CHAPTER VI.
THE BACCHANALS.
"Over wide streams and mountains great we went,
And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy-tent,
Onward the tiger and the leopard pants
With Asian elephants:
We follow Bacchus! Bacchus on the wing,
A-conquering!
Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide,
We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide:
Come hither, lady fair, and joined be
To our wild minstrelsy."
This is the only extant Greek tragedy connected with the wanderings and worship of the wine-god, at whose festivals the Greek theatres were open, and from song and dance in whose honour the drama of Greece derived its origin. The subject, when Euripides took it up, was not new to the stage. Among the dramas ascribed to Thespis, one was entitled "Pentheus;" and another by him, "The Bachelors," may have treated of Lycurgus, also a vehement opposer of Bacchic rites. Æschylus exhibited two trilogies, in which Pentheus and Lycurgus were the principal characters. The serene
