goldentressed, Lampter the Torch-bearer, and Nyktelios the Nightly-one. The flaming resinous fir-torches, moreover, symbolise the bright lights of heaven, and so in the Antigone the god is addressed by a double reference, as 'chorus-leader of the fire-breathing stars.'6 The torchbearing, faun-skin-girt worshipper thus represented the starry vault by a two-fold symbolism, and Dionysos becomes a fit companion for Kotytto. Connected with the fir- or pine-torch of Dionysos is the mystic pine-cone which, according to a passage in the Orphik Poems,7 was among the symbols used in the Bakchik mysteries. It was also carried at the end of the Thyrsos or budding-rod, itself the emblem of vitality, as a symbol of fruitfulness and productive power; 10 and, according to Porphyrios, 11 was an emblem of the Sun, 'the great vivifying and procreative power in nature;' 12 and thus is most appropriately connected with Dionysos in his phase as Dendrites and Karpios, and also in his solar aspects, as it is with the cone-shaped, sacred stones of Phoenicia, and the cone in the hand of the hierakephalic Assyrian Genius and other figures at Nimrûd and Khorsabad. There is also a connection between the fir-cone and Dionysos Theoinos, as the turpentine yielded by the fir was one of the seasonings mixed by the ancients with wine, a practice which still prevails in the interior of Hellas. In the Trachiniai we meet with the expression, 'Bakchik Thebai.' The Bakchik vine' is also alluded to, and the exciting ivy, which 'hurries one along like a Bakchik contest.'4 Again, in the Oidipous Tyrannos reference is made to the 'Bakcheian god dwelling on the mountain heights,' and to the Helikonian nymphs with whom he chiefly sports,'5 in his phase as Dionysos Polyparthenos, a passage which connects one of his favourite abodes with the vicinity of Thebai. But the most remarkable Dionysiak allusion in Sophokles is the beautiful invocation of the Chorus in the Antigone, which I venture to translate: O Thou of many-a-name, who aye hast been And Eleusinian vales Demeter's shrine obey! The smoke and flame beheld thee as they rose,' 10 1 Cf. Rawlinson, Ancient Mons. ii. 9, 29; Lenormant, Ancient Hist. of the East, ii. 229 et sex. 2 V. 510. 3 V. 706. 4 V. 218. 5 Oid. Tyr. 1105 et seq. 6 Vide inf. VIII. i. Gunaimanes 7 Vs. 1115-54. 8 Cf. Hom. Hymn, Eis Dionuson. Cf. 'The two-topt mount divine,' Milton. From An Epitaph, an unpublished poem discovered by Professor Morley. 10 Cf. Eur. Ion, 1125. |