channel, the Orphic life or brotherhood being one of the varieties. Strabo ascribes to this latter a Thracian original, considering Orpheus, Musæus, and Eumolpus as having been all Thracians.[1] It is curious to observe how, in the Bacchæ of Euripides, the two distinct and even conflicting ideas of Dionysos come alternately forward; sometimes the old Grecian idea of the jolly and exhilarating god of wine—but more frequently the recent and imported idea of the terrific and irresistible god who unseats the reason, and whose œstrus can only be appeased by a willing, though temporary obedience. In the fanatical impulse which inspired the votaries of the Asiatic Rhea or Cybêle, or of the Thracian Kotys, there was nothing of spontaneous joy; it was a sacred madness, during which the soul appeared to be surrendered to a stimulus from without, and accompanied by preternatural strength and temporary sense of power,[2]—altogether distinct from the unrestrained hilarity of the original Dionysia, as we see them in the rural demes of Attica, or in the gay city of Tarentum. There was indeed a side on which the two bore some analogy, inasmuch as,
- ↑ Strabo, x. p. 471. Compare Aristid. Or. iv. p. 28.
- ↑ In the lost Xantriœ of Æschylus, in which seems to have been included the tale of Pentheus, the goddess Λύσσα was introduced, stimulating the Bacchæ, and creating in them spasmodic exeitement from head to foot: ἐκ ποδῶν δ' ἄνω Ὑπέρχεται σπαραγμὸς εἰς ἄκρον κάρα. etc. (Tragm. 155, Dindorf). His tragedy called Edoni also gave a terrific representation of the Bacchanals and their fury, exaggerated by the maddening music: Πίμπλησι μέλος Μανίας ἐπαγωγὸβ ὁμοκλάν (Fr. 54).
Such also is the reigning sentiment throughout the greater part of the Bacchæ of Euripidês; it is brought out still more impressively in the mournful Atys of Catullus:—
"Dea magna, Dea Cybele, Dindymi Dea, Domina,
Procul a meâ tuus sit furor omnis, hera, domo:
Alios age incitatos: alios age rabidos!"We have only to compare this fearful influence with the description of Dikæopolis and his exuberant joviality in the festival of the rural Dionysia (Aristoph. Acharn. 1051 seq.; see also Plato. Legg. i. p. 637), to see how completely the foreign innovations recolored the old Grecian Dionysos,—Διόνυσος πολυγηθὴς,—who appears also in the scene of Dionysos and Ariadnê in the Symposion of Xenophôn, c. 9. The simplicity of the ancient Dionysiac processions is dwelt upon by Plutarch, De Cupidine Divitinrtun, p. 527; and the original dithyramb addressed by Archilochus to Dionysus is an effusion of drunken hilarity; Archiloch. Frag. 69, Schneid.).
