32. BACCHVS. FAS. III. 713. THE Liberalia, the festival of Liber Pater, whom the Latins identified with the Grecian Dionysus, was celebrated on XVI. Kal. Mai. (17th March). It would be impossible, in a work like the present, to enter upon an examination of the complicated mythology of Bacchus, its wild legends, and the various extravagant and enthusiastic ceremonies by which the worship of that god was characterised. We may repeat the observation already made, that the more unseemly and frantic excesses were in all probability derived from the rites of some Eastern divinity, whose worship was incorporated by the Greeks with that of their own native god of wine. An attempt was made to introduce the orgiastic nocturnal festivals, which were attended with all sorts of profligacy, into Rome, but they were considered so deleterious to public morals, that they were repressed by a decree of the senate. The following narrative of the history and adventures of the Grecian or Theban Bacchus will enable us to understand all the allusions to foreign legends contained in the Extract before us. Semele, daughter of Harmonia and the Theban Cadmus, was beloved of Jove, who promised to grant whatever boon she might ask. Beguiled by the treacherous advice of jealous Juno, she requested the god to appear before her in the same guise as when he wooed the queen of heaven. Jupiter, unable to refuse, entered her chamber in a chariot, amidst thunder and lightning, and launched a flaming bolt. Semele having fallen a sacrifice to her terror, he snatched from the flames the babe, not yet mature for the birth, and sewed it up in his thigh. When the appointed season arrived, the threads were unloosed, and Jupiter produced Dionysus, who was delivered over to Hermes, who conveyed him to his aunt Ino, and her husband Athamas, and persuaded them to raise him as a girl. Athamas and Ino were driven mad by the indignant Juno, and Jupiter then changed Dionysus into a kid, and Hermes bore him concealed under this shape to the Nymphs dwelling in Asiatic Nysa, whom Jupiter afterwards transformed into stars, with the name of Hyades. Dionysus having discovered the vine, was driven mad by Juno, and wandered over Egypt and Syria. First of all, Proteus, king of Egypt, received him, but forthwith he passed over to Cybela, in Phrygia, and being there purified by Rhea, and initiated in her mysteries, he received from her an army, and marched with it through Thrace against the Indians. But Lycurgus, son of Dryas, king of the Edoni, who dwelt beside the river Strymon, insulted him and drove him forth. Dionysus fled to the sea to Thetis, daughter of Nereus, but the Bacchae and his attendant crowd of Satyrs were taken prisoners. The Bacchae instantly became free, and Dionysus drove Lycurgus mad, who in his frenzy, smote with a hatchet his son Dryas, fancying that he was cutting a vine branch, slew him, and having hewn off his limbs, then recovered his senses. The land became barren, and the Oracle declared that it would yield fruit if Lycurgus were slain. The Edoni having heard this, bore him away to the mountain Pangaeus, and bound him there, where, according to the will of Dionysus, he perished, being torn to pieces by horses. Dionysus having passed through Thrace and the whole of India, and set up pillars to commemorate his victories, came to Thebes, and compelled the women to leave their houses, and to hold Bacchanalian revels on Cithaeron. But Pentheus, son of Echion and Agave, who had succeeded Cadmus on the throne, forbade these things to be. He proceeded to Cithaeron to watch the Bacchae, and was torn limb from limb by his mother Agave, who in her frenzy took him for a wild beast. Having thus made his divinity manifest to the Thebans, he came to Argos, and there too, not receiving due honours, he drove the women mad, and in the mountains they fed upon the flesh of the babes who hung at their breasts. Desiring to be conveyed from Icaria to Naxus, he hired a piratical trireme belonging to the Tyrrhenians, who having taken him on board, sailed past Naxus, and hastened towards Asia to sell him for a slave. But the god turned the mast and the oars into serpents, and filled the vessel with ivy and the sound of flutes, while the mariners, becoming frantic, plunged into the sea through terror, and were changed into dolphins. And thus men, having learned that he was a god, paid him honour. He then led up his mother from the realms of Hades, and giving her the title of Thyone, ascended with her to heaven. See Apollod. 3. 4, 2, 3; 3. 5, I, 2. The story of the Bacchae is detailed by Ov. Met. 3. 273, the legend of Pentheus, Met. 3. 511, of Lycurgus, Met. 4. 22, and of the Tyrrhenian mariners, Met. 3. 597. TER ERTIA post Idus lux est celeberrima Baccho: Nec referam Semelen: ad quam nisi fulmina secum Iupiter adferret, parvus inermis eras: Nec, puer ut posses maturo tempore nasci, Expletum patrio corpore matris onus. Sithonas, et Scythicos longum enumerare triumphos; Tu quoque Thebanae mala praeda tacebere matris ; 5 ΙΟ Ante tuos ortus arae sine honore fuerunt, 15 Liber, et in gelidis herba reperta focis. Te memorant, Gange totoque Oriente subacto, Cinnama tu primus captivaque tura dedisti, 20 25 Ibat arenoso Satyris comitatus ab Hebro: Colligit errantes, et in arbore claudit inani Liber: et inventi praemia mellis habet. 30 Vt Satyri levisque senex tetigere saporem: Atque avide trunco condita mella petit. Ridet et ipse Deus: limumque inducere monstrat : 35 40 45 Melle pater fruitur: liboque infusa calenti 50 Femina cur praestet, non est rationis opertae,' Cur anus hoc faciat, quaeris; vinosior aetas Cur hedera cincta est? hedera est gratissima Baccho, 56 Restat, ut inveniam, quare toga libera detur Lucifero pueris, candide Bacche, tuo. 60 33. CYBELE. FAS. IV. 179. · THE poet has now arrived at the Megalesia, or festival games celebrated in honour of Cybele, to whom the Greeks gave the title of μeɣáλn μýtηp Oev, Magna Mater Deorum,' Great Mother of Gods.' These solemnities, according to Ovid and the old Calendars, commenced Prid. Non. Apr. (April 4th), although Livy, in a passage which we shall quote below, asserts that Prid. Id. Apr. (April 12th), was the original day. The Extract before us consists of two parts: first, we have a description and explanation of the extravagant and noisy ceremonies which characterised the worship of the goddess: after which the history of its introduction into Rome is circumstantially detailed. We may offer a few remarks in illustration of each portion separately. I. Cybele or Cybelle, or Cybebe, was an Asiatic divinity, probably a personification of the earth and its productive powers. The chief seat of her worship was Phrygia, whose high places were her chosen haunts, and hence the names and epithets by which she is generally distinguished are derived from the mountains of Cybele, Berecynthus, Dindymene and Ida. She was represented under the form of a matron crowned with towers, seated in a chariot drawn by yoked lions; her mutilated priests, called 'Galli' or 'Corybantes,' were wont to roam about in disorderly array, some bearing the image on their shoulders, while others were beating drums, clashing cymbals, blowing horns and trumpets, shouting, howling, and hacking themselves with knives, like some of the fraternities of dervishes in the East at this day. The rites of Cybele were brought into Greece at an early period, probably before 500 B.C.1, and from some real or fancied resemblance in attributes, she was identified with Rhea, the wife of Kronus (Saturn), while the Romans in their turn confounded her with their Ops, Tellus, Bona Dea, Vesta, &c. The explanation offered by Ovid of the noisy solemnities depends entirely upon the supposition that Cybele was the same as Rhea, and that the trumpets and drums were intended to re 1 Lobeck Aglaophamus, p. 652. 2 See introduction to Extract 31. |